GREAT WORK OF THE TIME

Rating:
Summary: Piercing and bittersweet
Review: Combining several diverse themes, Great Work of Time explores time travel, British imperialism, angels, the life of Cecil Rhodes, and an unimaginable future world tangled and snarled with impossibilities made real by the alteration of countless destinies. Partly a twisted history lesson and partly a chronicle of regret, at its simplest level Great Work of Time is a morality play that exposes the flaw in the argument, "If only humankind could rewrite its own history." A work of aching beauty, this short novella is a small gem from a gifted writer.

Rating:
Summary: Piercing and bittersweet
Review: Combining several diverse themes, Great Work of Time explores time travel, British imperialism, angels, the life of Cecil Rhodes, and an unimaginable future world tangled and snarled with impossibilities made real by the alteration of countless destinies. Partly a twisted history lesson and partly a chronicle of regret, at its simplest level Great Work of Time is a morality play that exposes the flaw in the argument, "If only humankind could rewrite its own history." A work of aching beauty, this short novella is a small gem from a gifted writer.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of Crowley's best
Review: The subject of this recursive time-travel novella is conservatism, which Crowley associates with entropy. The story is assembled from political and philosophical cliches, and there are more than a few logical inconsistencies in the plot. The result is poor science-fiction and unconvincing social criticism.

A misanthropic inventor creates a time travel device which he uses to try to make himself rich. A secret society dedicated to preserving the British Empire sends an agent to obtain the device. They know about the device because the agent obtains it, making it possible for them to send the agent back in time to obtain it AND to use it to arrange the assassination that creates the society in the first place!

For no reason that is ever satisfactorily explained the machinations of the imperialists result in a reality in which London is full of aliens (something I THINK would be opposed to the aims of such a society!) and towards a future in which the world will become a forest of underwater trees in an ocean of stillness.

All of this is based on the casual assumption that no argument needs to be made that tradition is anything other than static, and will lead inevitably to stasis. It makes for an intellectually lazy story.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of Crowley's best
Review: The subject of this recursive time-travel novella is conservatism, which Crowley associates with entropy. The story is assembled from political and philosophical cliches, and there are more than a few logical inconsistencies in the plot. The result is poor science-fiction and unconvincing social criticism.

A misanthropic inventor creates a time travel device which he uses to try to make himself rich. A secret society dedicated to preserving the British Empire sends an agent to obtain the device. They know about the device because the agent obtains it, making it possible for them to send the agent back in time to obtain it AND to use it to arrange the assassination that creates the society in the first place!

For no reason that is ever satisfactorily explained the machinations of the imperialists result in a reality in which London is full of aliens (something I THINK would be opposed to the aims of such a society!) and towards a future in which the world will become a forest of underwater trees in an ocean of stillness.

All of this is based on the casual assumption that no argument needs to be made that tradition is anything other than static, and will lead inevitably to stasis. It makes for an intellectually lazy story.