Time Pressure

Rating:
Summary: Tell me why...
Review: Hello, I don't think this is a review so much as me venting, so consider yourselves warned. I read the first half of the book in a single sitting, saying, ah, a good book, at last... attractive plot, charming characters, wit, passages that make you go, now why didn't I think of that before?... Then I hit the four-way love scene and waded through it for a while. No, it really doesn't have all that much to do with the story line. And it's boring. And it's long. Maybe later it will turn out to be terribly relevant, but I haven't got the patience tonight. Maybe I'll come back to it when I'm in the mood for erotica. Maybe the actual book will pull me back later and I'll skip forward and read on. With thousands of books to choose from, right here in this room, maybe not. This is the first book of its quality that I've stopped reading in the middle, and it's such a shame. Live long and prosper.

Rating:
Summary: Good SF, good character twists
Review: The best thing about this book for me is how it twists around. For the first half you see everything strictly from the narrator's point of view, and everything he says seems rational and correct. Then you start to have a few doubts, and just as it occurs to you that in fact he's sort of a jerk, the plot twists, you (both) find out that some things weren't at all what they seemed (and others were exactly), and when the dust settles both you and the narrator are seeing things very differently.

As SF, this is good and solid (if slightly oldfashioned, being from the 80s), with nice treatments of telepathy, time travel, and the future of humanity. In general setting, I liked the whole Canadian Hippie Commune treatment; it's done convincingly, not as the easy stereotype it could have been.

I've seen a couple of people complain about the erotic parts of the book, and I have to admit I don't really understand it; the love scenes aren't particularly pornographic, and they *are* important to the plot. And why would anyone dislike love scenes anyway? But maybe that's just me. *8)

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books ever
Review: This was the first Spider Robinson book I ever read, and it drove me to acquire all the rest! I loved the plot turns, I was utterly surprised by the truth behind it, and I'm one of those people who always knows the plot after 5 minutes into a movie or tv show. I don't want to give anything away, but this book is intelligent, witty, sexy, and made laugh and cry, at different times. (For that matter the line, "From what year" will make me giggle whenever I hear it, just in recollection.) A few of the main chracters are living on a commune, so adult situations. There's a wide variety of character types, and an excellent portrayl of different people with different backgrounds living in a small community.
Spider writes very much in the style of Heinlein's adult work, and the same cautions apply. If plain speaking or sex bothers you, don't read it. For adults, this book is a delight.