Rating: 
Summary: Seems as though some pages were lost....
Review: I read books and see movies to be entertained, and so I'm pretty willing to forgive that which strains credibility or which has been seen or written before as long as it's interesting. For the most part, "Time's Eye" delivers. Yes, there's a lot of copying from past ideas (another series of novels which hasn't yet been mentioned in the "pirated from" category is Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, which was similar in feel at times). However, it's still an entertaining read.I do have some issues with it, however. Ironically - or perhaps appropriately - it would seem as though paragraphs, pages, and perhaps even entire chapters were lost on their way to the printer. For example, at the top of page 183 [hardcover first printing], there's talk of leaving markers for another party, but there seems to be knowledge about that party - in particular, someone no longer being a part of it - that, as far as I remember, isn't something that should be known. Was there a paragraph somewhere in which the two parties communicated? If so, I must have missed it. Also, while some of the character development is very well executed, other characters - in particular Sable, one of the cosmonauts - are given large parts without much development or motivation for their actions. While I understand that not all characters can be fully developed, I'd at least like a decent explanation for why major characters might do seemingly extreme things that would appear to be out of (expected) character. Finally, the final meeting of the armies (mentioned on the cover, so no extra spoiler here) is very well discussed, with lots of detail, up until... the end. As in, "um, is it over now?". Seems like another chapter was left out here. Sort of like watching Star Wars (which, I'd imagine, anyone reading these reviews has seen), getting to the point where Darth Vader has started shooting at Luke's X-wing, and then cutting to the awards ceremony at the end, maybe with one of the characters saying "well, now, isn't it great that we destroyed the Death Star?". Seems to me like, between the two authors, someone might have written at least a page or two more, especially given that there was so much detail up to that point. And, yes, the ending is weak, but that's expected in a series. On the PLUS side, however, the historical perspective is very well done and makes me feel like I'm there. The scenery is painted with a fine brush (but only the foreground - the background is like a blurry matte painting). Character interactions (for the "good" guys) are entertaining. There isn't too much science (I love science, I'm a technical person, etc., but I hate having it shoved at me in a book because then I feel the need to analyze it). The superstrings explanation of things is good enough and vague enough that I don't try to pick it apart. The consequences of piecing together parts of Earth from different times - strange weather, etc. - are well described. All in all, I was very entertained, and, since that's why I read books, it worked for me. After finishing (a few hours ago), though, I'm left wondering if perhaps a dozen or so pages, in the right places, might have made it a much better read. I do look forward to the sequels. I hope they're a bit more solid. I understand that, in a series, the first book can't answer all questions. But, in this one, some things were left undescribed that, as far as I can tell, SHOULD have been described/explained in that they don't seem to be something to leave for sequels. To go back to the Star Wars analogy, it's OK to leave Darth Vader spinning out of control and out of the picture - will he be back? - but you sort of need to see the Death Star explode. It's something which the first movie SHOULD show. Likewise, in this book, some things weren't explained well enough. The CD seems to be very interesting, but honestly I haven't looked at it yet. Fundamentally, this is a good read and one which goes down gently. Yes, there are issues with it, but it's still worth reading unless you are opposed to hearing about ancient armies and their practices and hygiene. Otherwise, it's a fun ride.
Rating: 
Summary: Very exciting!
Review: I was browsing Barnes and Noble and happened upon this book. I read the synopsis within the front panel and was sold. I bought the book and I havent been able to put it down since. The characters are fun, very unique, and the history seems fairly accurate. A very fun read thus far, I cannot wait to read more!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Read, Clarke At His Best!
Review: I was much too busy this week to even read a Clarke book, but I glanced at it a few days ago and couldn't put it down until devoured! Not since CHILDHOOD's END or SONGS OF DISTANT EARTH has Clarke written such an engaging book. His mastery of diverse elements -- the geo-political situations of 2037 and 1885 and the intimate details of ancient civilizations -- make for a stirring melange of historical personalities, military action, Earth science, and exploration of our past...and future? I can't wait for the next volume in this series!
Rating:
Summary: Good but could have been better
Review: i was never a Clarke fan but this book was entertaining enough. However, I have the same complaint as some reviewers-it starts out with a bang, then slows down quite a bit. Also, the mysterioous Eyes never explained-what they are, who put them there or why the time shifts have occured.
Rating:
Summary: It's Clarke, trust him...
Review: I will confess I've never read anything by Stephen Baxter. Then again, I'd never read anything by Gentry Lee when I sat down to read the Rama series. On the other hand, if Clarke writes something I will, eventually, read it.
Time's Eye is a solid book. I enjoyed reading it and couldn't help but muse over what the second installment would bring. Although some of the character development is less than might be expected, the less developed personalities tend to be a means to an end as opposed to someone the reader should be investing time understanding their motivation.
The story is quick paced and somewhat more introductory than a stand-alone Clarke book.
A love of history is helpful when reading Time's Eye, since a good portion of the characters have been dead for several centuries. The exploits of Alexander the Great and Ghengis Khan through the eyes of twenty-first and eighteenth century charcters was the most intriguing part of the story.
Those who come looking for a space adventure may be disappointed. There are a few scenes in space, but again, a means to and end and not a pivotal event.
In all, Time's Eye does not disapoint. After all it is Arthur C. Clarke, I think we can trust him by now.
Rating:
Summary: The jury's still out.
Review: I've always been a huge Arthur C. Clarke fan. Any time I walk into a book store, one of the shelves on which I look is the SciFi shelf to see if there's any new Clarke available, even though he said "3001: The Final Odyssey" would be his last. This time I was in luck. Not only a book--co-written like his last few--but also including a CD with two complete volumes by his co-author, interviews, etc. To start, it's harder in this text than in some others to discern what Clarke wrote and what portions Baxter wrote. That's good actually. The book starts with a sort of rationalization, that they're not remaking the "odyssey" series, but going off on a tangent perpendicular thereto. The book starts suspiciously like "2001: A Space Odyssey": We're located on pre-homo sapiens earth. Our pre-human ancestor--this time a female--encounters a sphere (as opposed to a monolith) and some suspicious creatures who seem to abduct her young daughter. The story proceeds to various other times in all of which there is an interesting aberration in the expected weather. As the dust jacket already describes, the world, overseen by the sphere "eyes," has been broken apart and reassembled, like a jigsaw puzzle, with a whole series of times all assembled in one time. The cosmonauts, traveling in the year 2037, apparently the upper limit of the included eras, decide to call this world conglomeration of historical epochs "Mir." There were some notable anomalies with the "eyes." For instance, where you and I would calculate dimensions of the eyes and come up with pi (3.1417...), that number in the calculation continued to come up with an even 3, something not possible in everyday physical reality. What's more, while the character saw the eye as being stationary, the radio waves being emitted by the eye indicated a Doppler shift. In other words, the eye was moving away from her at a considerable velocity. By the way, Rudyard Kipling is one character in the story. "Ruddy" they call him. Quaint. While reading the book, I thought of the old television series "The Time Tunnel." Even though I was young while that series was on, I found the script to be preadolescent because the time travelers never ended up, say, in someone's backyard during a boring barbecue. They always ended up at, say, Lincoln's assassination, or Marie Antoinette's execution, something highly dramatic and historically significant. That got old quickly, challenged the viability of the story. I had the same struggle with this as the characters ended up on Alexander the Great's army fighting the others in Ghengis Khan's army. And there were some accurate observations almost over- emphasized-though were I to live with the people of the eras described, I suspect I too would notice. Like, when the 21st century figures are with Khan's army--or that of Alexander--they noticed, my God, those people stank! (When one fantasizes time travel, say, dating some 18th century debutante, one doesn't anticipate she didn't have much roll-on deodorant to mask her human traits!) The text dabbled in some string theory which, if I understand correctly, is not even really up the level of "theory" yet in real life. Perhaps if I were better acquainted with that theory, I might consider that the whole story revolved around that. We'll see... Truth be told I almost reduced the book to three stars because of the end. It was too close to the realm of fantasy, a little too "ideal" for my tastes. I end up giving the book four stars--despite the rip off from the original "Odyssey" themes, despite the "Time Tunnel" resemblance--because I have enough faith in the authors that the next segment(s) will lead to a more sensible story, something far more original and imaginative. Oh, and, lest I forget, while I still haven't adjusted to reading "books" from CDs, the two Baxter books on the disk seem worth reading so I may convert to a screen-reader. The interviews in such on the disk weren't of any particular substance, but I'm hoping the books will be. Then I'll wait for Episode Two. Gentlemen, don't let me down.
Rating:
Summary: The Beginning of a Great Saga
Review: In the tradition of Clarke's 2001 series, this is the first book of a new odyssey, only this one is based in time rather than in space. It's Earth-time 2037 and suddenly, for a few small groups of people, there is a huge upheaval in time, with the result being that people from all segments of Earth's history are thrown together in a crazy quilt patchwork made up of different time periods. Early hominids find themselves captured by 19th Century English colonialists in India. Space travelers splash down to learn that they're in 13th Century Afghanistan. The armies of Alexander the Great and Ghengis Khan, separated in original Earth time by four centuries, come face to face in a bloody and brutal war instigated by one of the astronauts from 2037, who has a sort of "Man Who Would Be King" complex. Ultimately, one of the "good guys," a woman with a UN peacekeeping force from 2037, makes it back home to her own time, but only at the price of losing her 19th Century lover, who remains stranded in ancient Babylon. While it may sound confusing, this cleverly imagined novel is all you would expect of the great Arthur C. Clarke and his writing partner, the brilliant hard sci-fi master, Stephen Baxter. By the time I got to the last page -- which was not very long after I started this book -- I was wishing I had waited until the next volume was out so that I could go on reading and immediately find out what had happened to my favorite characters. And the bonus is that, in addition to an intriguing plot and lots of interesting historical factoids and science tidbits, this novel raises some provocative questions about the human soul and our destiny among the stars. Altogether, an excellent top-of-the-line sci-fi read that will probably become a classic. So why haven't I given it 5 stars? Well, the novel itself deserves 5 stars. This edition of the book gets only 4 stars, however, because the publishers, who included what looks like a good CD-ROM in the book, chose to use an e-book format that can only be downloaded onto a handheld running the Windows operating system. Those of us who prefer Palm OS are out of luck, unable to access two bonus novels and interviews with the authors. What a chintzy decision, especially for a novel by authors of the stature of Clarke and Baxter.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting adventure
Review: Just finished reading it and I found it very entertaining, an exciting and very readable book. It delves into the lives of characters of different time periods, many famous, who are forced to interact with each other because of the "discontinuity." The tension and subsequent warfare that occur make for an interesting book. If you are expecting more of the big picture plotting and hard science usually found in Clarke's great works than you may be disappointed. This is a work of adventure and historical fiction and in that format it works well. I am looking forward to book 2.
Rating:
Summary: A fun ride, with an incomplete conclusion
Review: Ok, so i get that this is going to be a series of books. But did i have to take a 300+ page journey just to get back to the interesting time shifting premise of the first 30 pages. Ancient peoples from different times waging an epic battle...ok, I liked that. But I wanted to read the book for the time shifting aspect, and this aspect is really not explored or in any way resolved in this book. More floating round devices with physical properties that defy our laws of physics....less horses and sword play! Just a warning, you will get hooked and will feel a need to keep reading, but this book is but a lowly appetizer in the great steak house of time travel.
Rating:
Summary: fascinating science fiction
Review: On March 24, 1895, journalists Josh and Ruddy are covering the British Presence in India. It is June 9th in 2037 and U.N. peacekeepers Casey, Abdikadir and Bisesa are running a peacetime flyover in Afghanistan. Also in 2037, the Soyuz craft has disengaged from the space station and Kolya, Musa and Sable are returning after a three month mission to Earth. A woman and her child from prehistory are foraging for food with their tribe when a glowing orb appears. All these people are ripped away from their own space time continuum and returned to an earth that is made up of bits and pieces of different eras. The Eyes continually watch their every movement and action especially when Genghis Kahn and Alexander The Great fight each other for domination of this new world called Mir. TIME'S EYE is a fascinating work of science fiction. The concept is simple but the results of the Discontinuity the Eyes have caused are really amazing. Twenty-first century technology aids two great warlords who were previously alive millennia ago and millennia apart. The weather and geographical upheaval caused by this phenomenon are awesome and the authors make that point very clear. There is a sequel to this excellent novel coming soon that should tie up the deliberately dangling threads. Harriet Klausner
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