Review of All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This may not be the best time-travel/alternate history book ever written, but it is definitely right up there. For a first novel, it is extremely well-written--then again, it was written by an established screenwriter, but the movies he's written are all mediocre. His calling is definitely as a novelist. Actually, it is very well-written, period.

It posits a hypothesis of changing the past that is in line with what I will do for a novel that I am planning (it's in the outlining stage, on the shelf temporarily while I work to get my zombie novel done).

This is a great read from start to finish. It doesn't force you to think too much, except in one section, as he illustrates action second by second. If you don't like theories of time travel, you'll still like it, but if you are into that sort of thing, it certainly has some fun nuggets in there, though you'll fare better reading non-fiction books about time travel. Time Travel And Warp Drives by Everett and Roman is a good one.

WHAT FOLLOWS IS MILD SPOILERS. HOWEVER, IT IS STILL LESS THAN YOU'LL FIND ON THE JACKET COPY, WHICH I NEVER READ BECAUSE IT WILL SPOIL IT FOR ME. READ ON IF YOU'RE STILL ON THE FENCE WHETHER TO READ THIS OR NOT. I RECOMMEND STOPPING AS SOON AS YOU'VE MADE A DECISION TO READ IT.

You know the future world we were supposed to have? You know, flying cars, moving sidewalks, and the like. Well, there was an alternate history in which this developed, and then it was ruined by Tom Barren and time travel. Now we're stuck with . . . what we have now. Which I suppose is just fine, but it's not all it could be.

But what if your life, and the lives of your loved ones, is better in *this* world, than in the *better* world--the world that's better for most people. Where different people lived. Anyone born after 1965 (certainly significantly after) in the old, better, world, usually does not exist, replaced by others.

And what if you had the power to fix what you screwed up and change things back? Would you? And what if you remember BOTH histories simultaneously, where you are the same person, genetically, but with completely different personalities?



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Review of Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock

Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The final (6th) book of the Elric Saga depicts the final battle between Law and Chaos. Stormbringer is Elric's evil sentient sword forged by Chaos to defeat Chaos and re-establish the Cosmic Balance between the two forces.

You can read this series out-of-order, though there's no point, since no book is much better than any of the others. This book is supposed to be the first full-length novel, but it still reads as a serial of four stories.

The entire series is well-written and enjoyable, but by the sixth novel, it got to be repetitive. I'd say you'd do just fine reading the first four, and then coming back to the final two much later. I read all six in a row (sort of, I'm always reading more than one book at a time), and the same thing did get tiring.

The story of Elric is severely tragic. No one is redeemed in any way, shape, or form. The ending is predictable, but that is by design. You are witnessing a slow motion train wreck where every triumph extracts a price not worth the admission.

All the main characters throughout the series are evil. The love interests are not, but it is also a very sexist story as there are no prominent female characters. If you are repelled by male-centric, then steer clear of these. Having said that, the female love interests are the only characters that are grounded and have any notion of common sense. And so, they have the common sense to stay out of the story. Their only mistake is that they love Elric, and have I said this is a tragedy? Of epic proportions? I sort of did?

Still, it's a good set of swords-and-sorcery yarns. And, in the end, Elric does end up doing the right thing. Or does he?




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