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Oct 04, 2011

Lou rated it:

Within these pages you will find a complex cerebral thriller. A thriller post 9/11 and a government where agents hunt down and kill those that plot to unbalance the peace. A world of espionage, secrets and cover ups. Don't expect a visceral thriller, from the title and book cover I was expecting more of a cinematic kind of thriller instead it turned out to be a thinking mans tale of truth and power. You have a couple of searches for truth here, one a dead brother in the army and secondly a diplo More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

Dec 23, 2011

Paul rated it:

"The Revisionists" is a rather interesting time travel tale that doesn't get bogged down in details of the act of traveling itself, but asks the question - is the present worth protecting despite the issues caused in the past. Thus is the job of agent Zed who works for the TES a division of the government whose sole function is to go into the past to prevent people (hags) from preventing certain events (the bombing of Hiroshima, 9/11, etc). This current mission to the past involves sto More...

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Nov 17, 2011

Hira rated it:

Operative "Z" is living in what is known as the Perfect Present, a time in the future where everything is seemingly idyllic. He is a "Revisionist", someone who goes back in time to ensure that the events in history unfold as they should in order for the present (future) to remain as it is. He is opposed by "hags", who are rebels that have traveled back in time in order to change the future by interrupting the events that take place in the present, in order to alter More...

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Nov 08, 2011

Joanne rated it:

Loved this thriller at first, but it sort of petered out towards the end. Great premise: that a post-conflageration utopian government sends people back in time to protect historical events so that the utopian future can be preserved, since historical agitators (aka "hags") also go back in time to try to disrupt them. Reminds me of The Adjustment Bureau, and was apparently similar to the plot of the Terminator movies too (?). Anyway, one of the Protectors likes to muse about God an More...

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Nov 07, 2011

Luanne added it

When I first started to read The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen, I immediately thought of the film/novel The Adjustment Bureau . Although there are similarities in the beginning, The Revisionists takes the story much farther, questioning many things in our society, but the ultimate question is - does the means justify the end?

Operative "Z" is from the future - a time they call the Perfect Present. His job is to make sure that things progress as they should - marching towards More...

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Oct 29, 2011

Grace rated it:

Author: Thomas Mullen
Title: The Revisionists
Description : The books opens as we meet Z, a “revisionist” who has been sent from the “Perfect Future” to make sure that the future stays that way. His opponents are the “hags,” time-traveling rebels who attempt to change the future by preventing certain events from happening. After Z makes sure that a certain journalist will indeed be murdered, the point of view shifts to three other protagonists: Sari, a beautiful young Indonesian domest More...

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Oct 21, 2011

Barbara rated it:

This is an odd mixture of sinister world politics, sci-fi, and people grappling with their own personal tragedies. The personal tragedies impinge upon, however unlikely, world politics. The mixture was intriguing. But then Thomas Mullen, author of The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, is an intriguing writer.

Also, anyone who can write, "spooged through the clump that had agglutinated around the spout," also wins my vote for the Gotta-Read-More-of-This award.

The t More...

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Sep 29, 2011

Mark rated it:

This book has a great sci-fi premise: government agents from the future must protect past events from 'hags' who want to change those events to change the future. Unfortunately, things get a little carried away in a morass of conspiracy theories and in a mire of philosophical hand-wringing.

Don't worry if you're not into sci-fi. The premise is merely a hook to hang the story on. The story itself is actually about government control, secrets (both political and personal) and free will. T More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Kristie rated it:

The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen is a literary thriller with a sci-fi twist. After an event known in the future as the "Great Conflagration," the world has become a utopia -- the "Perfect Present" -- and the Government is determined to keep it that way. Based on the idea that all of the horrible things from the past (the Holocaust, 9/11, etc.) must occur in order for the Perfect Present to be achieved, the Government sets out to ensure the tragedies despite the presence of h More...

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Jan 21, 2012

Sara rated it:

Zed is an agent from the future who is sent back in time to keep other time travelers from extremist groups from preventing disasters. The future is perfect, and Zed's role is to ensure all disasters and tragedies occur as planned in order for this perfect future to be reached; if the extremists (the "hags") succeed in preventing tragedies, then the future will be a complete unknown and definitely not perfect. He blends in with the past (our now-present day) perfectly, thanks to the More...

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Oct 05, 2011

David rated it:

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book that I decided to read on a whim. A mix of time travel and modern-day politics? Okay, let's see how the author handles it. To my surprise, he handled it very well indeed. Usually anyone who decides they're going to take on 9/11, gentrification, racial issues, and historical revisionism has an axe to grind, but Mullen's axe is hard to figure out. What politics there are in the novel are not overt, which means you can sit back and enjoy the story, More...

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Nov 04, 2011

Jeff rated it:

What if you could only preserve a society with advanced technology, worldwide peace and harmony by assuring that every major catastrophe in our history happened? 9/11, assassinations, and other diabolical acts must be preserved to protect the “present perfect”. This is the premise of the book The Revisionists. Zed is from the future, sent back to protect a series of Events that lead to the Great Conflagration. A series of wars that would be horrible, but would also help ensure world peace. As Ze More...

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Oct 24, 2011

Worth rated it:

Can utopia be established in a world where memories have veracity? Why do we cling to our memories when they are so effective in undermining security and happiness? Is everything bad in the world really leading civilization to the "perfect present?"

Amidst all the talking heads blabbering about the "real" intentions of Occupy Wall Street, this is a book guaranteed to unsettle for its reader the lazy political distinctions that the corporatist play by play news an More...

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Feb 05, 2012

Mark rated it:

“All the conspiracy theories are true, Zed.”

This one starts out like gangbusters. Zed is from the future. He comes from a “Perfect Society” and his job is to maintain this utopia, by returning to the past and making sure nothing disrupts his idyllic world. This is not a simple mission, due to the fact that “hags” are also being sent back from the future, to alter history, in what they think will “help” their own future. So this becomes a spy thriller and a time travel adventure with c More...

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Dec 10, 2011

Paul rated it:

This is an interesting time-travel story in that it is less concerned about the future, from whence the time-traveler comes, than with the present we live in. A "protector," an operative of some future government's security services, is sent back to present-day Washington DC to ensure that various calamitous events leading to a worldwide conflagration occur on schedule, thereby ensuring that the future is unaltered. You see, other forces in the future society are also sending operati More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 26, 2011

Jonathan rated it:

I wanted to like The Revisionists. Great premise: an agent from a dystopian future (known as the Perfect Present) is sent back in history to stop agitators from stopping events that change the course of history, such as 9-11 or the JFK assassination. In our story, the protagonist Z (pronounced as the English Zed) is sent to protect a terrible war known as The Conflagration. This sets off my first bone with the story, so I'll just get it out of the way: we're told that Z has to make sure this wa More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Laura Stone rated it:

The idea of time travel seems to be endlessly intriguing. From Einstein to Madeline l’Engle to Audrey Niffenegger to Ursula Le Guin to The Terminator, writers have played with the idea of alternate time paths, changed histories, forced futures, and the consequences of playing God.

In The Revisionists, Thomas Mullen gives us Zed who’s come back to post 9/11 Washington, D.C. from a future he believes to be perfect. In order to protect that perfectness, Zed’s job is to make sure that h More...

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Oct 12, 2011

Michelle rated it:

Wow, it took me a long time to get through this! In fairness, I’ve been working a lot and it is a bit longer than the average book. Still, though, for a thriller I expected it to be a lot faster paced. Some parts are but there are definitely parts that drag. At some point it felt more ideological than thrilling.

I liked the setup – man from the future is in charge of going back to historical events and maintaining their integrity. It’s all about ensuring “the Perfect Present.” Convers More...

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Oct 14, 2011

Julie H. rated it:

The Revisionists was positively brilliant in concept, but not as outstanding in execution. I read it, I forced myself to finish it, but it bailed in a mishmash of uncertainty as to what was happening--and not in an acceptable way given my investment of 400+ pages of attentive reading. Admittedly, I brought to the encounter some very high expectations. Sadly, they were not met. If you're a sci-fi or alternative history fan, there are better books out there, but don't necessarily take my word More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Lisa rated it:

"The Revisionists" was not at all what I'd expected, yet I couldn't put it down -- hence the four stars.

I have a soft spot for all things time-travel, and the basic synopses I'd read of this book seemed to put it squarely into that genre: Main character Zed works for a post-disaster society at some point in time several centuries from now. In the "Perfect Present", there is no war, no racial tension, no hate. Zed's government agency works to keep the perfect prese More...

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Dec 01, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

This looks like it's going to be a technothriller, and not a great one. A time traveler is sent from the future to protect history by ENSURING terrible events occur. But all the way along there are intimations that it's going to take a turn to much more emotional territory, and it does. And that's when I started to like this book. Ultimately, this is a book about dealing with grief.

It's sort of a mess. Things fall apart at the end, and a bunch of threads are drawn together very quickly More...

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Oct 02, 2011

Lydia rated it:

Original review posted here

Lately I seem to be reading a lot of time manipulative books. Between The Revisionists, The Map of Time and the newest Lawhead series, someone seems to have put out a memo screaming … “MESS WITH TIME, IT WILL MESS WITH YOUR READERS!”. Because that’s what messing with time does; it messes with my head.

The Revisionists is a fascinating look at “what if”. What if you could go back in time to fix a wrong, to stop Hitler, to prevent the assassination o More...

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Nov 24, 2011

Jill added it

This is a very unusual novel, ostensibly a thriller about time travel and about competing forces from the future trying to preserve or disrupt historical events in our current era. But actually, I would say that’s not mainly what this book is about at all. The author wants us to think about some very fascinating questions, and uses some common tropes of science fiction to spark our contemplation.

Evaluation: This was a fun book for me right up to the ending. I felt like there should More...

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Oct 16, 2011

Christina (A Reader of Fictions) rated it:

Were it not for my current goal of reading every dystopia ever, or at least the first in a series should it be a series, I would have stopped reading this book. From the very beginning, I found it boring, heavy-handed, and completely improbably. Not only that, but confusing to. The opening chapters alternate between the perspective of Z and a selection of other characters, who, for the first hundred or so pages meant little to me and were hard to distinguish and remember.

The book did g More...

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Nov 08, 2011

Jon rated it:

The Revisionists is full of fascinating constructs and ideas based on the concepts of history. Do great men make history happen, and can it be changed by killing particular individuals? Are great events inevitable, or the result of actions by a few people? If you could change history, what choices would you make and why?
These and other ideas flow through the Revisionists. The ideas do not slow or overshadow the story, they are the story, and thus this is a fascinating novel. There More...

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Nov 17, 2011

Mark rated it:

I definitely enjoyed this book. I took it on a business trip and ended up reading it every night instead of losing myself in cable TV as I normally would. It kept me hooked!

I found this book to be quite topical, given the "Occupy" movement of the moment. One aspect of the book deals with power and how people wield it. The people in power in the "future" have a self-interest in preserving the past. Without history unfolding exactly as it did, they would not be More...

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Oct 22, 2011

Cam rated it:

A very original time-travel story, with some stand-out characters musing on their missions, fate, god, and the stressful ambiguities of modern life in our era and their own. Issues of trust and understanding abound as time-traveling secret agents fight over preservation of known events - so as to not spoil or lose their own timeline or to radically alter it as their missions may be. More of a dystopian novel than heartwarming like "the Time-Traveller's Wife," it still takes the premi More...

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Nov 16, 2011

Lauren rated it:

Zed is a government agent from a future he knows as ‘our Perfect Present’, a semi-utopia built out of the ruins of ‘the Great Conflagration’ – a global disaster that occurs in our own time and begins in Washington D.C. It’s Zed’s job to ‘protect the Events’ – key moments in history that eventually lead up to the Great Conflagration and need to occur if the Perfect Present is to be realised.

Leo too is a secret agent doing morally questionable things in the name of national security. H More...

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Oct 09, 2011

Mary rated it:

I was very excited when I received a complimenatary copy of this book from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program! This is a great book and has the framework to generate some interesting book club discussions.

I have always been interested in the concept of time travel and the implications. This book has some interesting twists that make it a must read. For example, if you have a "perfect present" what would you do to protect it? If you were able to travel back in time an More...

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Nov 02, 2011

Shruti rated it:

I had mixed feelings about this book. The book was interesting and unique. I found the storyline a little confusing as I read, just because the book focuses on different characters in different chapters. Also, it was difficult to determine how everyone is connected, and is only really revealed at the very end (though you learn more and things are hinted as you go along). Also, I was unimpressed with the rather blase ending. There is a sudden revelation in the middle of the book. At least, I More...

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