It has faults that in a lesser book would have been damning.[return]Time travel mechanics were far to obviously only there for dramatic effect. "The engines cannae take it Cap'n" or "Reverse the Polarity!" would have been just as convincing. The phone system firmly rooted in the 50's, People make trunk calls! a british term that died out in the 60's. The innability to access medical records, the ease with which people accessed anothers credit records, even the occasional awkward sentence construction "She had memorized the Latin masses and taught herself to embroider and milk a cow" Would in a lesser work have been more than minor distractions.[return][return]These are however mere mechanics, a background on which is displayed with humour and pathos a well drawn cast. The humour in particular suprised me I had dreaded an unremittingly depressing read but the first two thirds, especially the long suffering Mr Dunsworthy's encounters with bellringers and bureaucrats not to mention the Gaddsons. were levened with wit. [return]It is only when the plague strikes that things darken, by which time we are well and truely bound up in our characters lives with emotional attachments that tear with each terrible event.