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The Silurian Tales #1
The 400-Million-Year-Itch
The Silurian Vatles Volume 1 The 400-Million-Year Itch, Volume 1 of The Silurian Tales, represents the first volume of a master work by one of the SF genre's greatest short story writers. The stories in Steven Utley's Silurian Tales have appeared in Asimov's, Analog, SciFiction, F&SF, and Cosmos, and have been beguiling readers with glimpses of prehistoric life since the mid-1990s. These tales have been described by Brian Stableford in Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia as "[t]he most elaborate reconstruction of a past era in recent speculative fiction." Publishers Weekly Review (17 September 2012) For the first time, 18 of Utley s intriguing Silurian Tales (and an additional original offering) have been collected and placed into chronological order, starting with the introductory All of Creation, in which a link to the mid-Paleozoic Siluro-Devonian era grants present-day people a unique opportunity to study the Earth of 400 million years ago. These stories range in tone and style as they explore a wide variety of topics. Utley eschews action in favor of character-driven tales and weighty discussions, tackling the many-worlds hypothesis in The Gift Horse, time travel in The Age of Mud and Slime, and theology in Half a Loaf. The real focus is on Utley s thought-provoking exploration of the concept from every angle, since the sprawling cast and lack of obvious connecting narrative leave each story standing alone. The result is subtle but powerful, and will leave readers wanting to do their own research into prehistoric eras. (Nov.) http: //www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-921857... The series employs a variety of literary techniques in recounting the adventures and misadventures of a scientific expedition in the Paleozoic Era and also address some implications of the "many-worlds" hypothesis in quantum physics; several of the stories have been reprinted in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies and the Year's Best SF edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.
290 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 2, 2016
This was a gift from a very kind podcast listener. It has a really interesting concept. What if a wormhole opens up that allows time travel to one place, the Silesian Era. No dinosaurs or even grass. Just trilobites everywhere. As well as sea scorpions, of course.
This puts the onus of adventure, story, and plot development on the people who are going back in time to study the era. That means lots of character development and practically no story, especially since these short stories were originally published in various science fiction magazines and similar media.
When I read them thinking of being something I came across in an sf magazine, then I liked them fine. Reading one after another as a novel became rather tedious eventually because all character development and no story makes the reader into a navel gazer. Boring.
Just read the stories strung out over time and you might really appreciate them a lot.
This puts the onus of adventure, story, and plot development on the people who are going back in time to study the era. That means lots of character development and practically no story, especially since these short stories were originally published in various science fiction magazines and similar media.
When I read them thinking of being something I came across in an sf magazine, then I liked them fine. Reading one after another as a novel became rather tedious eventually because all character development and no story makes the reader into a navel gazer. Boring.
Just read the stories strung out over time and you might really appreciate them a lot.
December 6, 2018
Steve, who died recently at a shockingly young age, was one of the best of the handful of first-rate science fiction authors whom Texas produced in the 1970s and ’80s, and whom hardly anyone except their avid fans has ever heard of. (I take that back: Most of the leading literary lights of science fiction themselves had a very high regard for Mr. Utley’s work. They recognized quality when they saw it.) He could write about anything, too; give him a topic and he’d come up with an interesting and original take on it. And one of his favorite playgrounds within the field was time travel.
Well, everyone enjoys time travel because there are so many possibilities, but only Steve would decide to stake a claim to a period in prehistory before even modern-type plant life existed, much less land animals. Why mess around with dinosaurs and sabertooths when you can have slime and trilobites? And how you get there is via a wormhole, not a machine, which means you can’t choose your target. You’re stuck in the Age of Mud, take it or leave it. And the nineteen stories in this volume -- which had to go to Australia to find a publisher, for crying out loud -- are only the first installment. The rest of the Silurian Tales are in Vol. 2: Invisible Kingdoms.
“All of Creation” is about the earliest hint that something has happened to spacetime, as a high school science teacher and his old friend, a marine biologist, stroll on a Gulf Coast beach and stumble across several hundred recently alive trilobites along the surf line. How the hell did those get there? But it’s not just the fact that it’s happened, it’s the realization that the paradigms are about to shift. “The Woman Under the World” tells of an early accident in traveling to the past and what happens to the facets of the traveler that didn’t quite make it. More of a portrait of a situation than a story and probably the weakest piece here, relatively speaking. “Walking in Circles” is a lovely little mood-setter about one of the first sample-gathering teams pottering about happily in the slime and ooze. “Beyond the Sea,” on the other hand, is about decision-making and the necessity of explaining oneself to those who have their own plans for you -- always difficult, especially when it’s your parents, and they want you to be a classical musician rather than a geologist. “The Gift Horse” is another not-quite-story, just a few pages of an interview with a noted physicist trying to explain that it isn’t really “time travel” but travel to an alternate Earth in the nearly infinite multiverse (because time travel is impossible) -- so how do you know that what you discover there is the same as what existed in our own “real” past? And does it matter?
“Promised Land” is one of my favorites in this volume. Consider a famous paleobiologist dying of cancer, more or less pleased with his life and his career, just waiting patiently for The End. And then, on the television in his hospital room, the announcement is made of the discovery of actual time travel! His colleagues are fighting to queue up for access to the past. And he’s not going. Can you imagine the bitterness, the rage? But maybe he’ll get there anyway, one way or another. Damn, this is good stuff.
Of course, it isn’t only excited scientists going off to the Paleozoic. As time passes and the project expands, they also come to require a support staff -- in this case, the U.S. Navy, who transport an entire ship through “the Hole” to provide official structure. And that means a crew of professional sailors who couldn’t care less about millipedes and moss. “The Age of Mud and Slime” follows three bluejackets on liberty, sprawled up in the highlands overlooking the research station’s Quonset huts (known as “Stinktown”), trying hard to consume enough 3.2 beer to acquire a buzz and kicking around the whole “butterfly effect” question.
Possibly the best story in this volume is “The Wind Over the World,” a deeply affecting piece about Bonnie Leveritt, a young grad student making her first journey into the distant past as part of a field team, and her five-minute acquaintance with Ed Morris, an accountant going back to talk to people about budgets. (Yeah, any big project needs bean-counters.) Bonnie’s nervous and Ed, a middle-aged guy in a clichéd “Jungle Jim suit,” gives her a little pep talk as they wait, trying to sooth her nerves and offering to go first. But Bonnie wants to get it over with and he smiles and says “Go ahead.” And she makes it, though the jump through the worm hole always leaves you shaky. But something goes wrong somewhere and Ed never comes out the other side. He’s the project’s first casualty and they don’t even know where -- or when -- he is. It takes Bonnie some time to come to terms with all this; if Ed had gone first, it would have been her who was lost in transition. But she’s resourceful and reflective and she finally finds a way.
Then there’s a mini-trilogy of stories, each of them following immediately after the one before in its action and all featuring the same group of characters, but with a different POV each time. You’ve got Helen Wheeler, the non-sexy soil scientist and amateur painter, who, in “Cloud by Van Gogh,” tries to explain to Gabbert, the saturnine astronomer, why art and science go together. And in “Half a Loaf,” there’s Chaplain Madiel of the Navy, who joins Wheeler at Gabbert’s satellite-watching party (it’s the first successful prehistoric launch) and who gets into a convoluted discussion with Ovington the meteorologist regarding the place of revealed religion in a time almost before the Creation. And with different lengths to the day and the year, you don’t even know when Sunday is. That theme continues in “Chaos and the Gods” as the party winds down (“now that Gab’s insulted everybody at least once”), with the addition of creation myths in the mythologies of various cultures, as well as the fundamental nature of God, or the gods. Some very thoughtful (and poetic) commentary in this one.
And then, for a change of pace, there’s “The Tortoise Grows Elate,” which investigates the group dynamics of assembling a field team that will be working in isolation for months in such a way that none of its members will murder any of the others. Can Tamiko (“By the way, I’m a dyke”) hook up with her old buddy, the rather dorky and very ugly (but also nice and easy-going) SeePee? Will their boss, The Wasp Woman, find her own partner? This one is hilarious in a slyly droll way, the sort of story that might be read out loud at a con. It might also have been titled “Love Among the Eurypterids.” “Foodstuff” considers the question of a few people staying behind in the Paleozoic and living off the land as hunter-gatherers, without even chordates or proper plants, much less technology. Putting aside why they might want to attempt such a thing, or whether they ethically should, would it be physically possible to do it? Oh, and fishing, for sport as well as research. “Chain of Life” focuses on the personal problems of a young volcanologist with a biologist girlfriend and the macho boss (he lives to “peek down Vulcan’s chimney”) who expects him to casually take unnecessary chances the girlfriend doesn’t approve of. It’s all about relationships, both between people and rocks and people and other people. And babies.
Now several decades have passed since the wormhole appeared and it’s even more difficult to qualify for a research team in the Paleozoic, there’s so much competition. The slightest career mistake -- like a gig as assistant to an expert who is crucified for faking his research -- and you’ll have no chance at all. Then you might end up as a mere technician at the present-day end of the jump station, managing toilet paper deliveries, because that’s as close as you’ll ever get. And that’s the lesson learned in “Exile,” a rather sad little story. “The End in Eden” is about the entrance of sin into the Garden in the form of crime -- and not even of passion but for cold-blooded financial gain. There’s a lot of anger among the characters in this one, and for good reason.
“Lost Places in the Earth” is also a different sort of story, about the sometimes nefarious practices of senior academics when it comes to young, attractive, female grad students. The worm hole is only tangential to this one, actually, though it has some interesting things to say about maps and cartography. “A Silurian Tale” considers the problems of readjustment to the 21st century after a year spent in the peace and quiet of the Silurian Era. Is the presence of intrusive advertising balanced out by the equal presence of green grass and flowers and trees? And then you have to explain to your young niece why you didn’t see any dinosaurs.
And finally, in “The 400-Million-Year Itch,” one of the pioneering scientists in the Paleozoic is being interviewed years later and she has a hard time getting the young reporter to understand that the Silurian wasn’t at all an exciting place. And people are still people, regardless of when they are in time, and Great Men are still Great Men, even when they turn out to be somewhat ordinary, and occasionally annoying.
These stories were published over a period of nearly two decades, so it’s a different experience to sit down and read them all straight through, one after another. Steve’s generally quiet and reflective writing style, however, makes it an easy mission. And you’ll soon find yourself sinking into the stories and the setting and joining the scientists and the Navy men and the civilian staff in their far distant past. Needless to say, I will be acquiring Vol. 2 of the Silurian Tales at the first opportunity and I expect to be revisiting all these stories every couple of years. This is a much longer review than I usually indulge in, but some writers simply deserve all the publicity they can get.
Well, everyone enjoys time travel because there are so many possibilities, but only Steve would decide to stake a claim to a period in prehistory before even modern-type plant life existed, much less land animals. Why mess around with dinosaurs and sabertooths when you can have slime and trilobites? And how you get there is via a wormhole, not a machine, which means you can’t choose your target. You’re stuck in the Age of Mud, take it or leave it. And the nineteen stories in this volume -- which had to go to Australia to find a publisher, for crying out loud -- are only the first installment. The rest of the Silurian Tales are in Vol. 2: Invisible Kingdoms.
“All of Creation” is about the earliest hint that something has happened to spacetime, as a high school science teacher and his old friend, a marine biologist, stroll on a Gulf Coast beach and stumble across several hundred recently alive trilobites along the surf line. How the hell did those get there? But it’s not just the fact that it’s happened, it’s the realization that the paradigms are about to shift. “The Woman Under the World” tells of an early accident in traveling to the past and what happens to the facets of the traveler that didn’t quite make it. More of a portrait of a situation than a story and probably the weakest piece here, relatively speaking. “Walking in Circles” is a lovely little mood-setter about one of the first sample-gathering teams pottering about happily in the slime and ooze. “Beyond the Sea,” on the other hand, is about decision-making and the necessity of explaining oneself to those who have their own plans for you -- always difficult, especially when it’s your parents, and they want you to be a classical musician rather than a geologist. “The Gift Horse” is another not-quite-story, just a few pages of an interview with a noted physicist trying to explain that it isn’t really “time travel” but travel to an alternate Earth in the nearly infinite multiverse (because time travel is impossible) -- so how do you know that what you discover there is the same as what existed in our own “real” past? And does it matter?
“Promised Land” is one of my favorites in this volume. Consider a famous paleobiologist dying of cancer, more or less pleased with his life and his career, just waiting patiently for The End. And then, on the television in his hospital room, the announcement is made of the discovery of actual time travel! His colleagues are fighting to queue up for access to the past. And he’s not going. Can you imagine the bitterness, the rage? But maybe he’ll get there anyway, one way or another. Damn, this is good stuff.
Of course, it isn’t only excited scientists going off to the Paleozoic. As time passes and the project expands, they also come to require a support staff -- in this case, the U.S. Navy, who transport an entire ship through “the Hole” to provide official structure. And that means a crew of professional sailors who couldn’t care less about millipedes and moss. “The Age of Mud and Slime” follows three bluejackets on liberty, sprawled up in the highlands overlooking the research station’s Quonset huts (known as “Stinktown”), trying hard to consume enough 3.2 beer to acquire a buzz and kicking around the whole “butterfly effect” question.
Possibly the best story in this volume is “The Wind Over the World,” a deeply affecting piece about Bonnie Leveritt, a young grad student making her first journey into the distant past as part of a field team, and her five-minute acquaintance with Ed Morris, an accountant going back to talk to people about budgets. (Yeah, any big project needs bean-counters.) Bonnie’s nervous and Ed, a middle-aged guy in a clichéd “Jungle Jim suit,” gives her a little pep talk as they wait, trying to sooth her nerves and offering to go first. But Bonnie wants to get it over with and he smiles and says “Go ahead.” And she makes it, though the jump through the worm hole always leaves you shaky. But something goes wrong somewhere and Ed never comes out the other side. He’s the project’s first casualty and they don’t even know where -- or when -- he is. It takes Bonnie some time to come to terms with all this; if Ed had gone first, it would have been her who was lost in transition. But she’s resourceful and reflective and she finally finds a way.
Then there’s a mini-trilogy of stories, each of them following immediately after the one before in its action and all featuring the same group of characters, but with a different POV each time. You’ve got Helen Wheeler, the non-sexy soil scientist and amateur painter, who, in “Cloud by Van Gogh,” tries to explain to Gabbert, the saturnine astronomer, why art and science go together. And in “Half a Loaf,” there’s Chaplain Madiel of the Navy, who joins Wheeler at Gabbert’s satellite-watching party (it’s the first successful prehistoric launch) and who gets into a convoluted discussion with Ovington the meteorologist regarding the place of revealed religion in a time almost before the Creation. And with different lengths to the day and the year, you don’t even know when Sunday is. That theme continues in “Chaos and the Gods” as the party winds down (“now that Gab’s insulted everybody at least once”), with the addition of creation myths in the mythologies of various cultures, as well as the fundamental nature of God, or the gods. Some very thoughtful (and poetic) commentary in this one.
And then, for a change of pace, there’s “The Tortoise Grows Elate,” which investigates the group dynamics of assembling a field team that will be working in isolation for months in such a way that none of its members will murder any of the others. Can Tamiko (“By the way, I’m a dyke”) hook up with her old buddy, the rather dorky and very ugly (but also nice and easy-going) SeePee? Will their boss, The Wasp Woman, find her own partner? This one is hilarious in a slyly droll way, the sort of story that might be read out loud at a con. It might also have been titled “Love Among the Eurypterids.” “Foodstuff” considers the question of a few people staying behind in the Paleozoic and living off the land as hunter-gatherers, without even chordates or proper plants, much less technology. Putting aside why they might want to attempt such a thing, or whether they ethically should, would it be physically possible to do it? Oh, and fishing, for sport as well as research. “Chain of Life” focuses on the personal problems of a young volcanologist with a biologist girlfriend and the macho boss (he lives to “peek down Vulcan’s chimney”) who expects him to casually take unnecessary chances the girlfriend doesn’t approve of. It’s all about relationships, both between people and rocks and people and other people. And babies.
Now several decades have passed since the wormhole appeared and it’s even more difficult to qualify for a research team in the Paleozoic, there’s so much competition. The slightest career mistake -- like a gig as assistant to an expert who is crucified for faking his research -- and you’ll have no chance at all. Then you might end up as a mere technician at the present-day end of the jump station, managing toilet paper deliveries, because that’s as close as you’ll ever get. And that’s the lesson learned in “Exile,” a rather sad little story. “The End in Eden” is about the entrance of sin into the Garden in the form of crime -- and not even of passion but for cold-blooded financial gain. There’s a lot of anger among the characters in this one, and for good reason.
“Lost Places in the Earth” is also a different sort of story, about the sometimes nefarious practices of senior academics when it comes to young, attractive, female grad students. The worm hole is only tangential to this one, actually, though it has some interesting things to say about maps and cartography. “A Silurian Tale” considers the problems of readjustment to the 21st century after a year spent in the peace and quiet of the Silurian Era. Is the presence of intrusive advertising balanced out by the equal presence of green grass and flowers and trees? And then you have to explain to your young niece why you didn’t see any dinosaurs.
And finally, in “The 400-Million-Year Itch,” one of the pioneering scientists in the Paleozoic is being interviewed years later and she has a hard time getting the young reporter to understand that the Silurian wasn’t at all an exciting place. And people are still people, regardless of when they are in time, and Great Men are still Great Men, even when they turn out to be somewhat ordinary, and occasionally annoying.
These stories were published over a period of nearly two decades, so it’s a different experience to sit down and read them all straight through, one after another. Steve’s generally quiet and reflective writing style, however, makes it an easy mission. And you’ll soon find yourself sinking into the stories and the setting and joining the scientists and the Navy men and the civilian staff in their far distant past. Needless to say, I will be acquiring Vol. 2 of the Silurian Tales at the first opportunity and I expect to be revisiting all these stories every couple of years. This is a much longer review than I usually indulge in, but some writers simply deserve all the publicity they can get.
July 20, 2021
THE 400-MILLION-YEAR ITCH: IS RATED 97%.
19 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 17 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 0 POOR /0 DNF
If you want quiet, mature, and thoughtful science fiction driven by very human characters and hard science, Steven Utley’s Silurian Tales are for you. In many ways, these stories remind me of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, but Utley chose a ‘boring’ past earth instead of Bradbury’s flamboyant fantasy of Mars.
This stories take place in the distant past - the Silurian Era (or an alternate universe almost identical to that era. This is a mundane and boring past without the classic tropes of time travel fiction. Gardner Dozois in his introduction says it best.
Choosing such a landscape as the setting for time-travel stories is a move of breathtaking audacity … There’s only the bleak landscape of the Silurian Age, and the peculiarities and paradoxes and intricate workings of time-travel itself, and, set against that plain, pure, desolate background, the characters, who are free to interact in the most subtle and movingly human of ways with little else to distract the reader from them.
This is book of subtle and quiet stories. Stories full of real people and their real emotions. As you read this collection, you will find yourself sinking into a comfortable world of Steven Utley’s creation. You may have a bit of culture shock when you put the book down.
The Wind Over the World • (1996) The best standalone story in the collection is this complex examination of survivor’s guilt. Through happenstance, one of the two time travelers disappears during the space/time warp. For the woman that is left, what should have been the greatest moment of her life is now saturated with unearned guilt and resentment for that guilt. Superb.
***
THE 400-MILLION-YEAR ITCH: IS RATED 97%.
19 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 17 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
All of Creation • (2008)
Good. A man experiences new purpose when he meets his brother and discovers living trilobites.
The Woman Under the World • (2008)
Good. Story of a woman caught ‘out of phase’ during time travel. Haunting.
Walking in Circles • (2002)
Good. The experience of time travel is brought down to mundanity by the very human feeling of envy.
Beyond the Sea • (2002)
Good. A man trades family expectations of a music career for a career in the sciences.
The Gift Horse • (2012)
Average. Interviewer and subject discuss the difference between time travel and travel into an alternative universe past.
Promised Land • (2005)
Good. A paleobiologist is dying, contented with his career. Then time travel is discovered and his colleagues are going and he can’t.
The Age of Mud and Slime • (1996)
Good. A group of sailors on assignment in the past drink beer and argue about the butterfly effect.
The Wind Over the World • (1996)
Great. A beautifully sad story of survivor’s guilt. A young woman travels back in time, but the person she’s traveling with becomes lost. A deeply layered emotional story.
The Tortoise Grows Elate • (2012)
Good. Jane Austen and the sexual dynamics of assembling a time travel team of men and women.
Cloud by Van Gogh • (2000)
Good. A painter-geologist and an astronomer debate the value of art and science.
Half a Loaf • (2001)
Good. Talking Christianity in prehistory with a priest and a group of scientists.
Chaos and the Gods • (2003)
Good. Direct sequel to Half a Loaf. Non-Christian religions are brought into the debate.
Foodstuff • (2002)
Good. On a boat going upriver, the idea of living off the land in prehistory.
Chain of Life • (2000)
Good. Relationships, romance, pregnancy, and taking chances among scientists in the ancient past.
Exile • (2003)
Good. A quietly sad story about how one wrong step can leave you inches from your dream with no chance of reaching it.
The End in Eden • (2012)
Good. ‘Sin enters the Garden” as the integrity of the science is disrupted by old-fashion crime.
Lost Places of the Earth • (2009)
Good. Senior academics and young female grad students … in the darkness of a planetarium.
A Silurian Tale • (1996)
Good. Adjustment to life in the present after a year in the Silurian Era. What do you tell young children about why you didn’t see dinosaurs.
The 400-Million-Year Itch • (2008)
Good. On of the future people who went back to the Silurian is interviewed about the experience and has trouble explaining the mundane nature of it. And the people who were there with her.
19 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 17 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 0 POOR /0 DNF
If you want quiet, mature, and thoughtful science fiction driven by very human characters and hard science, Steven Utley’s Silurian Tales are for you. In many ways, these stories remind me of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, but Utley chose a ‘boring’ past earth instead of Bradbury’s flamboyant fantasy of Mars.
This stories take place in the distant past - the Silurian Era (or an alternate universe almost identical to that era. This is a mundane and boring past without the classic tropes of time travel fiction. Gardner Dozois in his introduction says it best.
Choosing such a landscape as the setting for time-travel stories is a move of breathtaking audacity … There’s only the bleak landscape of the Silurian Age, and the peculiarities and paradoxes and intricate workings of time-travel itself, and, set against that plain, pure, desolate background, the characters, who are free to interact in the most subtle and movingly human of ways with little else to distract the reader from them.
This is book of subtle and quiet stories. Stories full of real people and their real emotions. As you read this collection, you will find yourself sinking into a comfortable world of Steven Utley’s creation. You may have a bit of culture shock when you put the book down.
The Wind Over the World • (1996) The best standalone story in the collection is this complex examination of survivor’s guilt. Through happenstance, one of the two time travelers disappears during the space/time warp. For the woman that is left, what should have been the greatest moment of her life is now saturated with unearned guilt and resentment for that guilt. Superb.
***
THE 400-MILLION-YEAR ITCH: IS RATED 97%.
19 STORIES : 1 GREAT / 17 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 0 POOR / 0 DNF
All of Creation • (2008)
Good. A man experiences new purpose when he meets his brother and discovers living trilobites.
The Woman Under the World • (2008)
Good. Story of a woman caught ‘out of phase’ during time travel. Haunting.
Walking in Circles • (2002)
Good. The experience of time travel is brought down to mundanity by the very human feeling of envy.
Beyond the Sea • (2002)
Good. A man trades family expectations of a music career for a career in the sciences.
The Gift Horse • (2012)
Average. Interviewer and subject discuss the difference between time travel and travel into an alternative universe past.
Promised Land • (2005)
Good. A paleobiologist is dying, contented with his career. Then time travel is discovered and his colleagues are going and he can’t.
The Age of Mud and Slime • (1996)
Good. A group of sailors on assignment in the past drink beer and argue about the butterfly effect.
The Wind Over the World • (1996)
Great. A beautifully sad story of survivor’s guilt. A young woman travels back in time, but the person she’s traveling with becomes lost. A deeply layered emotional story.
The Tortoise Grows Elate • (2012)
Good. Jane Austen and the sexual dynamics of assembling a time travel team of men and women.
Cloud by Van Gogh • (2000)
Good. A painter-geologist and an astronomer debate the value of art and science.
Half a Loaf • (2001)
Good. Talking Christianity in prehistory with a priest and a group of scientists.
Chaos and the Gods • (2003)
Good. Direct sequel to Half a Loaf. Non-Christian religions are brought into the debate.
Foodstuff • (2002)
Good. On a boat going upriver, the idea of living off the land in prehistory.
Chain of Life • (2000)
Good. Relationships, romance, pregnancy, and taking chances among scientists in the ancient past.
Exile • (2003)
Good. A quietly sad story about how one wrong step can leave you inches from your dream with no chance of reaching it.
The End in Eden • (2012)
Good. ‘Sin enters the Garden” as the integrity of the science is disrupted by old-fashion crime.
Lost Places of the Earth • (2009)
Good. Senior academics and young female grad students … in the darkness of a planetarium.
A Silurian Tale • (1996)
Good. Adjustment to life in the present after a year in the Silurian Era. What do you tell young children about why you didn’t see dinosaurs.
The 400-Million-Year Itch • (2008)
Good. On of the future people who went back to the Silurian is interviewed about the experience and has trouble explaining the mundane nature of it. And the people who were there with her.
July 23, 2016
Having read one of the Silurian series in an anthology I liked Utley's approach. Take an amazing event (a link between our world and the Silurian period approximately 400 million years ago) and write human stories. Very little is about the place, and most of that can be boiled down into 'mud' and 'trilobites'. You don't need to be a science nerd to understand any of the stories presented here, and all are good together or by themselves.
It is clear why this is such a long running 'series' of short stories and Steven Utley deserves the plaudits he has received for it in the past. A great fun book, and I shall be picking up book 2 in the series to read later.
It is clear why this is such a long running 'series' of short stories and Steven Utley deserves the plaudits he has received for it in the past. A great fun book, and I shall be picking up book 2 in the series to read later.
August 17, 2015
Travel back in time to the Palaeozoic on a parallel earth. Poor characters with problems and no direction. So close to meaningless SF novel sorry to say but at least it was a short one. And in short, don't bother. Life is too valuable to waste.
May 14, 2013
Standard Ticonderoga Disclaimer: We published this book because we loved it!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews