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Timemaster
Billionaire industrialist Randy Hunter communicates with aliens, achieves interstellar flight, and explores the universe in a novel that explores the technological possibilities of the future. Reprint.
301 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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186 people want to read
About the author
Robert L. Forward
50 books191 followersRobert Lull Forward, commonly known as Robert L. Forward, (August 15, 1932 - September 21, 2002) was an American physicist and science fiction writer. His fiction is noted for its scientific credibility, and uses many ideas developed during his work as an aerospace engineer.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
February 7, 2017
This novel is packed with so many great ideas it makes your head swim. An author I truly miss, Robert L. Forward was one of the best hard science fiction writers. The science is so astounding in this novel, and another wonderfully thought out alien creature. i will be the first to admit that the story tying all these great elements together is somewhat lacking at times, the novel is still worth its weight in ideas.
October 16, 2010
Yawn. Very little fiction--and most of it sophomoric--with a heavy dose of science and pseudo-science.
Reads like the "amazing" tales of the 40s. Very unsympathetic hero. Little to like.
Reads like the "amazing" tales of the 40s. Very unsympathetic hero. Little to like.
April 11, 2019
Space entrepeneur Randy Hunter discovers a kind of space-dwelling plant composed of negative matter, which allows him to develop interstellar spaceflight and time travel, not to mention acheiving all of his dreams, winning the girl, foiling his drug-addicted rival, and becoming an all-around great guy. ... Author Robert L. Forward never lets us forget how wonderful and brilliant he thinks his hero is, which came off as more than a little self-congratulatory since I couldn't shake the feeling that he was meant to serve as an alter-ego for Forward himself. There is much juvenile one-upmanship between Randy and his cartoonish arch-rival, Oscar, who is just as bad as Randy is good and whose dislike is never explained as anything more than jealousy (but then, who wouldn't be jealous of such a terrific guy as Randy). I found the key plot device of the Silverhairs to be ludicrous and uninteresting. The sole saving grace of this book is some fascinating business toward the end concerning time travel and the interaction between the Randys of various time periods. Had this aspect of the story been more prominent, it would have been a better book, but instead it is buried among juvenile characterizations and dull plotting.
November 2, 2016
Robert Forward books are a bit difficult to rate.
Like "Dragon's Egg", "Timemaster" has the hard science fully developed and thought out. It's clear that Forward has done the math and knows what he's talking about. The book leaves you thinking about the science and pondering the diagrams in the appendix.
But the writing and plot are just crap. (In accordance with Sturgeon's Law!) The characters are flat and inconsistent; the conflict over family relationships is abandoned, and the entire story seems like an excuse to set up a large-scale demonstration of Novikov's Principle.
I was waiting for the revelation that the "Silverhairs" were an extension of some super-intelligent multi-dimensional creature that baits space explorers and uses them to spread its reach across space and time. But they're never anything more than the simple alien puppy-dogs they are introduced as. Consider that my alternative interpretation.
The book is almost two decades old, and by today's standards has some appalling sexist tropes.
Like "Dragon's Egg", "Timemaster" has the hard science fully developed and thought out. It's clear that Forward has done the math and knows what he's talking about. The book leaves you thinking about the science and pondering the diagrams in the appendix.
But the writing and plot are just crap. (In accordance with Sturgeon's Law!) The characters are flat and inconsistent; the conflict over family relationships is abandoned, and the entire story seems like an excuse to set up a large-scale demonstration of Novikov's Principle.
I was waiting for the revelation that the "Silverhairs" were an extension of some super-intelligent multi-dimensional creature that baits space explorers and uses them to spread its reach across space and time. But they're never anything more than the simple alien puppy-dogs they are introduced as. Consider that my alternative interpretation.
The book is almost two decades old, and by today's standards has some appalling sexist tropes.
February 9, 2016
This hard-science fiction novel by Robert L. Forward, renown scientist with a PhD in gravitational physics, makes one seriously consider the idea of time as physicists know it today, or knew it in the 1990's. The story is not bogged down with the details, providing an interesting read regardless of whether you understand the physics of high speed travel and its affect on time. As you read, you may hark back to older science fiction due to emphasis on science and some neglect of writing style. Plus, the story can seem a little contrived so that the plot matches with the physics.
I enjoyed reading this book. The biggest problem for me was the reliance on the discovery of a new life form early in the story, which becomes the basis of all that follows. Still, the science is compelling.
I enjoyed reading this book. The biggest problem for me was the reliance on the discovery of a new life form early in the story, which becomes the basis of all that follows. Still, the science is compelling.
October 21, 2022
While this book has a really interesting and well-researched premise behind the capability for faster-than-light travel and its associated effects on time, the actual plot and characters are rather thin and one-dimensional. Furthermore, the actual writing at times seemed rather sophomoric. You know how some authors can write in such a way that you just absorb the story without even being aware that you are reading? This book is the opposite. There were times when I became lost in the prose, but they were few and far-between; the remainder of the time I was struggling with the forced dialogue, or the matter-of-fact descriptions that refused to evoke any sort of imagery in my mind at all. That being said, the end of the book is a very fun glimpse of what this type of FTL travel can do, which I did enjoy.
February 24, 2021
Short adolescent boys would probably enjoy this book, to their detriment. I got more than halfway through and couldn't finish it. The protagonist is appallingly in love with himself. The female characters are poorly drawn and badly treated. The jabs at the animal rights movement are particularly disgusting in a world increasingly aware of the atrocities suffered in factory farming and the ongoing Sixth Exinction event affecting wildlife. The science is probably interesting and probably obsolete.
July 29, 2024
I was hoping for more from Robert Forward’s Timemaster. As a working physicist admired by the best science fiction writers of the era, I was not ready for a novel that harkens back to E. E. “Doc” Smith. Randy, a talented astroengineer, discovers an alien race with “negative matter,” whatever that is. The next thing you know, we are off to black holes.
May 8, 2023
I feel that these "silverhair" aliens and their behavior are entirely realistic, along with the humans in this story.
This is VERY hard scifi - the "timetrap" at the end of act two is a work of pure genius.
This is VERY hard scifi - the "timetrap" at the end of act two is a work of pure genius.
December 2, 2018
An interesting time travel story that reflects the period it was written in.
A couple of space battles
A couple of space battles
October 28, 2012
Book 2 in my re-reading odyssey.
I will start by getting the minor quibbles out of the way. 1) The not infrequent to a hair style called the 'Paul Reveere'; everyone seemed to wearing them in this story. 2) A ship called the 'Animal Avenger'; I read the name and gagged immediately. 3) MacIBM computers; I winced when I read this. At the time of writing, Apple was a struggling company, and if IBM had acquired them, the name of the resulting company would have been---IBM. There is no two ways about it. 4) Star travel in the hands of a lone individual. I do not care how rich you are, if a government wants something, it will get it. Someone somewhere would have copied/stolen the method of interstellar travel.
Next up from the quibbles, are the characters (primarily our hero). They are---well, unlikeable for the most part.
The protagonist is a rich, muscular, super genius, with (what is hinted at being) a foot-long penis. But wait, he does have failings! He is short (under 5 feet tall), and a workaholic---but his gorgeous girlfriend/wife loves him anyway. Already I can feel a personal connection to him---wait, sorry, that was gas. Turns out I feel nothing for him, with the possible exception of annoyance. About the only character that I could form any connection with, was the designated villain, and he is a rather low and base character himself.
There are a plethora of other characters strewn about, and the hero does eventually have some kids he neglects so he can go off on adventures, and while they do play roles in plot, they do not sever any pivitol purpose, and are largely forgettable.
On the same level as poor characterisation, I must mention that the last third of the book is essentially just a repetition of the preceeding quarter (or so), but from different points of view. It could have, and should have been, greatly abbreviated, rather than left to drag on, and on, and on.
This finally leads me to my greatest problem with the book, and one that it would be difficult for the author to have avoided, unless he was incredibly aware of how global events affect personal conceptions of the world. The future it tells of is one firmly rooted in the early 1990's, and thus does not translate well into the modern day.
Reading this book is like being shown a glimpse of the mentality that existed in the minds of many western citizens just after the fall of the communist bloc. All of a sudden, the threat of nuclear anihilation seemed to vanish, defence budgets could finally be cut, and peace was about to explode onto the world stage. In political science terms, this period was referred to as 'the end of history'. There was an expectation---at a certain level---that nothing of tragic importance was ever going to happen again; no war, no great upheavals---just low brush fires that would dwindle with time and technological improvement.
All that money that had been spent on nuclear weapons, and bombers, and tanks could be channelled to more productive purposes. Great projects for the betterment of mankind could finally be undertaken again, and the stars would be within our grasp in mere decades.
And this was the world that the story took place in. For many readers, this may be a non-issue, but for me, it render the book difficult to read, because I just could not suspend my disbelief long enough. I felt like I was being asked to imagine that I still lived in 1993, and to believe that nothing bad was ever going to happen again.
Once again, I find that a book kept on the expectation of continued enjoyment, has proven to be a disappointment. Unlike 'Book 1', I do remember the story, somewhat, but there is nothing in it that makes me want to ever read this book again.
I will start by getting the minor quibbles out of the way. 1) The not infrequent to a hair style called the 'Paul Reveere'; everyone seemed to wearing them in this story. 2) A ship called the 'Animal Avenger'; I read the name and gagged immediately. 3) MacIBM computers; I winced when I read this. At the time of writing, Apple was a struggling company, and if IBM had acquired them, the name of the resulting company would have been---IBM. There is no two ways about it. 4) Star travel in the hands of a lone individual. I do not care how rich you are, if a government wants something, it will get it. Someone somewhere would have copied/stolen the method of interstellar travel.
Next up from the quibbles, are the characters (primarily our hero). They are---well, unlikeable for the most part.
The protagonist is a rich, muscular, super genius, with (what is hinted at being) a foot-long penis. But wait, he does have failings! He is short (under 5 feet tall), and a workaholic---but his gorgeous girlfriend/wife loves him anyway. Already I can feel a personal connection to him---wait, sorry, that was gas. Turns out I feel nothing for him, with the possible exception of annoyance. About the only character that I could form any connection with, was the designated villain, and he is a rather low and base character himself.
There are a plethora of other characters strewn about, and the hero does eventually have some kids he neglects so he can go off on adventures, and while they do play roles in plot, they do not sever any pivitol purpose, and are largely forgettable.
On the same level as poor characterisation, I must mention that the last third of the book is essentially just a repetition of the preceeding quarter (or so), but from different points of view. It could have, and should have been, greatly abbreviated, rather than left to drag on, and on, and on.
This finally leads me to my greatest problem with the book, and one that it would be difficult for the author to have avoided, unless he was incredibly aware of how global events affect personal conceptions of the world. The future it tells of is one firmly rooted in the early 1990's, and thus does not translate well into the modern day.
Reading this book is like being shown a glimpse of the mentality that existed in the minds of many western citizens just after the fall of the communist bloc. All of a sudden, the threat of nuclear anihilation seemed to vanish, defence budgets could finally be cut, and peace was about to explode onto the world stage. In political science terms, this period was referred to as 'the end of history'. There was an expectation---at a certain level---that nothing of tragic importance was ever going to happen again; no war, no great upheavals---just low brush fires that would dwindle with time and technological improvement.
All that money that had been spent on nuclear weapons, and bombers, and tanks could be channelled to more productive purposes. Great projects for the betterment of mankind could finally be undertaken again, and the stars would be within our grasp in mere decades.
And this was the world that the story took place in. For many readers, this may be a non-issue, but for me, it render the book difficult to read, because I just could not suspend my disbelief long enough. I felt like I was being asked to imagine that I still lived in 1993, and to believe that nothing bad was ever going to happen again.
Once again, I find that a book kept on the expectation of continued enjoyment, has proven to be a disappointment. Unlike 'Book 1', I do remember the story, somewhat, but there is nothing in it that makes me want to ever read this book again.
June 14, 2013
Space entrepeneur Randy Hunter discovers a kind of space-dwelling plant composed of negative matter, which allows him to develop interstellar spaceflight and time travel, not to mention acheiving all of his dreams, winning the girl, foiling his drug-addicted rival, and becoming an all-around great guy. ... Author Robert L. Forward never lets us forget how wonderful and brilliant he thinks his hero is, which came off as more than a little self-congratulatory since I couldn't shake the feeling that he was meant to serve as an alter-ego for Forward himself. There is much juvenile one-upmanship between Randy and his cartoonish arch-rival, Oscar, who is just as bad as Randy is good and whose dislike is never explained as anything more than jealousy (but then, who wouldn't be jealous of such a terrific guy as Randy). I found the key plot device of the Silverhairs to be ludicrous and uninteresting. The sole saving grace of this book is some fascinating business toward the end concerning time travel and the interaction between the Randys of various time periods. Had this aspect of the story been more prominent, it would have been a better book, but instead it is buried among juvenile characterizations and dull plotting.
November 2, 2010
Hard science fiction from an actual physicist is interesting, and was fun at parts, but failed at far too many others.
For being set in the 2030´s and onward, there are far too many 90´s references like ¨Koosh¨ balls,¨ and ¨three-dee.¨
And while some guesses may turn out to be wildly accurate, at this day and age guessing that in 2030 a wrist-computer would have 1 GB of ram is just a laugh.
The rest of the time the author is trying to do too much, too fast. Not only that, but when the story passes through stages of time travel, repeating the exact same events is not nearly so interesting the second time, let along the third as a recap.
For being set in the 2030´s and onward, there are far too many 90´s references like ¨Koosh¨ balls,¨ and ¨three-dee.¨
And while some guesses may turn out to be wildly accurate, at this day and age guessing that in 2030 a wrist-computer would have 1 GB of ram is just a laugh.
The rest of the time the author is trying to do too much, too fast. Not only that, but when the story passes through stages of time travel, repeating the exact same events is not nearly so interesting the second time, let along the third as a recap.
October 14, 2012
This book stands as Exhibit A for why hard sf gets written off by critics as a genre that cares nothing for complex characterization. Apparently Forward didn't realize that Mary Sue/Gary Stu checklists are supposed to be used as models for how *not* to create a protagonist, because Randy Hunter achieves a near-perfect score: fabulously wealthy? Check. Ridiculously good-looking and athletic? Check. Genius-level intelligence? Check. Gorgeous love interest who exists solely to demonstrate how awesome her mate is? You guessed it! There may be good ideas in here, but the execution is too painful to give them any credit.
March 27, 2012
I really wanted to like this one - I love time travel stories, but this one, though providing a thoroughly consistent time travel method (in the story, time travel can't change the past, but can influence it (i.e. effects can precede causes)), fails to be a good story: the characters are paper-thin and the plot serves only to illustrate the no-inconsistencies theory of time travel (which _is_ the only kind of time travel the real world is likely to provide) and to give the main character his wish-fulfillment goals.
May 2, 2012
There isn't a blighter like a bad book and this one proved to be shamefully, unreadably bad by around page 5. I wish I could give negative stars. Character building was virtually nonexistent. The main character was pathetic even for a wish-fulfiller Gary-Stu. Like an extremely crappy, trashy, watered up Tony Stark, and I don't have a high opinion on the original, to start with. Oh, and giving your protagonist a midget-size is not a substitute for character-building, nor will it make him any more likable. I'm sorry even for the bus-travel time I wasted on this garbage.
November 28, 2007
Robert Forward does as good a job as any of writing theoretical plausible space stories. This book is interesting because it writes a hard science fiction space opera with good guys bad guys et al. Some very interesting technology discussed here, but the story is so implausible as to distract from the plausible science.
May 16, 2010
A time travel story that is a bit light on character development. I enjoyed the book, but towards the end it was a bit repetitive as some of the same scenes were replayed from the view of the main character from different times. I understand the device as the author illustrates the impossibility of paradoxes in the time travel story, but it went on a bit long for my taste.
July 12, 2011
another Library sale book. (another flight)
Main character was annoying.
The author tried to add in 'sex' to spice it up with innuendo... weak.
The last 1/3 of the book is super super boring as it repeats itself 3 times.
The 'hard' science is not well explained and not really that interesting.
The only thing of real interest was the Silverhairs....
Main character was annoying.
The author tried to add in 'sex' to spice it up with innuendo... weak.
The last 1/3 of the book is super super boring as it repeats itself 3 times.
The 'hard' science is not well explained and not really that interesting.
The only thing of real interest was the Silverhairs....
February 19, 2017
The best book I know trying to deal with faster-than-light travel accurately. Himself being a physicist, Forward used the same science that Kip Thorne, along with others such as John Wheeler, pioneered that would also influence Carl Sagan's Contact and the movie Interstellar.
Read
September 27, 20077 out of 10 : vintage sci-fic.
November 22, 2008
Great ideas, terrible writing.
February 25, 2014
Mathematics are a must to even get close to understanding this book...... interesting 'wrinkle' with sex thing...
June 10, 2015
Ciencia Ficción para profesionales.
Si no es lo tuyo, olvídalo. La cabeza te estallará y no sabrás ni por qué.
Si no es lo tuyo, olvídalo. La cabeza te estallará y no sabrás ni por qué.
January 11, 2016
If you like time travel stories you will enjoy this tale. The science sound plausible. The story is entertaining.
October 1, 2009
A rollicking good romp. The time-travel story you've always wanted to read.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews