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The Shores of Kansas
220 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1976
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 26, 2014
I'm not putting this behind a spoiler tag because I don't even know who would want to read this book in the first place.
The only thing I remotely enjoyed about this book were the dinosaurs. When they weren't being killed.
There are ridiculous plot holes. (He's concerned about bringing seeds to the Cretaceous period because of evolutionary issues, but he doesn't worry about killing things--what if that one creature was carrying a rare gene?) There is no explanation (or not enough of one) for the time travel mechanic. They just decide to. By walking, and thinking.
The plot itself is boring. The tagline states, "The mind-boggling epic adventure of a time-traveler torn between two nightmare worlds." Okay. I need explanation as to why unauthorized named parking spaces and every single woman throwing themselves at him sexually is a nightmare world (he complains about this, and is apparently shy, but sleeps with them all anyway). He also had complete control over the creatures in the dinosaur eras he visited, to the point where he teased a T-Rex by making it chase him for days, only to finally cut its head off. The only threat when he's time travelling is, apparently, walking too much.
The main character is difficult to relate to and I don't quite understand his personality. He makes jokes that make absolutely no sense (or at least I think they're jokes, because when he makes no sense is the only time he smiles).
There is no mind-boggling, epicness, or nightmares to be had in this book.
The only thing I remotely enjoyed about this book were the dinosaurs. When they weren't being killed.
There are ridiculous plot holes. (He's concerned about bringing seeds to the Cretaceous period because of evolutionary issues, but he doesn't worry about killing things--what if that one creature was carrying a rare gene?) There is no explanation (or not enough of one) for the time travel mechanic. They just decide to. By walking, and thinking.
The plot itself is boring. The tagline states, "The mind-boggling epic adventure of a time-traveler torn between two nightmare worlds." Okay. I need explanation as to why unauthorized named parking spaces and every single woman throwing themselves at him sexually is a nightmare world (he complains about this, and is apparently shy, but sleeps with them all anyway). He also had complete control over the creatures in the dinosaur eras he visited, to the point where he teased a T-Rex by making it chase him for days, only to finally cut its head off. The only threat when he's time travelling is, apparently, walking too much.
The main character is difficult to relate to and I don't quite understand his personality. He makes jokes that make absolutely no sense (or at least I think they're jokes, because when he makes no sense is the only time he smiles).
There is no mind-boggling, epicness, or nightmares to be had in this book.
March 27, 2012
This is a fine old sf time-travel story with some interesting social commentary.
July 28, 2022
This was a strange book. So, the main character is a man named Grant Ryals, who has the ability to just decide to walk into the past and then return to the present, time travel, just by sensing he is able to (as if he recharged or can sense conditions were favorable for it, maybe a bit of both), and just by concentrating and walking, can go into the past. Other people have this ability – all without any specialized equipment, in fact any equipment at all – but no one can go as far back into the past as he can and apparently stay as long either. While a very few people can go into historic times, such as one person who went back to Stonehenge’s heyday, it seems everyone else with the ability to just walk into the past is confined to historic times. Not Grant. Grant can walk back to the Mesozoic, be it Cretaceous, Jurassic, and mentioned but not shown, even the Triassic. The ability is not explained at all, but apparently has something to do with mental abilities and hypnosis can help those with the potential to unlock the ability to time travel and improve those very abilities.
Ok, fair enough I guess, seems very much like handwaving to get to the story the author wants to tell…but there really isn’t much of a story to tell. The book covers a period of time of Grant’s life; he has had the ability for a while when the book starts, is world famous, has founded the Chronographic Institute in Kansas to do research on his accounts, sketches, photographs, videos, and specimens (including living specimens) that Grant brings back, Grant being limited to things he can physically carry, with the Institute in addition to doing research has an outreach program with its museum, zoo, publications, and partly also as fundraising theatrically released films like the film of the same name as the novel, comprised of Mesozoic scenes filmed by Grant.
This is all a neat set up, but the author doesn’t do a lot with it. Watch Grant engage in bureaucratic in-fighting over the Institute’s budgets, personnel allocations, and over of all things parking spaces. See Grant spend time with his Dad. Watch Grant uncomfortable at fundraising parties. I admit that the scenes in the Mesozoic, with ceratopsians and sauropods and even a tyrannosaurus were all neat, and though there was some woefully outdated paleontology like aquatic sauropods, did seem like the author did some actual research on all things Mesozoic, but they weren’t really leading anywhere per se, just a series of neat interludes and the occasional survival story.
To the extent there is a central story arc, it is twofold. Who controls the Institute, is it what Grant wants or it is for the glory and wealth of those who run it when Grant is on his time travel trips, people willing to cut research staff while hiring more secretaries and putting up signs for reserved parking? Will they win in sending Grant to cocktail parties, children’s birthday parties even, or will Grant win, and he is left alone to do research and go on and rest from trips?
The other arc, oh boy. Grant is desired by virtually every woman in the book he meets, whether he knows them or not. Women from middle age down to teenagers crave Grant’s attention, and by attention, I mean physical affection. In the book Grant is constantly fending off propositions, being trapped or tricked by women into physical affairs, and he is constantly hit on.
Grant doesn’t want any of this, though the two women he does like, one is a woman who left him before he became famous, a woman he still moons over by the name of Nona, and the other a woman training to become a time traveler at the Institute as well, a woman who actually seems to hate Grant and Grant hate her (at least most of the book, sorry spoiler), a woman named Marian Gilmore, don’t desire Grant at all. The other arc is Grant avoiding every other woman on Earth while coming to terms with missing the woman he left him and getting along with the woman who appears to hate him.
And that’s the book. Though one arc gets some resolution, kind of, the other arc doesn’t really get much resolution at all. It is just troubles Grant faces. I liked the Mesozoic scenes, good descriptions of the Mesozoic, some good action, it looked like the author did some research of what was known at the time about pterosaurs, flora, climate, terrain of that part of the world in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, they were well described and interesting, pacing was good, writing overall wasn’t bad, but the element of every woman in the world wanting him got really old and hard to believe, it would have been more interesting to see how Grant got to where he is in the story rather than just sort of pick up later on, the “torn between two nightmare worlds” bit on the cover basically meant nothing, and oh there was a scene of homophobia, not from Grant really per se but I think more from the author, not even a whole page, but yeah it was there as shown by a gay man accosting Grant in the bathroom (right before a few pages where a mother and daughter both sexually proposition Grant at the same time), where Grant was though to be gay because “all woman haters” are gay, not even sure what they meant by Grant being a woman hater. Being uncomfortable with being hit on and propositioned all the time would get old and he didn’t care for it, but it hardly made him a woman hater. Worse, is the idea that gay men are women haters, or that that is a part of what makes them gay. Ridiculous.
Ok, fair enough I guess, seems very much like handwaving to get to the story the author wants to tell…but there really isn’t much of a story to tell. The book covers a period of time of Grant’s life; he has had the ability for a while when the book starts, is world famous, has founded the Chronographic Institute in Kansas to do research on his accounts, sketches, photographs, videos, and specimens (including living specimens) that Grant brings back, Grant being limited to things he can physically carry, with the Institute in addition to doing research has an outreach program with its museum, zoo, publications, and partly also as fundraising theatrically released films like the film of the same name as the novel, comprised of Mesozoic scenes filmed by Grant.
This is all a neat set up, but the author doesn’t do a lot with it. Watch Grant engage in bureaucratic in-fighting over the Institute’s budgets, personnel allocations, and over of all things parking spaces. See Grant spend time with his Dad. Watch Grant uncomfortable at fundraising parties. I admit that the scenes in the Mesozoic, with ceratopsians and sauropods and even a tyrannosaurus were all neat, and though there was some woefully outdated paleontology like aquatic sauropods, did seem like the author did some actual research on all things Mesozoic, but they weren’t really leading anywhere per se, just a series of neat interludes and the occasional survival story.
To the extent there is a central story arc, it is twofold. Who controls the Institute, is it what Grant wants or it is for the glory and wealth of those who run it when Grant is on his time travel trips, people willing to cut research staff while hiring more secretaries and putting up signs for reserved parking? Will they win in sending Grant to cocktail parties, children’s birthday parties even, or will Grant win, and he is left alone to do research and go on and rest from trips?
The other arc, oh boy. Grant is desired by virtually every woman in the book he meets, whether he knows them or not. Women from middle age down to teenagers crave Grant’s attention, and by attention, I mean physical affection. In the book Grant is constantly fending off propositions, being trapped or tricked by women into physical affairs, and he is constantly hit on.
Grant doesn’t want any of this, though the two women he does like, one is a woman who left him before he became famous, a woman he still moons over by the name of Nona, and the other a woman training to become a time traveler at the Institute as well, a woman who actually seems to hate Grant and Grant hate her (at least most of the book, sorry spoiler), a woman named Marian Gilmore, don’t desire Grant at all. The other arc is Grant avoiding every other woman on Earth while coming to terms with missing the woman he left him and getting along with the woman who appears to hate him.
And that’s the book. Though one arc gets some resolution, kind of, the other arc doesn’t really get much resolution at all. It is just troubles Grant faces. I liked the Mesozoic scenes, good descriptions of the Mesozoic, some good action, it looked like the author did some research of what was known at the time about pterosaurs, flora, climate, terrain of that part of the world in the Jurassic and Cretaceous, they were well described and interesting, pacing was good, writing overall wasn’t bad, but the element of every woman in the world wanting him got really old and hard to believe, it would have been more interesting to see how Grant got to where he is in the story rather than just sort of pick up later on, the “torn between two nightmare worlds” bit on the cover basically meant nothing, and oh there was a scene of homophobia, not from Grant really per se but I think more from the author, not even a whole page, but yeah it was there as shown by a gay man accosting Grant in the bathroom (right before a few pages where a mother and daughter both sexually proposition Grant at the same time), where Grant was though to be gay because “all woman haters” are gay, not even sure what they meant by Grant being a woman hater. Being uncomfortable with being hit on and propositioned all the time would get old and he didn’t care for it, but it hardly made him a woman hater. Worse, is the idea that gay men are women haters, or that that is a part of what makes them gay. Ridiculous.
October 18, 2025
Very different topic. Character could step back in time and return at will. Brought back samples of animal and plant life to the institute he founded. Every step to the past was extremely dangerous. Wounded several times. Recommend this book if you like fantasy, adventure and danger!
Well written.
Well written.
August 1, 2013
Fun time travel read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews