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The Chronologist
A boy, desperate to escape the drudgery of life in his small town, gets caught up in the machinations of a traveling time keeper, and slowly watches his town and his life unravel by the seams.
29 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 9, 2022
2 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Ian R. MacLeod
174 books127 followersIan R. MacLeod is the acclaimed writer of challenging and innovative speculative and fantastic fiction. His most recent novel, Wake Up and Dream, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, while his previous works have won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the World Fantasy Award, and have been translated into many languages. His short story, “Snodgrass,” was developed for television in the United Kingdom as part of the Sky Arts series Playhouse Presents. MacLeod grew up in the West Midlands region of England, studied law, and spent time working and dreaming in the civil service before moving on to teaching and house-husbandry. He lives with his wife in the riverside town of Bewdley.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
April 5, 2022
We were losing ourselves and we were losing one another, falling away through the unnumbered days.
An eleven-year-old boy lives in a small town with his father and day in, day out they go through the motions. He finds life boring and wants to leave it behind but no one has ever left the town before. When a Chronologist comes to their town to check on their tower clock, the boy realizes that the Chronologist has successfully left this town many times so he decides to follow the Chronologist to find his own escape too. Would the boy be successful?
Yet the place wasn’t entirely strange to me, which was somehow the strangest thing of all.
I loved the main character. He has no name which is really weird but works rather well for this bizarre but engaging story. The unnamed boy wants to escape the drudgery of life in his small town and ends up messing with time travel. And the way time travel works in this story is also messy.
Lost as I was, it was like greeting an old friend.
A fascinating tale. The prose was mesmerizing and the story even though it was predictable, I enjoyed it. The world is eerie and kept me on an edge. I think the world-building could have been better but other than that I loved it.
4 stars
An eleven-year-old boy lives in a small town with his father and day in, day out they go through the motions. He finds life boring and wants to leave it behind but no one has ever left the town before. When a Chronologist comes to their town to check on their tower clock, the boy realizes that the Chronologist has successfully left this town many times so he decides to follow the Chronologist to find his own escape too. Would the boy be successful?
Yet the place wasn’t entirely strange to me, which was somehow the strangest thing of all.
I loved the main character. He has no name which is really weird but works rather well for this bizarre but engaging story. The unnamed boy wants to escape the drudgery of life in his small town and ends up messing with time travel. And the way time travel works in this story is also messy.
Lost as I was, it was like greeting an old friend.
A fascinating tale. The prose was mesmerizing and the story even though it was predictable, I enjoyed it. The world is eerie and kept me on an edge. I think the world-building could have been better but other than that I loved it.
4 stars
April 12, 2022
There was some predictability to this, but chalk it up to time-shenanigans maybe - I did enjoy it despite that.
https://www.tor.com/2022/02/09/the-ch...
https://www.tor.com/2022/02/09/the-ch...
May 21, 2022
The chronologist arrives in a town to service the clocks and make sure time is flowing properly. A nice story playing with the concept of time.
February 15, 2022
Beautiful prose and a gorgeous cover combine for this wonderful fantasy tale of a young boy who messes with time. Literally.
January 24, 2023
A plot more towards the predictable side.
A short story riddled with multiple typos, but not enough to take one out of the story.
A compelling read nonetheless.
A short story riddled with multiple typos, but not enough to take one out of the story.
A compelling read nonetheless.
May 6, 2022
An interesting story of a boy in a town whose routines are slightly askew (it's always summer, for instance) because the clocks that make time past are not measuring the passage of time correctly. Until a time-keeper comes to mend the clocks, and mend time.
But the boy's desire for a change in his daily routine makes him steal an item from the time-keeper, which he uses to make all time askew to get the time-keeper to return, so he may escape with him. But time has a plan of its own for the boy, which leads to a possibly inevitable conclusion about the boy and the time-keeper.
But the boy's desire for a change in his daily routine makes him steal an item from the time-keeper, which he uses to make all time askew to get the time-keeper to return, so he may escape with him. But time has a plan of its own for the boy, which leads to a possibly inevitable conclusion about the boy and the time-keeper.
March 3, 2022
A story with so many surprises and few answers.
March 25, 2022
When time is slippery, every moment counts.
It was fascinating to imagine a world where time itself is unreliable. Imagine opening a soft-boiled egg to find a living chick inside or seeing a wheel of cheese turn back into milk because of fluctuations in how time flows in your community! These were just two of the unusual side effects the characters experienced, and they filled my mind with theories about how people learned to survive in such an unstable environment.
I would have liked to see more time spent on world building, especially when it was related to exactly what magical powers a chronologist does and doesn’t have. There were moments in this tale when I was confused by how the townspeople reacted to the arrival of a chronologist and why they seemed to be able to do things in certain towns that didn’t happen in other ones. Having clarity on these issues would have encouraged me to go for a much higher rating.
As soon as I met the unnamed main character, I liked him. He was a curious, mischievous, and intelligent boy who was determined to solve the mystery of where the chronologist went when he left town and what it would be like to visit other communities like the one he was growing up in. There were so many practical and magical obstacles in his path that I couldn’t imagine how he’d reach his goal, but I sure wanted to see him succeed!
The Chronologist was a wild ride.
It was fascinating to imagine a world where time itself is unreliable. Imagine opening a soft-boiled egg to find a living chick inside or seeing a wheel of cheese turn back into milk because of fluctuations in how time flows in your community! These were just two of the unusual side effects the characters experienced, and they filled my mind with theories about how people learned to survive in such an unstable environment.
I would have liked to see more time spent on world building, especially when it was related to exactly what magical powers a chronologist does and doesn’t have. There were moments in this tale when I was confused by how the townspeople reacted to the arrival of a chronologist and why they seemed to be able to do things in certain towns that didn’t happen in other ones. Having clarity on these issues would have encouraged me to go for a much higher rating.
As soon as I met the unnamed main character, I liked him. He was a curious, mischievous, and intelligent boy who was determined to solve the mystery of where the chronologist went when he left town and what it would be like to visit other communities like the one he was growing up in. There were so many practical and magical obstacles in his path that I couldn’t imagine how he’d reach his goal, but I sure wanted to see him succeed!
The Chronologist was a wild ride.
June 30, 2022
Despite all our best efforts, it had already been full summer for far too long, with the lime trees dripping dusty sap, the crops wilting and the cattle barely giving milk, on the morning when word of the Chronologist’s arrival finally came. I scurried in my father’s wake as, buttoning his best coat sideways and pulling on his mayoral sash the wrong way round, he bumbled out into the main square and fought his way through the crowds to formally welcome the Chronologist to our town.
(three and a half stars)
February 13, 2022
Ian MacLeod knows how to set a mood. In this case, he pulls the reader into a spooky, melancholic tale filled with time-driven anomalies. To be clear, this story is not science fiction; MacLeod simply employs time as a clever way to set a Gothic horror mood.
While I enjoyed the eerie atmosphere, I wish that the ending didn't feel as inevitable and rushed. I would have happily read more about the protagonist's explorations of the time-haze and its ravaging effects. Perhaps this story is limited by the short story format; it leaves me wanting more.
While I enjoyed the eerie atmosphere, I wish that the ending didn't feel as inevitable and rushed. I would have happily read more about the protagonist's explorations of the time-haze and its ravaging effects. Perhaps this story is limited by the short story format; it leaves me wanting more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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March 8, 2022I have always been a sucker for stories in which clocks determine the progress of time, instead of just approximating it, and this does a considerably more structured take on the theme than the godawful attempt at a superhero epic I wrote when I was small. It's fairly obvious from the off where it's going to end, but then you could say the same of the tick and the tock – and as this story suggests, perhaps inspired by the last few years, sometimes there are worse things than predictability.
February 10, 2022
I like time travel stories, so I read this on Tor's site. It's kinda that, kinda not. It's a fable, with a moral, mostly. And some beautiful writing.
February 11, 2022
Tor.com short story online: https://www.tor.com/2022/02/09/the-ch...
Despite being able to predict the ending, I still enjoyed the story.
Despite being able to predict the ending, I still enjoyed the story.
February 15, 2022
i liked this but the ending felt really abrupt and rushed. still worth a read.
February 24, 2022
Enjoyed this story, did a great job of worldbuilding and explaining its premise. Be careful what life you wish for, lest it find you.
February 24, 2022
I enjoyed this dark tale. A child, full of hope, gets thrust into a job he wants to more about. A good lesson about consequences.
March 6, 2022
Okay story
April 11, 2022
I do like time-themed science fictions. But there is so much fluidity to the time and many variations of time-haze, time-wind, etc. that I got lost!
3 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️
3 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 10, 2022
Interesting premise, but a very predictable end.
June 13, 2022
loved the concept!
January 30, 2023
Read like a fairy tale
January 15, 2024
3.5 stars rounded up
Want to read
March 18, 2024to find later https://reactormag.com/the-chronologi...
January 1, 2026
Definitely a very neat and memorable story. A but predictable, but overall a good and unique take on time travel.
September 4, 2023
Ian MacLeod can really really write.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews