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skjam's review
3.0
Does anyone really read these before buying old books?
Anyhow, this is another fine Ace Double, with two lesser works by A. Bertram Chandler. They happen to share the notion of travel to an alternate universe, but are otherwise unconnected.
"The Coils of Time" is set in a relatively near future when humanity has explored the Solar System, but not yet discarded the notion of Playboy Bunnies. Venus is a hellhole (though not quite as much as in the real world) which makes it ideal for scientific experiments too dangerous to be near civilization. One of the scientists at the remote station thinks he's developed a time machine, but the results are anomalous. Plants and animals survive the round trip, but cameras and film fail to function. So he needs a human time traveler.
Wilkinson, a temporarily grounded spacer, is wary of the opportunity until he discovers that one of the test objects has a human fingerprint on it...a print that just happens to exactly match that of his dead girlfriend! The plot then follows Wilkinson and what he finds on the other side of the portal.
It's a fun ride, but Wilkinson is a pinball protagonist, who simply bounces from one incident to the next without any real effect on events. Also, the ending is rather abrupt, as thought the author had realized he was out of pages and just decided to stop right there. Some readers may find the early Sixties sexism annoying.
"Into the Alternate Universe" is set in a much more distant future, with humanity having settled all the way out to the Galactic Rim. It seems that out in the Rim Worlds, reality runs just a bit thin, and under certain circumstances one can see glimpses into alternate timelines. One ship even managed to cross over into same accidentally (the incident sounds like it occurred in a book I haven't read, but none of the characters overlap.) If one could find a way to get across the spacetime barrier deliberately *and get back*, well, that would be full of possibilities.
So beautiful scientist Sonja Verrill and Space Commodore John Grimes come up with a plan and assemble a slightly wacky crew to bring it about.
It doesn't quite work, and the ship Faraway Quest is stranded in a Sargasso Sea of space-time. What follows is like one of those episodes of Star Trek where the ship is in danger from technobabble, and they need better technobabble to get them out. There is a very brief visit to an alternate universe at the end, just to justify the title, but by that time returning to the starting point is more urgent.
The subtitle suggests there are further stories about the semi-retired space dog Grimes, who is an interesting enough character that it might be worth looking more up.
Both stories also involve using alternate universes to find a replacement for a dead loved one--they come to very different conclusions. While the romance subplot in "Universe" is as shallow as is usual for SF of the time period, it rings more true than "Coils"' does.
For more science fiction reviews, see http://www.skjam.com/tag/science-fiction/
Anyhow, this is another fine Ace Double, with two lesser works by A. Bertram Chandler. They happen to share the notion of travel to an alternate universe, but are otherwise unconnected.
"The Coils of Time" is set in a relatively near future when humanity has explored the Solar System, but not yet discarded the notion of Playboy Bunnies. Venus is a hellhole (though not quite as much as in the real world) which makes it ideal for scientific experiments too dangerous to be near civilization. One of the scientists at the remote station thinks he's developed a time machine, but the results are anomalous. Plants and animals survive the round trip, but cameras and film fail to function. So he needs a human time traveler.
Wilkinson, a temporarily grounded spacer, is wary of the opportunity until he discovers that one of the test objects has a human fingerprint on it...a print that just happens to exactly match that of his dead girlfriend! The plot then follows Wilkinson and what he finds on the other side of the portal.
It's a fun ride, but Wilkinson is a pinball protagonist, who simply bounces from one incident to the next without any real effect on events. Also, the ending is rather abrupt, as thought the author had realized he was out of pages and just decided to stop right there. Some readers may find the early Sixties sexism annoying.
"Into the Alternate Universe" is set in a much more distant future, with humanity having settled all the way out to the Galactic Rim. It seems that out in the Rim Worlds, reality runs just a bit thin, and under certain circumstances one can see glimpses into alternate timelines. One ship even managed to cross over into same accidentally (the incident sounds like it occurred in a book I haven't read, but none of the characters overlap.) If one could find a way to get across the spacetime barrier deliberately *and get back*, well, that would be full of possibilities.
So beautiful scientist Sonja Verrill and Space Commodore John Grimes come up with a plan and assemble a slightly wacky crew to bring it about.
It doesn't quite work, and the ship Faraway Quest is stranded in a Sargasso Sea of space-time. What follows is like one of those episodes of Star Trek where the ship is in danger from technobabble, and they need better technobabble to get them out. There is a very brief visit to an alternate universe at the end, just to justify the title, but by that time returning to the starting point is more urgent.
The subtitle suggests there are further stories about the semi-retired space dog Grimes, who is an interesting enough character that it might be worth looking more up.
Both stories also involve using alternate universes to find a replacement for a dead loved one--they come to very different conclusions. While the romance subplot in "Universe" is as shallow as is usual for SF of the time period, it rings more true than "Coils"' does.
For more science fiction reviews, see http://www.skjam.com/tag/science-fiction/
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