Product Description

Customer Reviews (12)

Towards a more compassionate humanity, and a more peaceful world
What you need to know about Kathleen Ann Goonan's IN WAR TIMES is the following: It's not an action/adventure and it's not military SF. It's a book of ideas and moods; it's not going to get your heart racing. The central characters are engineers and scientists, some of whom also happen to be jazz musicians and anti-war visionaries. It's not a polemic directed against Bush/Cheney and their supporters, like Ken MacLeod's THE EXECUTION CHANNEL. More than half of the book takes place during World War II, and the global horrors of that war were clearly more of an inspiration than America's ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The historical detail is heavy, and the book's pace is slow. Still, it's not so much an alternate history tale as much as it is a parallel universes tale.

What you need to know about Kathleen Ann Goonan is the following: She's talented, thoughtful, and one of the most humanistic writers currently in the SF field. Her QUEEN CITY JAZZ was one of the best and most exciting books of the nanotech fiction boom of the early 1990s. This book, however, is much closer in content and spirit to her 1996 novel THE BONES OF TIME. In her humanism and in her unhurried narratives, she reminds me of Maureen F. McHugh, and in her fluid writing style and intellectual seriousness, she reminds me of Robert Charles Wilson. On the minus side, I've never finished one of her books without feeling that it didn't quite deliver on its initial promise, but that's not something peculiar to Goonan.

A note on politics: Although IN WAR TIMES is not a politically partisan book, its vision is liberal-to-social democratic. Conservatives are unlikely to concede that a world in which the state ensures that everyone's basic needs are met is better than this one, and Leftists are unlikely to accept that a bigger supply of human compassion will overcome the conflicting interests that lead to violence and civil and foreign wars. Most readers, however, will be able to put their own political convictions aside and take what the book has to offer.

jazz and alternate realities
I enjoyed this story very much. I appreciated the character development. This an interesting mix of theoretical physics, jazz and alternate realities set in the late 1930's to late 1960's. Having just read The New Time Travelers I really enjoyed how Goonan incorporated theoretical physics into the story. This is on a level with Brin and Benford, but the story is more accessible as are the characters.

Though Provoking
Its been months since I've read this, but just the other day this story popped back into my head. Its very interesting and different. From the mysterious machine, the physics of cyclotrons, and alternate dimensions... The part where the main character's best buddy is lost to another dimension, and then when they find the ability to see each other again is heartwarming. And Jazz... there are jazz references throughout this book, and the main character is a Jazz aficionado. The Jazz also plays a role in explaining the working of the mysterious machine that creates the alternate dimension, the dimension where war is past, and scientific advances abound, the alternate dimension that is not central to the plot of this book.

Not to my taste, but brilliant writing
I'm too dumb for this book. In War Times is a no-doubt brilliant work of literary alternate history and science fiction, but it's not really to my taste. In philosophy, modernism generally denotes an orderly, functional structure. Postmodernism is an emphasis on function over form -- the idea that how you tell the story doesn't matter so much as the message itself.

In War Times tackles the difficult subject of telling a story of merging and diverging timelines by using postmodernist techniques that leave a reader in doubt whether something being described is really happening, just imagination, or something else entirely. It's probably easily decipherable to a mind more plastic than mine, but I like my stories straightforward and easily understood. It's simply a matter of personal preference, not any lack of skill on the behalf of the author, which makes me hesitate to give this book five stars.

Goonan, a Nebula and Clarke Award finalist, details a brilliantly illustrated story of a man and his friends struggling to grapple with a seemingly miraculous quantum computer that allows interaction across alternate timelines. The primary character, Sam Dance, is introduced to the first version of this machine by a mysterious woman named Elani Hadnitz, who gives him the plans for the device. Dance's name and his hobby -- playing Jazz -- are both symbols of his eventual dance across divergent timelines, and similar symbolism abounds throughout the story.

Dance is a soldier, and through the course of the Second World War, he is shown almost every portion of the war -- from the concentration camps to the atomic bomb -- by Hadnitz, whose machinations seem to be guiding Dance toward using the device to alter humanity's history for the better. Any summary of the book's plot by me will be inadequate. There are so many subplots and different threads pointing out from Dance's story that it's impossible for me to write about them in a clear way. Let it be said simply that the story is incredibly well rounded and provides remarkable detail in less than 350 pages.

The first half of the book doesn't deal as much with alternate history -- at least on a surface level. Subsequent readings reveal bits of detail hinting at future portions of the plot. Eventually, however, Dance is separated from his best friend by diverging timelines created by the device. In Dance's history -- ours -- Dance's best friend is killed in Berlin. In another, the friend lives on in a world as close to a liberal, technocratic utopia as can be imagined. The two converse on occasion, through a bit of plot device, and the friend encourages Dance to use the almost-magical device planned by Hadnitz to change history.

Dance falls in love, raises a family, and most of his story seems to be the stereotypical story of a WWII veteran who returns home from Europe. Toward the end of the book, however, the story veers back and comes to a climax when one of Dance's grown children uses the device to travel through time to the Kennedy assassination in order to change history and create a more comfortable alternate.

There aren't many literary approaches to alternate history, and if that's what you're looking for as a reader, this is probably the best example available. There's comparatively little physical action when compared with other alternate history novels that deal with war and combat. Though this story also deals with such a subject, it deals with it on the level of an individual rather than a grand strategic level.

I disagreed slightly with the portrayal of the "utopian" timeline pictured in the story, which seems to be entirely technocratic, and no government institutions are portrayed in any sort of flattering light. These two factors and a conspiracy approach to the Kennedy assassination were jarring notes, but they didn't detract too much from the overall brilliance of the writing. I recommend this book to alternate history and SF fans who like a literary bent to their reading and don't require action to enjoy a book. Other readers may not enjoy this book.

Trying to alter history while stumbling around in the dark
At the outbreak of World War II, Sam Dance's mysterious physics teacher gives him detailed instructions for building a "quantum machine" that can affect human behavior and possibly change the course of history.The next day, he finds out that his brother has been killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.This event sets his resolve to work on this device that may change the timeline and allow him to alter reality.

Throughout his WWII experiences he and his friend Wink try to build the device in their spare time, sometimes secretly receiving updated instructions.Their first finished device doesn't seem to do anything, but they continue in their attempts to make a better one.After the war, Sam begins to notice some curious anomalies.

This book was well-written, the characters likeable, and many scenes interesting, but I wasn't really able to really get into it or find it a page-turner.The characters seemed a little distant.I believe this might be because they have no agency - they are not controlling the flow of the story but reacting, having no idea whether their device will work and what it should do.When it appears changes may finally be occurring, they are still in the dark and so is the reader (one could argue that this is at least realistic - what character could get their head around everything?).History is finally presented as having nexus points at which it may be altered, but I found the choice of event the book focused on at the end to be a bit predictable.
... Read more

Product Description
The journey of Verity across the wonderfully altered landscape of mid-America began in Queen City Jazz: "A dizzying novel that takes full advantage of the creative potential of nanotech," said The New York Times. Now it continues down the river in Mississippi Blues. Verity takes the wildest cast of characters since Philip José Farmer's Riverworld, both living and resurrected, down the river to possible salvation in New Orleans and beyond in a great SF epic.
Amazon.com Review
Mississippi Blues is a uniquely twisted vision of apostapocalyptic future in which nanotechnology is just the most recentrung humanity has climbed in its techno-evolution. Goonan's storyfeatures a wild ride down the Mississippi to "Norleans," propelled bya nanoplague that may or may not be humanity's saving grace. Ourheroine Verity rescues a motley group from metapheromonal slavery inCincinnati, and they set off on boats and rafts to an uncertain utopiaat the end of the river. On the way, they encounter everything fromwhirlpools to religious zealots to a terrifying little town that wouldbe best described as the bastard child of Las Vegas andWestworld. It's a swirling, existentialist voyage with a meanderingsoul; weak in structure but strong in concept, with an ending thatsmacks of sequels to come. --Jhana Bach ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A good read, but...
Mississippi Blues builds upon the world and characters in Queen City Jazz.Although the plot lags in places, overall the book unfolds with exactly the kind of upbeat pessimism good blues music is famous for.It's not TheBones of Time, but still a very satisfying read.

Slow start, but worth the wait.
How many times have you wished you could change other people's minds?Imagine that power being within reach of any determined individual or group -- philosophies and core beliefs and even whole identities spreading(literally) as viruses.Now imagine that this has been going on forhundreds of years.This is a book that dares to think big, and to answerits own questions with unflinching candor.And there's action, too!

Goonan's best, an epic played out intimate scale
The epic proportions and pacing of this book are only gradually revealed to the reader. It begins as an adventure quest; the cast and their mysterious histories accrete and generate a story with much gravity. Several running themes are carried: free will as a gamble, the power of music, the cruelty of slavery and Otherness in general. Heroics tend towards healing and guiding rather than fighting. A loose, disorganized quality to the characters, jerky narrative flow and occasional pedantic tone prevented my fuller enjoyment of the book. It's more focused and substantial, however than her earlier books--all in all, a good read. ... Read more

Product Description
In Verity's world, nanotech plagues decimated the population after an initial renaissance of utopian nanotech cities. Growing up on an isolated farm, her happy life changes course when Blaze, the only young man in the community and Verity's best friend, is shot. With Blaze's body wrapped in a nanotech cocoon, Verity sets off on a quest to the Enlivened City of Cincinnati. It is a place of legend, where huge bio-engineered bees carry information through the streets and enormous nanotech flowers burst from the tops of strange buildings. It is the place where Blaze might be brought back from the brink of death. But Cincinnati is a city of dreams turned into nightmares, endlessly reliving the fantasies of its creator, a city that Verity must rule-or die. Queen City Jazz was a New York Times Notable Book of 1994. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Super Reader
Bee an art lover.


One serious problem with this book, it reads like a padded chunk of a series, and apparently this is a series.It is very, very slow.

Runaway type technology has changed a lot of things, and the protagonist of the piece lives in a paranoid type of religious community trying to stay uninvolved.

Needless to say, she has to get out of there, and heads for Cincinnati for a painstakingly dragged out revelation or two.Cincinnati presumably is nicknamed the Queen City.

Not interesting enough to want to read several more books.

What the ???
The beginning was great, the new Quakers, the society they built, the alluded to technological improvements that man had somehow lost control of, the fear of reproduction, the inexplicably menacing Bees and the way those with the "plague" (some sort of human conversion through automated DNA manipulation) were driven to make the journey to New Orleans - it was just what a great sci-fi, post-apocalypse book should be like ...

Then Verity (main character) goes to Cincinnati or "the City" and everything becomes an incomprehensible mess. There is no suspense, no meaningful characters or plot and you cease caring about Verity completely (who gets totally lost in literally a hundred pages of random technologies and dream sequences narrated in meaningless techno-jargon babble). Goonan's occasional attempts to bring the story back to its roots are far too few and weak.

This is one of maybe 3 books in my entire life I was unable to finish - at about half way through it began to feel more like a chore than a pleasure to read. Too bad, cause I am always looking for good sci-fi by women or about women... unfortunately this isn't it.

Very Confused
This story line was so confused, I doubt even the author knew what was really going on.I suspect that the plotline changed in the author's head several times during the writing process.By the end of the book I just no longer cared what happened to anyone in the story.I just wanted it to be over.My suggestion to the author - write an outline BEFORE you write the book.

Organic intelligence
Some things really do change. The ecology movement of the seventies expressed itself in commercials, school filmstrips and short science films that portrayed the killing effect of uncontrolled technology. Mountains scooped out by loud, diesel smoke-spewing machines; rivers covered in detergent foam and rotted fish; urban deserts of trash, rusting car chassis and bed springs; streets slimed with oil spots; beaches covered with tar and dead, blackened birds.

Much of this hell has been redeemed. Cities have cleaner air. Rivers and lakes have been saved from death. The Clark Fork River here in Missoula shows few signs of the car metal and trash that lined its banks only two decades ago. Nevertheless, the large-scale trend continues. American lakes and rivers may be recovering, and its cities' air more breathable, but worldwide the effects of uncontrolled technology are worse than ever. The deterioration of the ozone layer, and the accumulation of greenhouse gases goes on - global phenomena that national borders do not constrain.

Science fiction has functioned like the ecology movement, but instead of showing us what is, it shows us what might be if we continue on the way we are going. Reading "Queen City Jazz" by Kathleen Ann Goonan, ten years after its publication, I say to myself, "Well, things have changed, and this nightmare of nano-technology seems just that - a nightmare, an unreality that we have woken from, in part due to the book itself, and all efforts and communications like it that have steered us from the disasters depicted in their messages." The overarching tendency unfortunately remains. We don't hear much alarm regarding nano-technology currently, but genetic engineering and its "dreams" of cloning and tissue- and organ-production wiggle and waver on the edges of our sleeping, and stand front and center in our waking.

Kathleen Ann Goonan blends together experiences bequeathed to us by the ecology movement - a land much cleansed of the plagues of industrial technology - with the fevered dreams and unbalanced waking of a biologically and genetically based technological sickness.

The Ohio River and its tributaries with their earthen banks figure beautifully in the story. In the first chapter Goonan presents the land strong and good, and the central human character, Verity, the same.

-She trod water for a minute...feeling the cool, pure pull of the depths of the river, wondering what it would be like to dive deep and never come up, but flow along the bottom in long, powerful surges and never take air again, but breathe only lovely, cool green water.-

In the last chapter, the land and river live and abide:

-Looking west, Verity could see where the rivers wove back into one...Everything looked so hazy, so wonderful. The Territory, pristine and bright, lay ahead of them, beckoning.-

In this story, Verity brings the substance, the reality and life, spontaneity and plain obstinate earthiness, to a city diseased but not dying - a city caught in a torturous cycle that uses the natural seasons only as a trigger for its own numbingly predictable cycle of nano-technologically engineered processes. The city is Cincinnati, "enlivened" a few decades previous. "Enlivening" is a controlled process authorized and directed by city governments using the new technology of nano-engineering. This technology involves the "building" of materials and end products from "within", rather than from "without". Instead of taking natural resources and shaping and forming something by external processes and tools - shaping sand and rock into bricks and steel into buildings using blueprints, moulds, hammers, rulers - nano-technology involves manipulating cellular- and molecular-level processes that carry out new instructions for growth. We humans can plant a seed that grows into a building; regenerate limbs or grow new and different ones; and biologically transfer information.

At the start of the separate sections of the story, Goonan quotes Eric Drexler from his book "Engines of Creation," the primer and manifesto of nano-technology.

-The technology underlying cell repair systems will allow people to change their bodies in ways that range from the trivial to the amazing to the bizarre. Such changes have few obvious limits. Some people may shed human form as a caterpillar transforms itself to take to the air; others may bring plain humanity to a new perfection. Some people will simply cure their warts, ignore the new butterflies, and go fishing. -

If Drexler sees that nano-technology has "few obvious limits," though, Goonan gives us glasses to treat our pathological myopia. What she sees in our blind spot is fantastic, bizarre, hellish. One wonders how Drexler could be so blind as to equate possibility with limitlessness. The foresight that sees limits in every choice we make is a function of imagination, not intellect. Nature, according to any philosophy, is at some level an image, and imagination and nature are deeply akin. So in "Queen City Jazz," Goonan shows how the river and the light of the sun on the clouds, the cold of a winter snowstorm, the "lovely, cool green water" washes away the mud from our eyes, and we can see again.

Goonan's writing is superb, her story credible, if at times complicated and confusing. She gets into the minds of those who think that possibility is the same as freedom, who think that if we can do something, we should try doing it, instead of realizing that if thinking can take us as far as formulating the possibility, it should be required to take us beyond to formulating the consequences. If the land - the deep flowing rivers and the wind and trees - can hold out against human-induced plague, though, the land will have a much greater chance if humans make choices to constrain themselves. Goonan takes us through the winding recesses of both the land and the human intellect and imagination, showing us the beauty in it all, but also the malleability of both, for better or worse.

A Slog
This book [is bad]. Tedious, and nothing happens. ... Read more

Product Description
This is how it begins...

As cities become organisms, a new generation of profoundly different humans comes of age and hope dawns in Crescent City, and Goonan directs the show with artistic flair. Crescent City Rhapsody is confusing and delightful, a swoony harmony of words swirling around crisply melodic ideas. --Therese Littleton ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Entralling and mentally engaging
I'm mystified that people thought this book was too long, not based in reality enough (hello?? science FICTION, anyone??) to be plausible.

Personally I felt that it paced well, engaged my mind and provided both characters and story that were not only sympathetic and interesting but at the same time compelling.

Is Ms. Goonan's vision of the future realistic enough?Is it based on too many wild assumptions and implausibilities?I don't know.What I do know is that it raised interesting philosophical issues around mankind's rampant charge into unknown technologies and the possibility of not only technological disaster, but of the social and policitical ramifications of such events.

If you're looking for a primer to science, this is likely not it.If you're looking for an interesting human story in a plot based on scientific possibility, this might be for you.

One caveat to this review is that I didn't realize it was the third in a series of four books, so I've started with this book--I don't bring any baggage or pre-knowledge to the book from the other books in this series.

Its highly likely that I'll go back and read the rest of the series.

A gifted and promising writer.
Crescent City Rhapsody envisions a world transformed by nanotechnology and art.This intriguing novel explores many of the sins of the moderns age--child prostitutes in Asia, clandestine government operations, sexism, agism and the legacy of slavery.

The various protagonists of the story suffer in various degrees from some aspect of modern culture.Their talents allow them to contribute to the changes brought about by the breakdown of old technology caused by interference from extraterrestrials.The new technology transforms both cities and individuals.

This was an enjoyable read.The first half of the book was more compelling as our heroes struggled with the breakdown of culture and the resulting change.The second half as things were starting to come together was not as interesting but I definitely wanted to know what happened at the end.

Technological Dark Fantasy, not SF
For those who are looking for a good tale of hard SF, I would advise you look elsewhere.Much of the science in this book is, at best, half-baked.Pivotal points in the plotline which involve nanotechnology run amok (the old and busted gray goo scenario) are simply glossed over.The technologically informed reader who decides to pick up this book is left with two choices: suspend any and all disbelief, or stop reading.

A good SF book involves making the fantastic plausible.Authors usually make one fantastic assumption (i.e. time travel is possible) and extrapolate what might happen after that.This particular author made multiple assumptions (any single one would have made a good SF book) and tried to brew up a single great story.For this reader, she failed.

For those who do not consider themselves fans of hard SF, there are still problems with this book.The plot is badly fractured, and has absolutely NO resolution.Every character is in some way damaged goods, and the author dwells upon this for the entire book.In the end I felt no compassion for any of the main characters, who seemed to wallow in self-pity.

Are there any positives to this book?Yes.The author seems to be skilled in describing environments.That is the only reason I gave this book two stars.

Never has a plot been more poorly developed
OK, where to begin?The ONLY reason this tale merits more than one star is the tremendous idea on which the book is based and the arrangement of material into symphonic movements. The tale: An alien energy pulse (EMP) knocks out sophisticated electronic systems, all governments go bonkers and a woman in New Orleans has a plan to save the world.What follows is an unmitigated disaster on almost every element - characterization, plotting, authenticity, social comment, science...you name it.

There is enough here for three books:Voodoo, globetrotting,New Age nonsense, dire environmental warnings, unconvincing characters, nanotechnology, biotechnology (two fields the author continually crossbreeds) and space travel.And that doesn't include the UN military force (a la black helicopter) or the socio-economic comments that sound like Daffy Duck attempting Mandarin.

The sheer number of stories prevent any of them from standing out. The evil government forces are never seen, heard from nor given a chance to explain their actions.Marie (our erstwhile heroine) is attempting to set up a new type of human society, Crescent City, somewhere in the Gulf that will operate "without a government" according to bio/nano technology - as if these fields contained moral truths for humanity. The author seems clueless about the real world and of course the action is totally illogical and improbable.

Let's see:A Tibetan learns the secret of the messages, cities secede from the United States, the future revolves around nanotechnology, jazz, New Age tripe and a "mixture of socialism and capitalism." My pet peeve (and not just here despite the breakdown of society, the return of barter and barbarism, and the presence of conflicts,science and scientific advances continue unabated. That is NOT the way the world works. THis is just so pathetic. We start a slow slide reaching the nadir on the last page.Not Recommended unless trapped in an elevator.

Interesting ideas and style
I love the meticulous way in which Goonan describes her world.I also love the way she cuts back and forth between characters, showing how the "Silence" affects different people in different situations.This requires the reader to do more thinking and analyzing, and perhaps this turned some other readers off.

It is true that the speculative science is not all explained in detail, but there is a strong implication that this will be resolved in later books (or earlier?This is my first Goonan book).The parts that are explained are those that the characters understand, which is eminently reasonable.

(possible spoiler)
The one problem I had with the book was the extreme reaction of the U.S. government at the beginning of the "Silence," but this is actually explained towards the end of the book.I haven't decided if I like this part or not, but at least it was explained. ... Read more

Product Description
A young Hawaiian mathematician discovers the secrets of time travel and alternative universes in the preserved bones of the great Hawaiian king, Kamehameha. By the author of Queen City Jazz. Reprint. LJ. Amazon.com Review
Early in the next century, the Interspace company, in chargeof humanity's first-generation starship, has been given extraordinarypowers. Cen, a descendant of Hawaiian shaman-priests and amathematical genius, finds out as an adolescent how ruthless they arein their preparedness to exploit human weakness and brilliance, yet hesells his work to them to gain the leisure to pursue his ownplans--the conquest of time and the saving of the long-dead princesswhom he meets and loves in moments of vision. A decade later, Lynn, ageneticist renegade from Interspace's ruling dynasty, rescues fromassassination Akamu, a clone of Hawaii's legendary unifier, and findsherself, like Cen before her, manipulated by Interspace's Hawaiiannationalist foes. She and Akamu are pursued from Hawaii to Hong Kongand into the uplands of Tibet.

Bristling with intrigue and ideasabout Buddhism, worm holes, celestial navigation, and quantum theoriesof intelligence, Goonan's new novel is touching on love and familiesand a grueling switchback ride for the intellect. Her first novel,Queen CityJazz, was impressive in its dreamy portrayal of a worldaltered by nano-technology; this radical change of place remakes thenear-future techno-thriller as a set of passionately conceived ethicalquandaries. --Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Doesn't work!
This book has good intentions, yet it's pure nonsense.There's just too much complete garbage to take it seriously.

1)You would never base the world's only space port in Hawaii - on Oahu!Oahu gets very strong earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes.It's not sunny all the time, the clouds move in frequently and obscure the sky, shutting down the entire space operations.Oahu isn't very flat either and you wouldn't have the space to put the long landing strips necessary.Have you ever taken off from Honolulu airport?You look like you're about to fall into the water, yet you don't - barely.I love my home, but it's a lousy place to stick a space port.

2)The daughter and shareholder of the world's largest genetic corporation just happens to go jogging and just happens to have a random miscarriage just outside the house of a boy who is a clone of King Kamehameha.Riiiight.A whole week later she just happens to realize his life is in danger and just happens to show up right before the bomb goes off.Then he just happens to go with her - because people who would take the time to illegally clone the King wouldn't bother to take care of him or anything.Sure.Uh huh.

3)The entire miscarriage itself.I've had one.I have friends who've had one.It's like a bad period.Cramps, relatively normal yet heavy flow.It warrants an ultrasound at your doctors office, not a 911 call and a hospital stay.Rare, unusual complications?Maybe, but the book mentions none.

4)She gets shot and is "kill on sight" in China, so they decide to go deeper into China because Tibet is... "pretty."What?This book has a lot of long, wandering history.It even told us that China stopped being communist in 2002 (really? only 6yrs after the book was writen?no it didn't!), yet it never said how or when Tibet stopped being Chinese, since Hong Kong still is in the book.Besides, you don't go through China to get away from China.You go to India or Japan or Indonesia.Elsewhere.


I find it entirely impossible to trust the premise of the book when the details are so ridiculous.How am I supposed to get into cloned Kamehameha's and time travel and genetic manipulation/evolution if I can't trust the author to know what the hell she's talking about.Which I don't.I found her expositions on that subject narrow minded and simplistic.

Boring
This book should have been a short story. I picked it up sight unseen, based on the strength of her short fiction. The first major red flag was that the book was covered with praise for her previous book but there was nothing about this book on the jacket.No blurbs, no teaser, nothing. About a third of the way into the book it was clear why.This book is over-written, confusing, and boring.A disappointment.

Once you find out what the theme of this book is...
...please tell me."The Bones of Time" jumps back and forth between two plotlines.In one, a teen genius named Cen does brilliant mathematical work while carrying on a PG-13 relationship with a Hawaiian Princess who died a century before he was born (and they say tragic romance is dead!), while in the other a Japanese scientist and a clone flee from mysterious pursuit and try to acquire some of Chairman Mao's DNA.This book mentions a lot of scientific hypotheses.There's the idea that consciousness has a special metaphysical quality in our universe, which is somehow tied to a storyline about a gigantic spaceship being built in Hawaii.There's mention of potentially deadly nanotechnology, and efforts to analyze and duplicate the past's great leaders through their genes, and...But what is the meaning of all this?What consequences does it have for the human race?Goonan only touches lightly on those questions, with the big ramifications left unexplored.

Besides that, the book just plain lacks style.Particularly in the second storyline, where the characters flee all over southeast Asia while keeping one step sinister agents, it's all just way too boring.Been there, done that, let's move on please.

Barely kept my interest
I thought Bones of Time would be either really good or really bad.It turned out to be less than mediocre.It took me weeks to read it, sometimes I read another book at the same time and switched between them.It wasn't a time travel book although it sounded like it could be from the back cover; it was flash backs to an earlier time.There was just enough to hold my interest, wondering how it would end, to finish it.The ending was strange.

It made me feel bad to read how the United States finagled to get Hawaii from the Hawaiian rule.It reminded me of how the Indians were mistreated when their land was taken.However, although this subject was thrown in often throughout the book, it wasn't part of the plot.

Although it was interesting to read about locations on Oahu or the Big Island where I've been and get the author's concept of what they could be like in the future, it wasn't enough to reprieve the book.I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone, and it's going into my stack for trade-in at the local used bookstore.

Terrific!
This story touched so many areas for me.The story is well woven, with well-rounded and believable characters. ... Read more

Product Description

Once the world worked differently -- before "the Silence" from space quieted the airwaves.

Once there was a haven called Crescent City, built through the wonders of nanotechnology to transport its enlightened inhabitants into the cosmos. But humanity has failed the city.

Dania Cooper, a brilliant scientist and resilient survivor, and Jason Peabody, a recipient of the DNA-altering virus affecting a remarkable few who were born at the Silence's onset, must now flee the sentient metropolis -- embarking on a bizarre odyssey across a perilous, unrecognizable landscape of tragically "youngening" children, of plague-ravaged humans in foreboding "flower cities," of conscious machines and talking animals. For a world that is not as it was is on the brink of yet another astonishing transformation -- either by grand design or random cosmic accident.

Customer Reviews (3)

An exciting writer with new ideas
I agree with what the other reviewers have said.Both the one saying that the ideas are near genuis and the one saying that the book is a difficult read. This is part three or four of an amazingly ambitious work.It was the book I happened upon first.Now that I've read Mississippi Blues, I feel sure this book will make more sense and I intend to go back and read it again.I don't suggest beginning with this book - but I do suggest reading it. I'm not that taken with Marie, but I loved the character Zeb.I guess I identify more with a crazy scientist than with a voodoo princess. Actually, I think I could go the rest of my life without reading any more about voodoo.But I did enjoy the New Orleans setting.Few writers would dare tackle a work this sweeping in scope. In fact, it boggles my mind how ANYONE could tackle such a huge work (other than possibly Vernon Vinge).But I'm glad she did.

Way too long---
This book starts off with great promise, but then simply goes on and on and ----.The whole light/energy/music concept is done to DEATH and as I reached page 300, I just couldn't stand it any more.This is one of an extremely small number of books that I literally chose to close and never reopen.I simply didn't give a damn what happened to anyone in it, and that is a great indicator of poor writing at worst, poor editing, at least.The characters are interesting when you are first introduced to them, but then they go nowhere as the book progresses.Each character can be counted on to behave exactly as he/she did from their introduction.I read The Bones of Time a while ago, and I seem to remember that it too became tough to get through as it reached its last hundred pages.Goonan apparently needs to learn how to "cut to the chase" when it comes to plot development and resolution.I would not recommend this book unless you have a bunch of time to kill on a long flight, and can hack reading basically about the same thing stated a few different ways for almost four hundred pages.

cutting edge of literature
In the latter part of the twenty-first century, nanotechnology is about to take man into the next evolutionary leap.Then continuous, mysterious, and unstoppable signals from space created The Silence, a state where radios, television and the net were inoperable.Crescent City was created in the Caribbean Sea, a sentient life form meant to be a repository of all human knowledge.

Crescent City will one day turn itself into a space ship but before that could happen, pirates attack and destroy the coordinates needed to take the ship to it's proper destination.Jason Peabody and Dania leave Crescent City for Johnson Space Station in Houston where they can retrieve the coordinates the city so desperately needs.Their journey through a world altered by nanotechnology and decimated by plague is the stuff of legends.

On one level, a person has to be a super genius to understand all the scientific concepts put forth in LIGHT MUSIC.On the other hand, if the readers are willing to let their imaginations flow freely, they will enjoy a fascinating story line populated with characters that are all too human despite their genetic differences.Kathleen Ann Goonan is a writer on the cutting edge of literature.

Harriet Klausner ... Read more

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Word count: 1107. ... Read more

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Chapters: Maria Montessori, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Helma Trass, Jane Chabria. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician, educator, philosopher, humanitarian and devout Catholic; she is best known for her philosophy and the Montessori method of education of children from birth to adolescence. Her educational method is in use today in a number of public as well as private schools throughout the world. Maria Montessori was born in 1870 in Chiaravalle (Ancona), Italy to Alessandro Montessori, and Renilde Stoppani (niece of Antonio Stoppani). At the age of thirteen she attended an all-boy technical school in preparation for her dreams of becoming an engineer. Montessori was the first woman to graduate from the University of Rome La Sapienza Medical School, becoming the first female doctor in Italy. She was a member of the University's Psychiatric Clinic and became intrigued with trying to educate the "special needs" or "unhappy little ones" and the "uneducatable" in Rome. In 1896, she gave a lecture at the Educational Congress in Torino about the training of the disabled. The Italian Minister of Education was in attendance, and was impressed by her arguments sufficiently to appoint her the same year as director of the Scuola Ortofrenica, an institution devoted to the care and education of the mentally retarded. She accepted, in order to put her theories to proof. Her first notable success was to have several of her 8 year old students apply to take the State examinations for reading and writing. The "defective" children not only passed, but had above-average scores, an achievement described as "the first Montessori miracle." Montessori's response to their success was "if mentally disabled ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=6793630 ... Read more

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Includes: Novella - Shady Grove by Allen M. Steel. Novelette - The Fear Gun by Judith Berman. Short Stories - Dinosaur Songs by Kathleen Ann Goonan; Daily Reports by Robert Reed; Forest for the Trees by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Gwendolyn is Happy to Serve You by Eliot Fintushel. Poetry - Dark Gourmet by Bruce Boston; The Rape of the Toyota by Cathy Tacinelli. Reflections: Toward a Theory of Story: Three by Robert Silverberg. etc. ... Read more