The Worst Book I Read This Year
Conrad's Time Machine by Leo Frankowski
Who, or what, is Conrad? That is only one question readers will be forgiven for asking while plowing through Leon Frankowski's Conrad's Time Machine. There is some general silliness here along with the occasional intriguing idea, but the story itself remains a meandering mess with a weird plot, even for science fiction and fantasy.
After all, it's one thing to allow your characters to create a time machine, but why name it after someone else? Want to know something even sillier? The cover art shows a dinosaur, yet there are no dinosaurs or similar creatures in the story.
Why?
Novelist Leo Frankowski, a one-time Campbell Award nominee for best new author, is best known for the Cross-Time Engineer series. Like others who dabble in the fanciful worlds of time travel, Frankowski often manages to toss in enough pseudo-science to baffle lay people while causing scientists to grit their teeth.
Conrad's Time Machine is written in a style very similar to the Callahan Saloon novels popularized by Heinlein disciple Spider Robinson. The story is much less philosophical than Robinson's Cheers-like group's forays into time travel, but Frankowski greedily grabs the more hedonistic side of Heinlein and Robinson. Both could write wicked and funny, but Frankowski seems to concentrate more on the zany side of time travel shenanigans. Like Robinson, Frankowski will sometimes attempt to explain paradox and other issues.
The Plot In Exactly 100 Words
Three buddies, with differing skills and interests, find themselves the recipients of a set of schematics that allow them to design their own time machine. The time rift that allows them to escape an explosion with the nearly undecipherable schematics intact is never explained, but the three embark upon a series of experiments to build a time machine. The story careens through a dizzying series of events that seem more the work of a juvenile fanzine author. The trio squabble, plot against each other and attempt to solve life's mysteries, all the while playing with unlimited sex and financial resources.What Works Well
Very little works well in Conrad's Time Machine. Typical readers will labor to determine what exactly is happening so there is some form of intellectual stimulation, but it is more of the "What the hel-" variety than the tantalizing brain twister.
What Doesn't Work As Well
Start with the plot, which has more holes than a brick of Swiss cheese. Continue to the cardboard characters, even the main characters, who all seem to be the offspring of a teenager writing to impress his friends with a mix of big words and sex, all the while lacking development or reasonable conflict. End the entire mess with a dash of time travel confusion to end up with the witches brew that is Conrad's Time Machine.
The Bottom Line, Dog Earred Pages and All
Why bother? Even fans of the Crosstime Engineer series, the stories successfully published before this prequel, will find enjoying this book difficult. Masochist that I am, I finished the book, but I was fed up before finishing the first third of the story.
Five Things To Remember From This Review
1. This is a prequel to the Crosstime Engineer series
2. Frankowski is an award-winning author - a good award too.
3. Many elements from Heinlein and Spider Robinson are present.
4. .but few are executed well.
5. If time travel and cardboard plots and characters are your thing, this is the book for you.
