The Society of Time (John Brunner)

28 February 2024

The Society of Time

Drifting through a party celebrating 400 years since the Spanish Armada's successful invasion of Britain, Don Miguel Navarro - Licentiate of the Society of Time - is shaken by the host's possession of a flawless mask from an ancient Aztec festival. 'Imported' from the past, the discovery signals a breach in the Society's policing of time-travel, and imminent danger to reality itself. Today, a relic out of time; tomorrow, the rewriting of the course of history? In three ground-breaking novellas, John Brunner weaves an ingenious tale of diverging timelines and a battle for dominance over the fourth dimension.

Average Rating:

Ross Hetherington (29 February 2024 22:46)

I picked this one, and while I love John Brunner, I didn't feel this was quite up to his usual quality - and that's leaving asside classics like Stand on Zanzibar. Only the last novella I really thought was up to this, and the second to last really was quite silly. I did like lots of aspects of how time travel was handled in the first three linked novellas, and also some of the ideas regarding the alternate history were well observed. They were pretty good taken by themselves.