1973 - Year in SF&F: Reviews

THE WONDER TIMELINE: SF&F RETROSPECTIVE Read other issues here ---------------------------------------------- Barrington J. Bayley "Collision Course" (nv) (also as "Collision With Chronos") © DAW Books, 1973 Allison & Busby, 1973 --/ third place time sf novel --/ wonder award --/ idea award: separate time streams --/ style award --/ awesome scale --/ adventure award Very intricate, and in many ways ground-breaking novel. It starts with a "Philip K. Dick" kind of an idea of the alien ruins becoming younger and moving backward in time on a collision course with reality. It gets even better, as another "space colony" culture is introduced, and witnesses time/spatial cataclysms when this stray stupendous time entity (for that is what it is, it even could be a sentient time being !) broadsides it a little, and meshes up time and minds of everybody involved. (the scene of time-stream collision/intrusion on a space station holds the honor to be one of the most wild in SF). The novel lags in places, and might need an infusion of extra-emotion, but generally speaking it has loads of invention and that "wide-eyed sense-of-wonder" review: 10-Jul-06 (read in 2006) ---------------------------------------------- Gardner R. Dozois "Chains of the Sea" © Chains of the Sea, ed. R.Silverberg, 1973 The Visible Man, 1977 --novella : 1974 Hugo --novella : 1974 Nebula --novella : 1974 Locus /5 --novella : 1974 Jupiter --/ second place sf novella --/ wonder award --/ idea award --/ emotion award --/ style award A masterpiece of masterpieces. Incredibly well-written science fiction; in short, "science fiction like it is supposed to be". Bravo! (my only complaint is that it ends too soon). ---------------------------------------------- Return to the Wonder Timeline

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