Time's Eye (novel)
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| Author | Arthur C. Clarke Stephen Baxter |
|---|---|
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Series | A Time Odyssey |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Voyager |
| Released | 3 Mar 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 392 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-00-713846-6 |
| Followed by | Sunstorm |
Time's Eye is a 2003 science fiction novel co-written by Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Stephen Baxter. It is the first book in "A Time Odyssey" series. The next book in the series is Sunstorm.
[edit] Plot summary
The book starts out with two hominids, Seeker and Grasper, who are somewhere in the evolutionary chain between humans and monkeys. Seeker, the mother, was examining a strange metallic floating orb when Grasper, her daughter, was captured by two British scouts. The scout then grabbed Grasper and took both “man-apes” back to the fort.
The fort was from the year 1885 and there was a deployment of British troops there to keep peace and order in Northern India, which was part of the British Empire. At the fort there was also a metallic floating orb, and while the troops were examining it, a ball of metal crashed a few hundred yards outside the fort. They rushed toward the crash site.
The crash was caused by a local villager shooting an RPG at the helicopter. The helicopter, which was called The Little Bird, was from the year 2037 and its crew was peacekeepers from the UN. They were supposed to keep peace in the area, but apparently the locals didn’t like them too much.
Private Batson arrived at the scene and along with a few soldiers helped get Casey, the pilot of The Little Bird, out of the helicopter. Casey’s legs were crushed in the crash. After they got him out, Captain Batson took Casey, Bisesa Dutt, and Abdikadir to see Grove who was the commander of the troops at the fort.
Bisesa and Abdikadir met Grove and explained to him what had happened to them. After talking for several hours both party realized and accepted the fact that they and the man-apes were from different time periods. Both parties had lost signals to the outside world several hours before the crash and they hypothesized that that must have been when the “time-slip” happened. At the fort Bisesa became fast friends with Josh and Ruddy, who were British reporters. Josh was infatuated with Bisesa and Bisesa was ecstatic at being able to meet the famous Ruddy Kipling, a man who would make great changes in the world later on in his life.
While all of this was happening on the ground, up in space Musa and Kolya, two Russian cosmonauts, and Sable, an American astronaut, were having trouble returning to Earth. They were about to return to Earth when they lost contact with ground control and the city lights on Earth went out. They took pictures of the Earth and sent them to Abdikadir, who then hypothesized that the Earth was now made of a conglomerate of different time periods from 2 million years ago to 2037. After learning that and realizing that most human civilizations were gone, the cosmonauts decided to reenter earth’s atmosphere on their own. They saw some light from a lot of camp fires in Central Asia and decide to land there hoping the people there would help them.
When they landed Musa got his head chopped off by a Mongolian warrior, while Sable and Kolya were put on a cart heading east. They had arrived in Central Asia when the Mongols were at the height of their power. They were taken to Genghis Khan, who kept them alive because he thought they were from heaven. Genghis Khan lived in a city made of thousands of tents and controlled a large army. Yeh-lu, who was his advisor, and Kolya worked together to plan out what they should do with the army. They decided that Genghis should take his army into China to rebuild the trading posts and towns that were lost in the time slip. However, Sable disagreed with them and believed that they should take the army to Babylon. Babylon was the only place on earth, other than Abdikadir’s radio, that was sending radio signals and Sable believed that it was where the power of this new world lies. To Yeh-lu and Kolya’s dismay Sable was able to convince Genghis to go to Babylon.
While all of this was happening in Mongolia, in Northern India Bisesa encountered the army of Alexander the Great. Together Bisesa, Batson, Josh, and Ruddy were able to convince him to go to the British fort. At the fort the British and the Macedonians became friends and decided that they should go to Babylon. Alexander wanted his new capital there and Bisesa wanted to examine the source of the radio signal.
Alexander’s army beat Genghis’ army to the city and began exploring it. They saw that the western side of the city was destroyed by a nuclear bomb while the eastern side was filled with temples and ziggurats. In the city, they found a large orb in The Temple of Marduk. The orb was the source of the radio signal and was much larger than the other orbs they had saw.
Suddenly Casey received a radio transmission from Kolya telling him that the Mongolians were heading to Babylon and that they should prepare themselves. Casey immediately told Alexander and Alexander prepared his army for the battle. Sable caught Kolya doing this treacherous act, and Genghis punished him by pouring molten silver into his eyes and ears. He then put Kolya in a covered pit under his tent to slowly die.
At the battle the Mongolians were slaughtered by Alexander’s force, because Alexander’s force had firearms from the British. Right when the Mongolians retreated, Sable rode in with a hundred Mongolians heading toward The Temple of Marduk. Ruddy ran in to stop her and was shot dead. Then Bisesa went in, tricked Sable to look away, grabbed the gun, and shot Sable. Meanwhile, as the Mongolian army began attacking again, after the British had run out of ammunition, Kolya exploded explosive bolts he'd kept from their spacecraft beneath Gengis Khan, killing him,and since the death of a Mongolian ruler always results in everyone having to come back and witness the heir take the leadership, the Mongolian army was called back.
Alexander’s army had won the battle, and Babylon was now his to shape as he wanted. The Macedonians, British, and moderns spent the next five years rebuilding the city and forming a new life, while Bisesa spent her time studying the Marduk orb. Casey and Abdikadir were worried for her and took her on an expedition exploring the new Mediterranean Sea. After the expedition she told them that the Marduk orb has agreed to take her home, back to her own time, and that she was going to go. Josh who was in love with her asked her to take him along with her and with much hesitation she agreed. They left in the morning and for some reason the orb took her and Josh to a large crater caused by a nuclear blast. After that another orb appeared and took her back to her apartment where her daughter was waiting for her. The orb had intended to leave Josh in the crater but, at Bisesa's request, it took him back to the Marduk orb.
| Books by Stephen Baxter (edit) |
|---|
| Xeelee Sequence: Raft - Timelike Infinity - Flux - Ring - Vacuum Diagrams - Reality Dust - Riding the Rock |
| Destiny's Children Series: Coalescent - Exultant - Transcendent - Resplendent |
| Manifold Trilogy: Time - Space - Origin - Phase Space |
| The Mammoth Trilogy: Silverhair - Longtusk - Icebones |
| A Time Odyssey Series: Time's Eye - Sunstorm - Firstborn |
| The Web Series: Gulliverzone - Webcrash |
| Time's Tapestry Series: Emperor - Conqueror |
| NASA Trilogy: Voyage - Titan - Moonseed |
| Others: Anti-Ice - The Time Ships - The Light of Other Days - Traces - Evolution |
| Non-fiction: Deep Future - Omegatropic - Ages in Chaos |
