Subject: END OF AN ERA by Robert J. Sawyer

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper)
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 02:57:50 GMT

END OF AN ERA by Robert J. Sawyer
              Ace, ISBN 0-441-00114-9, 1994, 222pp, $4.99
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Sawyer did a lot of research on dinosaurs for his "Far-Seer"
series, and apparently decided that it would be a pity not to make
maximum use of it.  So he's written a time-travel novel in which the
protagonists travel back to the late Cretaceous to find out what really
killed off the dinosaurs.  The fact that it just happens that the wife
of one of the two time travelers left him for the other one, who used
to be the first one's best friend, indicates that the plotting is not
what one might call minimalist.  And what they find when they go back
is even less likely.  I know science fiction requires a willing
suspension of disbelief, but there's also a rule of allowing only one
divergence from reality.  Unfortunately, this piles several together.
It's true that what Sawyer postulates does explain what killed the
dinosaurs (and some other stuff besides), but it's so convoluted an
explanation that it's not at all satisfying.

%A   Sawyer, Robert J. 
%T   End of an Era
%I   Ace
%C   New York
%D   December 1994
%G   ISBN 0-441-00114-9
%P   222pp
%O   pb, $4.99

--
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
There's always an easy solution to every human problem -
neat, plausible, and wrong. -- H.L. Mencken