"My hunt had been nothing more than the human search for love. Only I had been afraid of finding it even while I was pursuing it. So I had made sure to create masks for all those I encountered, so that if I became attached to any of them, my attachment would be to the mask and not to the real being behind it. That way, if the person betrayed me, it did not matter, because I had never really known them anyway. There was no way the living person behind the mask could sink emotional hooks into my soul because it was to the mask I had committed myself. Those whom I feared I might love I gave unlovable masks. Only to those I was sure were unable to love me did I give masks that I could love. My heart broke apart with happiness and out of the broken pieces rose a strength that spread and towered in me like a genie let loose from a bottle. For the first time in years, I hurt; and, hurting, came back to life, whether I wanted to nor not."Time travel, quantum physics, multiple-universes, alien robots, lizard people, alcoholic man-apes, spear-wielding savages, errant transient phenomena, relationship drama, roving post-apocalyptic armies, dyson spheres, black holes, physical and philosophical transcendence... and any number of off-the-shelf Sci-Fi tropes crashing into each other; Dickson somehow makes it all work, without getting cynical.
EditI completely forgot to mention the dedication which I reproduce in full here To the LibrariansDuring the 1930's and 1940's anyone writing science fiction did so almost exclusively for magazines. Then in the early 1950's the magazine market began to die and paperback books took over. But the paperback books were on the stand one week and gone the next. By the time an author's newest book came out his older books had disappeared.As a result, during these later years, when the magazines were mo
Do You like book Time Storm (1992)?
I think this would make an excellent movie. In my opinion Gordon R Dickinson wasn't considered a top SF author among the greats, did decent work but perhaps not among the 'best' - until he 'broke out' and wrote Time Storm. Sometime I will have to re-read this and see if I can recover some of the feelings I got reading this book. I admired him for the one or two places where he didn't pull his punches on plot issues. I really enjoyed the adventure aspect of it, not only would make a great movie but perhaps a mmorpg.
—Jay
