{"id":1824,"date":"2011-05-09T01:53:08","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T22:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tentaclii.wordpress.com\/?p=1824"},"modified":"2022-04-24T17:47:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-24T17:47:07","slug":"time-machine-sequel-first-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/2011\/05\/09\/time-machine-sequel-first-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Machine sequel – first review"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just found what I feel is a deeply unfair and lackadaisical review<\/a> of The Time Machine: a sequel<\/em>, written by Richard A. Lupoff on SF Site<\/em>. It’s perfectly obvious he has hardly bothered to read the book. He gives a so-called summary of the plot that is a complete travesty. It’s just outright wrong in places, such as his claims that the sequel gets Weena “trapped in a walled city”. There are any number of SF subtleties, themes, repeating motifs and symbols, and plot twists in the book — and continuations from Wells’s original — that are simply not mentioned. Lupoff criticises only whatever garbled version of the plot his drastic skim-reading has managed to cobble together in his mind. <\/p>\n

He is also very misleading when saying that the extensive scholarly bibliography at the back of the book “barely scratches the surface” of general Wells criticism — but that’s a bizarre criticism because it simply wasn’t the aim to pick up on every aside and footnote on The Time Machine<\/em> in every work ever written on Wells. He fails to point out that the very comprehensive bibliography<\/a> (PDF online) is tightly focused only<\/em> on criticism that is clearly about The Time Machine<\/em> and its themes. In omitting to mention this, the reader of the review is deliberately given the impression that the bibliography is somehow skimpy. It isn’t.<\/p>\n

In the end it seems he’s not criticising the book, he’s just criticising the fact that he’s been made to glance at a book of an unfashionable type and write a hasty review on it. Probably he got a bit miffed when the Editor thrust a finely-crafted Victorian-style literary sequel under his nose. On this evidence, I’d say he’s become habituated to the sort of action-oriented ‘doorstopper’ SF novels, of the sort that can be read at speed and heavily skipped over. And I admit I do that myself, with Stephen Baxter and others. Publisher-driven padding of books has a lot to answer for. But there are some books that obviously demand a different and more literary type of closer and slower reading. The Time Machine: a sequel<\/em> is one of them. <\/p>\n

If there’s a consolation in the review, it’s that his summary of the plot simply isn’t the plot-spoiler he intended it to be — because he’s completely missed the key elements and revelations. Ho hum. Anyway… anyone fancy writing a real<\/em> review of it? I’ll happily send out copies.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I’ll do an audio book version of the book, so it can be appreciated word-for-word. Lovecraft certainly works excellently that way, because you can’t skip anything and thus get the full impact of the language and atmosphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just found what I feel is a deeply unfair and lackadaisical review of The Time Machine: a sequel, written …<\/p>\n

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