[WHI]∎ [PDF] The Map of Time A Novel The Map of Time Trilogy Félix J Palma Books

The Map of Time A Novel The Map of Time Trilogy Félix J Palma Books

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The Map of Time A Novel The Map of Time Trilogy Félix J Palma Books

Tell me a story. But don't delay the story with endless details about how the characters came to their current state; that information can be inferred over the course of current events. Current events = a story, yet apparently this fact is lost on author Felix J. Palma as he slugs through 600+ pages of meandering backstory that is the endless mess THE MAP OF TIME.

Pick a character. Any character. Palma enthusiastically gives you dozens of pages of backstory, a device that so diminishes the effect of his rather clever tale of time travel. Andrew Harrington. His father and uncle. Author H.G. Wells. Gilliam Murray. Claire Haggerty. Tom Blunt. Inspector Garrett. Each character is introduced and then diluted with endless backstory that is as uninteresting as it is ineffective; it thoroughly upsets the pace and timing of the story centering around the murder of a Whitechapel prostitute by Jack the Ripper in the late 19th Century of London--and whether time travel can be employed to prevent said murder. That Palma can sacrifice such a premise on the threshold of limitless backstory is disappointing to the extreme.

Palma is a gifted writer with a razor wit and keen eye for detail; yet he always wants to take the reader back to go through layer after layer of each character's life--as uninteresting as it may be. If I want to learn about H. G. Wells' childhood I can get the data in a biography--not a novel about time travel. Such is the plight of THE MAP OF TIME. What a disappointment.
--D. Mikels, Esq.


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The Map of Time A Novel The Map of Time Trilogy Félix J Palma Books Reviews

Admittedly, I was a little nervous going into this one - it's quite the hefty tome and those can drone on and become boring very easily since plottier books tend to be faster paced and much, much thinner. But I was drawn in by the writing, captivated even, and found I could not put this down... page after page kept flipping by and you could not pry this book out of my hands for anything!

Yes, this was intricate. There were three distinctive sub plots that fused into the main plot and despite my immense of enjoyment and serious problems with setting it down for the night, this wasn't a light read by any stretch, nor is it your typical best selling steampunk/mystery novel. It does take patience with your attention span in places, only because the plot is so finely crafted there were instances where it became not exactly hard to follow, but you do have to give this book your fullest concentration. It's not a beach read, that is for sure. But the writer is a GENIUS, and not simply for the story line. The characters I found to be vividly real, you will think of them well after this book is closed for the final time. The writing is absolutely superb - the prose is so beautiful yet it's an easy read for all it flows so well. Not that it didn't have its flaws, but they were so minor and this is just such a remarkable book, all around, that I was left incoherent after finishing it.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Some might say that I shouldn't review this book because I did not finish it. I think the fact that I didn't finish it is a review in and of itself. The book starts as a young man selects which of his father's many guns he will use to commit suicide. Unfortunately, neither the prose nor the plot nor the characterization made me care. So many other reviewers note the quality of Felix Palma's writing, but I'm afraid I found it routine and unexceptional at best. Without skilled writing, the book had to fall back on its characters and plot - neither of which I found compelling.

A couple of years ago, I read 550 pages of Elizabeth Kostova's 720-page The Historian--carried along by Kostava's masterful writing--before I realized that the plot was dull and the characters simply uninteresting. At least I saw the writing on the wall in The Map of Time at the 50-page mark. All in all, the book wasn't horrible, it just wasn't good, and at more than 700 pages there are many better books with which I can spend my time.
Overall, I thought this book was spectacular. This is a long, heavy book, not for light reading, but no less brilliant for its length. The one vice I found, was that the author takes time to speak to the reader. Although it isn't an unusual tactic, and in some books it is even necessary, in a book written with an omniscient narrator I don't feel the dialogue between narrator and reader added anything… Because he only interrupted the flow to remind the reader that he knew everything… Which the reader already knew due to the story being written in third person. Although I should note the interruptions were comical enough that they didn't detract anything either.

Book One was by far my favorite of the collection. It sucks you right into the story by introducing a main character who is determined to kill himself, but refuses to give up the answer to why he wants to die without any sort of brevity. Then the author begins to weave in his recurring themes, Time travel, the mysteries of the human brain and heart, Jack the ripper, and time as an ideology…

Book Two was probably my least favorite, simply because of the naivety Victorian Era women were taught to possess. The main heroine, Clair thinks she is least naïve of all but that belief turns false. I can't really relate to her -- I am by no means a feminist, but I think anyone can agree, that women have changed over the decades-- but I can understand her co-character Tom… Everyone at some point has a moment where they want something out of reach, where they dream to be better, to be loved…

Book Three made me smile despite the violent imagery. HG Wells, “the father of science fiction” who was merely a player in books 1 & 2 is cast in a leading role. And despite all the speculation of “guardian of time” between the three stories, I feel he is the only character who doesn't receive an epiphany, but the reader is allowed to feel what he cannot… That if there is a guardian of time, HG Wells may be that guardian…even if he’ll never know it. The one thing I didn't like about Book 3 was that character Gilliam Murray talks too much...In books 1 and 2 his narration is needed to explain things...and while I understand he is the villain recounting his master plan to his arch nemesis...it probably could have been shortened.
Tell me a story. But don't delay the story with endless details about how the characters came to their current state; that information can be inferred over the course of current events. Current events = a story, yet apparently this fact is lost on author Felix J. Palma as he slugs through 600+ pages of meandering backstory that is the endless mess THE MAP OF TIME.

Pick a character. Any character. Palma enthusiastically gives you dozens of pages of backstory, a device that so diminishes the effect of his rather clever tale of time travel. Andrew Harrington. His father and uncle. Author H.G. Wells. Gilliam Murray. Claire Haggerty. Tom Blunt. Inspector Garrett. Each character is introduced and then diluted with endless backstory that is as uninteresting as it is ineffective; it thoroughly upsets the pace and timing of the story centering around the murder of a Whitechapel prostitute by Jack the Ripper in the late 19th Century of London--and whether time travel can be employed to prevent said murder. That Palma can sacrifice such a premise on the threshold of limitless backstory is disappointing to the extreme.

Palma is a gifted writer with a razor wit and keen eye for detail; yet he always wants to take the reader back to go through layer after layer of each character's life--as uninteresting as it may be. If I want to learn about H. G. Wells' childhood I can get the data in a biography--not a novel about time travel. Such is the plight of THE MAP OF TIME. What a disappointment.
--D. Mikels, Esq.