Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Simon & Schuster (1983), Edition: paperback / softback, 400 pages
Description
Joshua Kampa is torn between two worlds - the Early Pleistocene Africa of his dreams and the 20th-century reality of his waking life. These worlds are transposed when a government experiment sends him over a million years back in time. Here, John builds a new life as part of a tribe of protohumans. But the reality of early Africa is much more challenging than his fantasies. With the landscape, the species, and John himself evolving, he reaches a temporal crossroads where he must decide whether the past or the future will be his present.
User reviews
LibraryThing member LamontCranston
Intesting and quite satirical at times, the best parts were set in the Pleistocene while the contemporary setting could tend to drag somewhat.
LibraryThing member StigE
The main character and narrator drops out of school at 15, yet the narrative voice is that of an old anthropologist. The remaining characters are flat stereotypes. The science is the scifi is of the new age variety. I am not sure what the author tried to convey about bestiality, racism or
Show More
colonialism but sections of the book where the author touches on these topics made me feel acutely uncomfortable. Show Less
LibraryThing member antao
Nowadays I tend to re-read a lot of older SF, which conforms to my generally senescent fiction diet. Perhaps because a lot of the things I read in the different genres - mystery, horror, SF – originally appeared in magazines, I tend to have a preference for shorter works: stories, novellas or
Last week I re-read a novel from 1982, Michael Bishop’s “No Enemy But Time”, where the main SF trope is a time-travel / prehistoric fiction story in which the protagonist joins a band of early humans in Pleistocene Africa. The prehistoric story, which I found only moderately interesting, took up only half the book; every alternate chapter was given over to a mostly realistic Bildungsroman of the time traveler leading up to his involvement with the organization researching time travel. That narrative concerned itself mainly with describing the protagonist’s character development and his relationship with his family, the kinds of themes I associate more with literary fiction than with SF.
This time around, I didn’t care much for the sections developing the character and his relationships. Perhaps it’s just because Bishop wasn’t too skilled at this sort of writing, but I tend to avoid generic works with significant realistic “mainstream” elements. I don’t want to read a mystery that devotes lengthy sections to the detective’s rocky relationship with his girlfriend or a horror story that spends a lot of time on the divorced protagonist’s efforts to relate to his son (unless these somehow are essential to the development or resolution of the generic plot).
Show More
short novels.Last week I re-read a novel from 1982, Michael Bishop’s “No Enemy But Time”, where the main SF trope is a time-travel / prehistoric fiction story in which the protagonist joins a band of early humans in Pleistocene Africa. The prehistoric story, which I found only moderately interesting, took up only half the book; every alternate chapter was given over to a mostly realistic Bildungsroman of the time traveler leading up to his involvement with the organization researching time travel. That narrative concerned itself mainly with describing the protagonist’s character development and his relationship with his family, the kinds of themes I associate more with literary fiction than with SF.
This time around, I didn’t care much for the sections developing the character and his relationships. Perhaps it’s just because Bishop wasn’t too skilled at this sort of writing, but I tend to avoid generic works with significant realistic “mainstream” elements. I don’t want to read a mystery that devotes lengthy sections to the detective’s rocky relationship with his girlfriend or a horror story that spends a lot of time on the divorced protagonist’s efforts to relate to his son (unless these somehow are essential to the development or resolution of the generic plot).
Show Less
Awards
Nebula Award (Nominee — Novel — 1982)
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Finalist — 1983)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 1982)
Ditmar Award (Shortlist — 1983)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1982
Physical description
400 p.; 6.85 inches
ISBN
0722119453 / 9780722119457
Similar in this library
Jem by Frederik Pohl