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The Time Bender

by Keith Laumer

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Lafayette O'Leary (1)

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English (5)  Dutch (1)  All languages (6)
Showing 5 of 5
review of
Keith Laumer's The Time Bender
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 26, 2013

I'm starting off writing this review w/ listening to the music of Nicolas Flagellon on Serenus Recorded Editions. He's not a favorite composer but I like these obscure academic classical labels. Uh.. where was I? Oh, yeah, Keith Laumer, my new temporary favorite SF writer - a shordurpersav in SubG lingo. Of the previous 3 bks I read by Laumer, 2 were time travel stories & one was a parallel universe travel story so there's a commonality there that borders on gimmickry but I don't care, I like the stories.

Laumer's got a way w/ language: "penicillium notatum" is actually the Latin name for a particular fungus but I 'can't help' seeing it as a pun off of 'pencil notation' at the same time.

Was self-hypnosis all the rage in the 1960s? I just read John Brunner's great 1969 The Evil That Men Do that features it & now this: "He flipped open Schimmerkopf's book at random and skimmed the print-packed pages. The sections on mesmerism were routing stuff, but a passage on autohypnosis caught his eye". (p 7) The character starts off weak & banal until he, apparently, self-hypnotizes & ends up in another time-world wch he interprets as a dream-manifestation of his own unconscious: "Adoranne gasped. "You mean the infamous cutpurse and smuggler?" / ""He seemed to have some illegal ideas, all right. A reflection of the anarchist in me, I suppose." (p 51) One of the easiest ways for a writer to receive some critical jabs from me is for them to reference anarchy in a way that I think is inaccurate & unfair. Laumer teeters here but doesn't completely fall into the traps of cliché.

Cf "finishing off a cracker with sardines—the only rations, it appeared, that Nicodaeus kept handy." (p 84) to Laumer's The Great Time Machine Hoax: ""We got no venison. Plenty canned beans and stale crackers." (pp 108-109) Is there any personal experience in there w/ poverty? For me, it was canned mackerel & canned sardines. They were cheap, one cd open the cans w/ the provided key.

The Time Bender cd be sd to owe a bit of a debt to Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - wch I don't begrudge it. In Laumer's The Great Time Machine Hoax, the somewhat mediocre hero develops himself in a carefully detailed process. In The Time Bender, the somewhat mediocre hero displays astonishing & unlikely abilities when he's displaced from the environment we're introduced to him in. Under torture:

""How say you, starveling?" he called to O'Leary, "Do you tire of the game? Do red-hot knives of pain loosen your tongue?"

""I'm fine," O'Leary said blurrily. I like it here. It's restful."" - p 122

I reckon this is 'explained' later by some heredity-cleared-up. By p 135, some other explaining enters the heretofore confusion:

"O'Leary leaned forward to look at the badge. There was a large 7-8-6 engraved in its center on a stylized representation of what appeared to be an onion. Around the edge O'Leary spelled out:

"SUBINSPECTOR OF CONTINUA

"He frowned at the older man and lowered the ax reluctantly. "What does that mean?"" - p 135

I like writing these reviews where i barely address the plot & don't provide any easy spoilers. Let's just say that I didn't like this as much as Laumer's The Great Time Machine Hoax or The Monitors but I'm enjoying his writing so much these days that I'd recommend just about any of it. ( )
  tENTATIVELY | Apr 3, 2022 |
I'm generally a fan, but Lafayette is not my favorite series.
  librisissimo | Feb 5, 2021 |
So, I'm pretty late to the Laumer party. I finally got around to starting Retief and then this shot across my bow. How to describe? Wild. Chaotic. Imaginative - especially for 1966 (fantasy books were a little limited back then...) Seems I'll be splitting my diversionary fiction between the two for a while. I did wonder at the title...unrelated to the book, as it were, but regardless, this was still uh, rollicking, fun. ( )
  Razinha | Apr 6, 2019 |
The first time I read this was 27 years ago (I went through a dozen Keith Laumer titles back then). Feeling nostalgic again. This one is the first Lafayette O'Leary adventure (there are four). Lafayette is an aimless guy who suddenly finds himself transported to a quasi-medieval land called Artesia. In no time he gets himself in a sticky situation where he's framed for the abduction of a princess and trapped in a promise to slay the dragon controlled by a giant named Lod. Also, the court magician seems to be hiding some curious secrets. It's light stuff, very light actually but a quick trip down memory lane. The Lafayette O'Leary adventures have always stuck with me. I thought they were great back when I was a bored teen. The title really doesn't fit, though. ( )
1 vote woodge | Nov 20, 2009 |
The first in the series of the adventures of Layfayette O'leary who discovers how to travel between dimensions ( )
  szmytke | Apr 7, 2007 |
Showing 5 of 5
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» Add other authors (3 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Keith Laumerprimary authorall editionscalculated
Morrill, RowenaCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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