Laying The Music To Rest

My reactions upon reading this book in 1990. Spoilers follow.

I liked this novel. It wasn’t, by any means, a great novel but certainly an intriguing, pleasant first novel. I liked the use of historical settings for the novel: the flooding of Roosevelt, Idaho and the sinking of the Titanic. I liked the bored, weary character of “Doc” Kellogg Jones. But what I liked best was the image of trapped, prisoners on the Titanic doomed to bodily repeat six hours for eternity while retaining continual conscious. Smith does a good job at hinting at the many implications of this.

The rest of the plot, the time travelers, seemingly alien artifacts, ghosts, were standard sf issue but combined in a pleasant, novel way. Smith leaves a lot of show more questions unanswered: exactly how does the spirit world of Gretchen fit in? (I did find the death of Alex to be a bit of a plot contrivance to reunite him with Gretchen and not to have to deal with his presence in a world eighty years changed.) Who are the Seeders? (Human? Alien?) Who are the various groups and what are their principles and goals? Will Marjorie Thiel and Doc get together? A sequel could be done, but Smith evidently never did. I liked the enigmas. The story feels complete and the mysteries natural given the first-person narrative structure. show less