Killing Time

I feel very fortunate to have borrowed this book from the library vice buying a copy. Reading this book wasted my time. The central idea, that an information society has special vulnerability to propaganda and manipulation by elites, strikes me as counter-factual and condescending. As sermon, this book failed to convince me.

As an adventure story, it failed to convince me. The idea of a secret elite with a high-technology airship manipulating the fate of the world's population lacks originality. (See Verne's Robur the Conqueror at Project Gutenberg.)

The book's ending relies on deus ex machina, and one that lies off-stage. It failed to convince me. In fact, the author relies on the very same mechanism for the ending that he condemns show more throughout the rest of the book: manipulation by an elite.

I can say only one positive thing about this book. I now know to avoid this author's work. show less

I happened upon this book at a library sale in October 2023. I read the first sentence of the blurb and thought, "yep, that tracks with 2023." So I bought it. And I'm glad I didn't pay full price for it, because the blurb was about the only thing that tracked with 2023. I like dystopian fiction in general, but this had too much conspiracy woo for my taste and seemed to rely too heavily on science-fiction type tech, even for something written 23 years before its setting. It was entertaining enough for one read, but not for a second read.

written in a (u/dys)topian literary style, which includes a typical banging of the ideologue drum. surprisingly perceptive, given that it was published in 2000, is talking about many of the things we deal with today - misinformation and dissemination of the "official story", privacy, corporate influences in politics, genetic engineering, pollution & climate change, water scarcity, even unmanned/ drone warfare. reads surprisingly quickly. nowhere near as shallow as reviews would have you believe. far from perfect, yet worth the read. full review coming later. deeply flawed in the way most literary dystopias are in that the tour of the conceived world takes precedence over plot.

I don't generally like historical mysteries or science fiction. Caleb Carr's first two books were historical mysteries and this one takes place in 2023 and I've enjoyed them all. His year 2023 is pretty credible and kind of interesting. The voice of the story, however, is nearly identical to the ones used in his historical novels which was kind of disconcerting. This one did not hold together quite as well as his other two, but it held me to the end.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/one-more-books-set-in-2023-killing-time-by-caleb...

Written in 2000, this novel forecasts that the year 2023 will have seen a global financial crisis in 2007, the USA at war with Afghanistan because of a terrorist attack, and the whole world recovering from the effects of a global pandemic. A shadowy group of people are undermining democratic political systems in the West by spreading false information and conspiracy theories on the Internet. Which all sounds pretty impressive in terms of foresight..

Unfortunately it’s just not a very good book. I have not read The Alienist by the same author, but I know it has been widely praised; here, the protagonist, a mild-mannered law professor and behavioral show more scientist, gets rescued from the Feds by the crew of an invisible airship, led by two siblings, the brother a stereotypical mad-scientist-in-a-wheelchair, the sister becoming our protagonist’s love interest. Infodump follows infodump and our hero eventually evades certain death to wander around central Africa, finishing up in 2024 where in a twist ending it turns out that time travel is possible and history can be altered. From online reviews I can see that most people don’t read that far into it. show less

No matter how much you liked The Alienist, avoid this book like the plague. This sucked more than Michael Crighton on a bad day. Seriously, one of the lamest, supposed thrillers I've ever read. If it had been 50 pages longer I probably wouldn't have finished it, but I suppose I was hoping it would improve somehow before the end. It never did.

A book that still has me wondering, a polemic look into the future where the issues are more important than the thriller aspects, a story of love and tragedy and near-future nastiness. Written before 9-11 but some of the points are quite poignant!