Major Prudence Zuniga, native of the twenty-second century, has spent years in 1889 attempting to avert WWI. Convinced that most attempts to fix history though time travel have only made things worse, she has decided to change the past one last time to prevent time travel and the time wars. That's where Alice Payne, also known in 1788 as the highway robber The Holy Ghost, and her lover, the inventor Jane Hodgson, come in.
This is a lot of book in a hundred and sixty one page novella, by which I in no way mean that it's dense, only that it achieves an incredible economy of action and world building. In a way, I think it could have been a much larger book. I wouldn't consider the characters particularly well developed or complex yet, but I do believe I have a good, basic sense of who they are. If this book on its own were faithfully adapted as a movie, it wouldn't lose much and it could be a fantastic SF romp. And there's a sequel, Alice Payne Rides, scheduled for March, so presumably the rest of the story that might have been in this book will be unfolding in others.
Overall: B
This is a lot of book in a hundred and sixty one page novella, by which I in no way mean that it's dense, only that it achieves an incredible economy of action and world building. In a way, I think it could have been a much larger book. I wouldn't consider the characters particularly well developed or complex yet, but I do believe I have a good, basic sense of who they are. If this book on its own were faithfully adapted as a movie, it wouldn't lose much and it could be a fantastic SF romp. And there's a sequel, Alice Payne Rides, scheduled for March, so presumably the rest of the story that might have been in this book will be unfolding in others.
Overall: B
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