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The Time Roads, by Beth Bernobich
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From Beth Bernobich, the critically acclaimed author of the River of Souls trilogy, comes The Time Roads, a fantastical 19th century alternate historical steampunk romp.
Éire is one of the most powerful empires in the world. The Anglian Dependencies are a dusty backwater filled with resentful colonial subjects, Europe is a disjointed mess, and many look to Éire for stability and peace. In a series of braided stories, Beth Bernobich has created a tale about the brilliant Éireann scientists who have already bent the laws of nature for Man's benefit. And who now are striving to conquer the nature of time.
- Sales Rank: #2223024 in Books
- Published on: 2014-10-14
- Released on: 2014-10-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.22" h x .84" w x 5.43" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Review
"Bernobich ("River of Souls" series) subtly blends these interlocking stories so skillfully the true impact is felt only after the last page is turned." --Library Journal
"Different and cunning, The Time Roads serves up history too magical, too thoughtful, and too explosive to be dubbed merely 'alternate.'" --Cherie Priest, author of The Clockwork Century series
"A young Irish queen grits her teeth and digs in to deal with manifold problems of state, alternate history, time travel, and love. This one is breathtakingly original. --Gene Wolfe
"Bernobich's book of braided stories is a refreshing, deeply emotional and fascinating offering that deserves to be savored from beginning to end." --RT Book Reviews
About the Author
Beth Bernobich is the author of three novels in her River of Souls series. The first novel, PASSION PLAY, earned her a coveted Romantic Times Book Award for Best Epic Fantasy in 2010 and Publishers Weekly called the second book, QUEEN'S HUNT, "A masterful story of romance, honor, suspense, with plenty of history, geography, and mythology thrown in for good measure." Bernobich lives with her husband and son in Connecticut.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Don't Let Confusion Stop You From Finishing
By J. Jones
The Time Roads is a difficult book to categorize. I settled on Alternate History as the setting is around the 1900’s and some things are familiar. Other things are not at all familiar. Eire is the ruling island in this time line and science has gone in a different direction adding a touch of steampunk.
I am glad I read The Time Roads but I found it to be weak in several areas. The story follows several characters on a journey that takes many, many years. I found the world building a little lacking and the switch from following one characters to another confusing. That confusion was also there as the time line progressed. I don’t want to add a spoiler so just let me say if you get too confused just keep reading it will all come together by the end of the book.
As the blurb says this is a group of braided stories that interact but still leave a lot unsaid. The discovery of the time roads is part of each. If you like books with an unusual concept and a different take on history and time travel this is the book for you. I found I liked it much better after I finished and had time for everything to settle into place.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
intricate structure, execution fell flat
By B. Capossere
Often times I want to tell an author, “You had me at structure.” Give me an atypical form—something eschewing the usual A to B to C linear plotline—and you’ve charmed me from the get-go. For instance, the linked short story form. I first fell in love with it a long, long time ago when I picked up Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven, and since that time the genre has given me a lot of reading joy: Dubliners, The Things They Carried, Winesburg Ohio, Go Down Moses, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Cloud Atlas, and the list goes on. So it was with a lot of eagerness that I picked up Beth Bernobich’s The Time Roads, a collection of four braided short stories with shared characters and setting, all dealing with the impact of time travel. As I said, she had me at structure. Unfortunately, she lost me at execution, though not always, and not fully. In the end, the whole I think was better than the sum of its parts and thus worth a read, but it’s a close call and were you to ask me another day I might say otherwise.
The core setting for the novel in story form is an alternate history where Ireland (Eire) is a sprawling empire, with the Anglian Dependencies submissive to the Empire but restless. Europe, meanwhile, is a squabbling collection of states, including Prussia, Austria, the Balkans, the Turkish states, and so forth. The setting is roughly between the cusp of the 20th Century to early 1914 (no coincidence this is the year of our World War One). The stories focus on the young Queen of Eire, Aine Lasairiona Devereaux; her spymaster/guard Aidrean O’ Deaghaidh; a pair of brilliant sibling mathematicians—Siomon and Gwen Madoc; and a handful of advisers, dissidents, and scientists. The cycle is made up of four stories, briefly summarized below.
“The Golden Octopus” (1897): Aine comes suddenly and unexpectedly to the throne just as the world is beginning to feel tremors of political unrest. As she tries to keep a firm grip on the Empire, both abroad and at home, she also sponsors a fervent young scientist who believes he is on the verge of creating a time machine. Even as he works on his invention though, someone begins killing the country’s bright young mathematics students and Aidrean O’ Deaghaidh is set to investigate the horrific murders.
“A Flight of Numbers Fantastique Strange” (1902): Siomon Madoc is a young mathematics student whose sister Gwen, once his partner, is in a sanitorium undergoing treatment for madness (she has been saying nothing but a string of prime numbers for some time now). When his fellow students start being murdered one by one, Siomon comes under the watchful eye of Aidrean, who has been sent to investigate the murders. Siomon, though, is sure the solution lies somewhere in his and his sister’s work on the relationship between numbers and time, and that his sister’s strange litany is part of the answer.
“Ars Memoriae” (1904): Aidrean O’ Deaghaidh has spent some time in the sanitorium and is still seeing a psychiatrist now because he is tormented by phantom recollections of a past that seemingly never was, as when he meets one of the Queen’s advisor’s and remembers the man’s grief over the murder of his daughter—a murder Aidrean remembers being tasked to investigate—though now the lord talks happily of how successful his daughter has been ever since she graduated from the university with her degree in mathematics. Despite his affliction (which has improved), Aidrean has been reinstated to his commander rank and is sent by Aine to the kingdom of Montenegro to learn what he can of plots against the Empire. As he learns more, however, he begins to wonder if the worst enemies are without or within the Court.
“The Time Roads” (1914): Political unrest in Europe has worsened, even as the “Anglian problem” has turned violent, with the Dependencies demanding more autonomy from Eire. Assassination attempts, a horrific new weapon, and home-grown and outside-entity conspiracies, find Eire on the brink of potential destruction that would usher in a world-wide conflagration. With Aidrean’s help, Aine seeks a path to a different future.
The structure of the cycle, no surprise, is one of its strengths. Perhaps the strength. While there is a broad center to this collection—the Eire setting, the main characters, the troubles in and outside the Empire—that center is reborn with each new story, something having occurred due to the “time fractures” as they’re called so that the events of the prior story either never happened or happened in some changed form (for instance, a Lord’s daughter killed in one story is alive and well in the next). I loved tracing those threads of what stayed the same, what never happened, and what happened in modified form. It made for some stimulating, attentive reading, and I always enjoy this kind of web of linkages form. “A Flight of Numbers” is particularly disjointed in this fashion and it was by far my favorite of the stories, the most compelling and most atmospheric.
That was the good. The bad fell into the execution of the other aspects: characterization, pace, and plot. None of these characters really stood out for me. Aine was a pretty idealized young monarch and her romantic feelings just didn’t click with me—feeling far too rushed and shallow. Aidrean was a bit bland, and considering the role he plays that’s a real blow the reader. Other characters are pretty stock and forgettable; I can’t say I really cared all that much what happened to anyone in the book, from minor to major characters. The first person narration didn’t help here, as too much of the characterization was told to us from within, a relatively dull method in comparison especially to the unusual structure.
The pacing has issues throughout for me. It seemed to me there was little differentiation of what to share and not share, what to focus on and what not to focus on. Tiny details of setting or clothing would take up an equal amount of time to major plot/action events; it felt like everything was given equal weight despite not being of anywhere near equal importance. I confess this was driving me crazy by the end of the book. And while I’m all for a politics-centered book, I needed a bit more context for what was happening here. Names just get tossed around with no sense of distinction or power: Prussia, Russia, Turkey, Alba, Montenegro, Serbia. Clearly we’re working with a Great Power analogue here, but once you’ve put me in an alternate history where England is subservient to an Irish Empire, I need a bit more to go on—is everything else the exact same? Am I supposed to read Prussia as Prussia as we know it, but not Ireland as our Ireland and England and our England? Certainly anyone not particularly well-versed in WWI will have even worse of a time, or simply shrug and say—“these guys must be bad . . . “—which is a hardly a victory for an author. Finally, the ending was a bit too neat for me, but I obviously don’t want to go into the details as to why.
So overall The Time Roads was a disappointing read. I said in my intro it is still a worthy read, that the whole of its effect is greater than the details of its parts, and while that latter part is definitely true, I’m not wholly sure about the first. It’s possible my ingrained bias toward the short story cycle form is winning me over more than it should and thus blinding me to the full impact of the book’s shortcomings. I’m almost sure that had this plot, these characters, and this style been presented in “normal” novel structure, I be rating it a 2 or 2.5. But you know, structure. I’m a sucker. 3.0
(originally appeared on fantasyliterature.com)
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Fans of Smart Steampunk Will Love The Time Roads
By LJMiles
If you could change the present—or the past? Would you do it? There’s more at stake in The Time Roads by Beth Bernobich than just simply fixing the present—or preventing a dark future. Often, the roads of time tell intimate and personal tales of tragic defeats and sacrifices, or small and private victories that prevent a dark future from coming to pass. The Time Roads tells the story of the fictional land of Éire who wishes to solidify its presence in the world through technological (and political) advances. Enter a bevy of characters interested in studying the passage (and manipulation) of time in order to meet both their own and their country’s demands.
For me, this story started very strong. We’re introduced to a young woman on the cusp of becoming a queen, both trying to navigate the complicated words of politics and personal relationships. I loved reading about Áine. She was a strong woman who is forced to make some tough decisions—and sacrifice personal relationships in the name of her country. Later in the story, we’re introduced to several other point of views, some of which will have you second guessing the characters (and yourself), trying to determine what has happened and what remains only in the minds of the characters as a past that never came to be.
I think the strength of this novel lies in the expert descriptions of the world and the intrigue. It’s very easy to get caught up in the overall story and be able to visualize yourself in this complex and detailed world. Even with the Victorian elements mixed with steampunk, it never felt forced or unbelievable—really, it felt like this is the past that should have happened, or very well could have. Blended with the political intrigue and danger and it made for an often tense and thrilling read.
I see a tremendous amount of potential in Bernobich’s writing. She has a fantastic eye for detail and a remarkable gift for making her world feel fully realized. That being said, I think the storytelling would have been stronger had it focused on less characters. Sometimes, as they say, more is less and here I think that perfectly sums up most of the issues that I had with the story. As the perspectives jumped several times, it was a little confusing to follow (especially with blended timelines, or timelines disappearing) and something that I think would have worked a bit better in a longer novel. As the novel progressed, it was harder for me to maintain a connection with characters that I either didn’t know much about, or only knew about vaguely through other characters. It definitely would have heightened the overall story had it been focused on one or two point of views, but I can see why the author used multiple viewpoints as I believe the main focus was really the time travel, and how that affects the individual people of this world—and not so much the characterization.
Overall, I think there’s a great balance of romance, mystery, adventure, and political scheming, so I believe this would definitely appeal to anyone who is looking for smart, Victorian-style, steampunk. I will be excited to see what Bernobich comes up with next because I think it will only get better from this point.
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