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A Novel
by Felix J. Palma
Book Reviewed by:A skeptical H. G. Wells investigates time-travel mysteries including an aristocrat's love affair with a murdered prostitute from the past, a Victorian woman's escape to the future, and a plot to murder celebrated authors to steal their written works.
Set in Victorian London, with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H. G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence.
What happens if we change history? Félix J. Palma explores this question in The Map of Time, and he weaves a historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting, a story full of love and adventure that transports readers to a haunting Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.
Palma is clearly an accomplished storyteller - the novel's fast pacing, imaginative exploits, and unexpected twists and turns make each story a fascinating piece in its own right; combined, the work is both an utterly perfect summer read and an extended meditation on the permeability of time and the limitations of technology, as seen through the lens of the Victorian age. Palma's narrator is sophisticated, an amalgamation of Dickensian omniscience and the knowing wink of postmodernism...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
H. G. Wells is not only a prominent character in The Map of Time; he's also a famous novelist, sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction." Born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, a small town southeast of London, Herbert George Wells grew up quite poor but, after an incident in 1874 in which he broke his leg and was forced to rest in bed, became an avid reader, which, later grew into a passion for writing. He attended a small local private school from the age of seven but, due to his family's financial troubles, he left at the age of 14 to become an apprentice draper (a dealer in fabrics and sewing materials).
Three years later he was fired from the job and shortly thereafter earned a scholarship to the Normal School of Science ...
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If you liked The Map of Time, try these:
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
by Salman Rushdie
Published 2016
From Salman Rushdie, one of the great writers of our time, comes a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story. A lush, richly layered novel in which our world has been plunged into an age of unreason, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is a breathtaking achievement and an enduring testament to...
by Ali Smith
Published 2015
Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life's givens get given a second chance.
Cherie Priest, author of Boneshaker
The Map of Time is a singularly inventive, luscious story with a core of pure, unsettling weirdness. With unnerving grace and disturbing fantasy, it effortlessly straddles that impossible line between being decidedly familiar, and yet absolutely new.
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