I’ve written a couple of “coming up” posts recently (Movie Musings and a Pseudo-Live Review) and this is another one because quite simply, what’s coming up deserves a special mention: a look at Mike Ricksecker’s
Travels Through Time: Inside the Fourth Dimension, Time Travel, and Stacked Time Theory.
This will be the first non-fiction book about time travel (and “stacked time theory” – what on Earth is that?) that I’ll have reviewed on this site – but when senior publicist Katie Schnack contacted me about it I jumped at the chance!
Katie sent a hard copy of Travels Through Time on its own travels from the US to me in the Netherlands. It took some time, but it was waiting for me on my doormat after my own spatial travel back home to the Netherlands from an end of the year trip to the UK. So now I get to spend my time with it!
Travels Through Time is the first book in Mike’s “Connecting the Universe” series. Connecting the Universe was originally going to be a book, and time travel just a part of it. After research, Mike realised that the Universe was bigger than a book, and that time travel – as well as the other planned chapters – were books in themselves. This is good news for us – we have more about time travel to read!
I can’t wait to get started! But meanwhile…
Flicking through for first impressions
A 12-page bibliography is testament to extensive research (yep, I started at the back, but back to the beginning…)
The Contents show there are 11 chapters (or “Cycles”) that cover, for example, Paradoxes, Time Slips and Real Time Travel – and also subjects that lie perhaps more off the beaten track like Dreams and Eternal Knowledge, Simulated Universe and (now expected…) Stacked Time Theory.
Time Reading will tell how these subjects are interconnected and how they will culminate into the possible misnomer of a “Final Cycle”.
And how is it to read?
I love the writing style!
Reading the Acknowledgments and Introduction is like my wife kissing my neck; it’s easy, conversational and studded with loads of familiar references. Mike’s writing style is smooth! It catches me and draws me along like a mountain stream teasing out a twig from the side of the bank and whisking me along in its current to…who knows where? And who cares yet? It’s the journey!
Feelings aside, and on a more practical note, the text is printed in a large, bold font (I need to mention this after my semi-rant about reading on e-readers where one advantage is increasing font size for us older readers. This paperback strikes back! 😉 )
Loads of photos, pictures, diagrams and headings break up the text. This makes the book easy to flick through, find a section that catches your eye and read. I’m wondering if this a ‘coffee table book’ to be read by butterfly eyes flitting chaotically from one flowery section to another. But to be honest, if I read it like that I’d be afraid of missing something out! (High chance – remember that extensive research? 😉 )
I’m going right in, whole hog – linear style! See you on the other side!
Paul
You might also like to visit or like time2timetravel on Facebook.
