‘The Time Engine’ – Sean McMullen (Tor Books)

It was the cover that persuaded me to pick ‘The Time Engine’ up and give it a go. Was this science fiction or fantasy? Was the cover art going for an ‘ironically cool eighties retro vibe’ or was this a book that was genuinely full of huge dragons and scantily clad characters. There’s only one way to answer questions like this so I settled down for a couple of days ‘commuter reading’.
Having finished ‘The Time Engine’ I can tell you that it is a mixture of science fiction and fantasy. I’m still not sure about the cover art though; if anyone from America is reading this right now, can you tell me how many genre books in the States have artwork like this?
‘The Time Engine’ is a funny and entertaining read though...

‘On the very last day of the year 3144 I vanished out of my life, such as it was. I admit that this does sound like death, but I am also alive. The problem is that I am now immortal.’

So begins ‘The Time Engine’, the tale of Wayfarer Inspector Danolarian who goes from having a quiet pint in his local hostelry (‘The Mermaid’s Slipper’) to be being a reluctant time traveller through the past and future of his country Alberin. With only a talking cat (Constable Wallas) for company, Danolarian travels into a future where breach of etiquette is the highest crime. He also finds himself in the past and on the run from five thousand psychopathic naked horsemen and a trip even further into the past reveals an idyllic land where the inhabitants keep a secret that even they don’t know. None of this appears to matter when Danolarian faces a revelation about the nature of time travel itself that puts a new perspective on everything and leaves him with only one option as an officer of the law...

‘The Time Engine’ is the fourth book in McMullen’s ‘Moonworlds Saga’ but the nature of the story itself (as well as plenty of references to events in previous books) means that the book can be read on it’s own quite easily. You may end up wanting to go back and check the others out as well though if ‘The Time Engine’ is anything to go by. The book isn’t without its faults but I had a great time going through the story and it succeeded in its aim of making me laugh out loud on more than one occasion.

Danolarian’s city state of Alberin is very much generically fantasy based at first glance with a hard bitten (yet genially corrupt) city watch, murky inns where unlawful business is conducted and shape shifting dragons that wander the streets. Alberin has recently beaten back an alien invasion however and the introduction of a time machine helps the book straddle the boundary between fantasy and science fiction.

With this established we can get on with the story and it’s a generally fast paced tale that hops backwards and forwards through different times and dimensions. McMullen shows the reader how his world looked at various points in its history and does this with a liberal dose of action and humour. My ‘favourite era’, to read about, was the final one in the book (three million years in the past) which gives the reader an interesting spin on the Eloi and Morlocks of H.G. Well’s... Breach of etiquette, and its consequences, seems to be a theme that runs throughout every stage of the book whether in the past or future. McMullen opts to play the consequences as a comedy of errors which worked for me. The humour isn’t in your face but creeps up on you slowly until you realise what you are reading. Again, this worked well for me as someone who prefers to find things funny rather than be told that something is funny...

Danolarian and Wallas find themselves in plenty of trouble that they need to get out of and are also trying to fix history at the same time. This makes for a generally fast paced read that only gets bogged down in descriptions of military action and the revelation at the end. Talking of which, Danolarian isn’t meant to wholly understand the revelation that he faces but perhaps the nature of it could have been made a little clearer to the reader. I’m not sure that I got what was going on...

The nature of ‘The Time Engine’ is such that we spend a great deal of time in the company of Wayfarer Inspector Danolarian and Constable Wallas. They make an interesting duo with dialogue that’s easy to get into and made me want them to keep talking. Wallas in particular is great to follow on the page, he may be just another ‘oily courtier’ type but the fact that he’s a cat, at the same time, gives a refreshing spin to the character and held my interest throughout.

Funnily enough, the one thing that really bugged me about the book (as a whole) was a blurb that pretty much took you through the story and told you what was going to happen including a fairly big (although somewhat vague) spoiler about the ending. I still had fun with the book but knowing what was going to happen took the shine off a little...

‘The Time Engine’ is still worth a look though if you’re after a dose of sci-fi/fantasy mixed with a large splash of humour.

Seven and Three Quarters out of Ten.