Synopses & Reviews
Sam Dance is a young enlisted soldier in 1941 when his older brother Keenan is killed at Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, Sam promises that he will do anything he can to stop the war.
During his training, Sam begins to show that he has a knack for science and engineering, and he is plucked from the daily grunt work of twenty-mile marches by his superiors to study subjects like code breaking, electronics, and physics in particular, a science that is growing more important to the war effort. While studying, Sam is seduced by a mysterious female physicist that is teaching one of his courses, and given her plans for a device that will end the war, perhaps even end the human predilection for war forever. But the device does something less, and more, than that.
After his training, Sam is sent throughout Europe to solve both theoretical and practical problems for the Allies. He spends his free time playing jazz, and trying to construct the strange device. It's only much later that he discovers that it worked, but in a way that he could have never imagined.
Review
“Goonan weaves experimental jazz, particle physics, and biochemistry into a compelling adventure through alternate universes.”
—Entertainment Weekly “
In War Times is a novel of great historical reach...and profound ambition, expressed with an unmistakable ease of execution and a masters sureness of touch. Kathleen Ann Goonan has come through to the kind of control that makes every startling fresh development—and this novel bristles with astonishing moments of development—seem inevitable.”
—Peter Straub, bestselling and award-winning author of Talisman and Ghost Story “Sometimes a book makes me stop and think after Ive finished it. Occasionally a book will make me stop and think during it. Rarely will a book do both. In War Times is one of those rare books whose ideas live in your mind long after youve finished and make you think about them for a time afterward.” —SF Signal
"Paralleling the evolution of modern jazz with the creative ferment of science, Goonan delivers a bravura performance.” —Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
Winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel
Synopsis
Kathleen Ann Goonan burst into prominence with Queen City Jazz, the start of her Nanotech Quartet. The Bones of Time, her widely acclaimed second novel, was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2000. In War Times is deeply satisfying SF. Sam, the protagonist, is a young enlisted man in 1941 when his older brother Keenan is killed at Pearl Harbor. Seduced by a mysterious woman, Sam gives her plans for a device that will end not just the war, but perhaps even the human predilection for war. Sam spends his war years trying to construct the device and discovers only later that it worked. Sam falls in love with a spy, and they both become involved in preventing the JFK assassination in the 1960s. Over the decades it becomes deeply meaningful that his world is strangely transformed by the enigmatic device.
About the Author
KATHLEEN ANN GOONAN is a multiple Nebula Award-nominee. She lives in Tavernier, Florida.