Time Was by Ian McDonald
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time to manage our expectations here.

I'm a fan of Ian's work and I'm generally amazed by the amount of research he puts into his novels, twisting strange stories into very creative manifestos, and there's a bit of that coming through the pages here, too, but it begs the question:

What is this?

It is a love story only if you see it through the lens of a mystery fan first, a time-paradox sleuth second, and if you like a REALLY slow burn through a deep focus on poetry and old personal notebooks from the PoV of a bibliophile in hunt of the central mystery.

It's not bad and the questions raised do drag us to the inevitable end, but this is a very niche piece.

History buffs, bibliophiles, and SF mystery fans who don't mind a slow burn that leads to a somewhat odd end in this thankfully short work will probably get a lot out of this.

But for me? It was fine. Okay. But not my favorite of his by a long shot.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

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