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A Return Trip to the Past and Future
In Michael Z. Williamson’s novel “A Long Time Until Now” First Lieutenant Sean Elliott and nine US soldiers traveling in a convoy in Afghanistan suddenly found themselves flung into the Earth’s Paleolithic Age. Other time-displaced people from throughout history were with them. All had been accidentally displaced through a time travel experiment conducted by the Cogi, people in the far future. The Cogi eventually rescued them.
“That Was Now This Is Then,” by Michael Z. Williamson picks up the story after the soldiers’ return. Some have been discharged; others remained in the Armed Forces. All are trying to pick up their lives.
Now they are being recruited for a new mission in the past. The Cogi need help. It turns out Elliot and his team were not the only American soldiers stuck in the past. The Cogi have found another group. Worse, a Paleolithic human displaced forward in time shows up in a now-time American base.
The Cogi and the US Military want the help of the previous set of US time trippers to return the displacees to their proper times. It turns out if you have been there before going back causes less displacement than sending folks who have never been there.
This time the trip is voluntary. Not all the original group is interested in another free trip to the far past, even if they know they will return this time. But Elliot pulls together enough to make the mission work. To fill out the team two anthropologists are added. Their stated role is to help the team with the Neolithic inhabitants. They are also there to spy on the Cogi and discover their secrets.
As with the previous book, the adventure takes the time travelers into the distant past and into the far future. They are working with the Cogi this time, which makes things easier. Another difference is that not all of those displaced in time wish to return to their original time. The soldiers they are sent to rescue were less successful, and have assimilated with the natives.
This story is at least as much fun as “A Long Time Until Now.” If anything, this story is more interesting. The previous book’s focus was survival. “That Was Now This Is Then” is more of a detective story. Who are the Cogi? What time are they from? With this book, Williamson has written another entertaining novel.
“That Was Now This Is Then,” by Michael Z. Williamson, Baen Books, 2021, 544 pages, $25.00 (Hardcover), $9.99 (ebook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in Literature
I keep reading ‘Cogi’ as ‘Corgi’
Which, I would love to see a Corgi people in the far future with time machines.
Thanks for posting. The tropes sound almost exactly like not only what I’d like to read but also have the hardest time finding. Thanks for bringing this up. I’m sad because I finalized my reading list and I have too much I really have to read, but I’ll make a note of this and iff I can make changes to my list I will.
Chuck Dixon has a Kindle Unlimited (free to subscribers) book called “One Helluva Bad Time” and that involves more modern/semi-future soldiers going back in time. I have no idea why I have had that KU downloaded for over a year without opening it but it is really hard to find that exact combination. Mostly it is WW2 + Civil War alternate-history/time travel.
Not a book but anime “Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There” seems like it has some of the same themes. First half is markedly more interesting than the last. The first 2-3 episodes hit the hardest and then you can begin to guess how it all plays out if you’ve seen more than 4 animes.
Sounds interesting. I just went to Kindle to get it.
I also discovered that there is another book with that title. It’s a collection of poems by Vijay Seshadri. A very different kettle of fish.
I have “A Long Time Until Now”. I was disappointed at what I thought was a muddled ending for a solo novel. It is good to know Williamson decided to finish the story. On the list it goes.
Very interesting. Sounds similar in theme to Island In The Sea Of Time by S.M. Sterling, the 1632 series by Eric Flint, and perhaps the Lost Regiment series by William R Forstchen.
The granddaddy of this subgenre is Lest Darkness Fall (1941) by L. Sprague de Camp. Ironically, the 20th century hero transported to early 6th century Rome can flourish in a way few 21st century Americans could: he learned Latin in school, and has real silver coins in his pocket.
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (1965) by H. Beam Piper was also a huge influence; though it is technically an alternate history, as the hero, Calvin Morrison, moves laterally in time to encounter a Renaissance-level civilization in North America.
Thanks to too many authors not completing their series like say John ringo I no longer start any science fiction series for any reason until the entire series is complete.
I understand this all too well. But for some, I just can’t help myself. /:
I’ve mostly moved to reading nonfiction historical and scientific books anyway.
I didn’t know that about Ringo. I’ve been meaning to read him since he writes with Larry Correia, who I like a lot. It is a huge problem with these long series– the risk that they drag in the middle with a promise of bringing it all together at the end and then they don’t deliver or get delayed. I completely forgot about the Dresden Files, and gave up on Anita Blake for that reason.
I’m also in the same boat. I’m mainly reading social science stuff since it is at the intersection of my work and my enjoyment.
Probably best, however, to not mention Optimus Prime.
If Tasha Tudor had been a science fiction writer.
Thanks, Seawriter.
That is a wonderful series, but it ended a tad abruptly. The Dies, the Fire series, is better, but after the second generation passed on, it got, disjointed. At some point HEA should keep kick in.
I’ve only read his Freehold book, but enjoy his FB presence. I suspect I’d like it, but am not sure. I was that way about Corriea though I’ve only read the MHI series.
So…it’s a riff on the basic concept of Pournelle’s Janissaries but with time travel instead of space travel. Got it. It sounds like a good read. Thanks.
You should fix that. His Grimnoir trilogy is fantastic, as is Son of the Black Sword.
I will at some point. I think the problem with all of his books is that they don’t sound interesting to me. Then I read them and they are great. I resisted reading MHI for years because it just didn’t sound good. Then I started following him on FB and reading his blog and then MHI. Both series have interesting concepts, but they don’t excite me. Now, if he wrote gritty mil-sci-fi…
So is his Dead Six series which is nitty-gritty mil SF.
Yeah, I liked that too. (:
I read the first two of that series and liked it, but at the same time I felt that the supernatural element was too understated. Two book in and there is very little explanation of what is actually going on and why. Not bad stuff, but I’d rather that Ringo write another Troy Rising or Aldenata book TBH. Reminds me that I need to figure out where I left off in the Honorverse.
I gave up on Honor when book after book came out among more than one writer where the story did not advance.
Weber needs an editor bad, and I don’t think anyone cutaneous down since Baen died. I bailed on Ammogeddon Reef for verbosity.
Heaven forbid he and Ringo finish the March series. They could have ended the last book with a clear win, but choose not too,
Unfinished book series are a type of betrayal. The author makes a pact with the reader saying if you join me for the beginning of this story now I’ll tell it to the end. It is one thing to die before you end a series, It is entirely another thing to simply cry riders block and stop writing. Ringo just writes what he is interested in. And he has a poor memory for what hes written before.
I gave up on Ringo.
Ringo seems to have given up on writing for various reasons. He has long said that the continuation of the Prince Roger series was waiting on Weber’s approval of the storyline. He has always tended to wander aimlessly in his series and just sort of ended them without tying them up. Troy Rising is a good example, as is The Looking Glass which both finished up the story in front of the characters, but left so much potential. Its one thing that I have liked about Black Tide Rising, he has allowed Mike Massa and Chuck Gannon to write new stories in the universe, and frankly some of the best Posleen books were Col. Kratman’s.
As for what the author “owes” the reader, I think that Corriea explained that the best…the author doesn’t owe the reader anything.
Corriea is wrong.
There is a contract between reader and author. It is understood that your story will get finished. The idea that the author does not owe that ending to the reader is absurd. If Corriea really feels that way, every book cover should declare that he is under no moral obligation to finish the series.
Harlen Ellison urged JMS to have them lose at the end of B5. JMS knew that would be a betrayal of his fans. It was not what he promised them.
If I pay money on the first book in a series, it is based on the promise the story will have an end. If the end does not come, I have been cheated.
You must get cheated a lot. Some stories have a conclusion, some don’t. Sometimes the purpose of the story is to relate a beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes it is supposed to be a slice in the life. My wife likes McCullough as a biographer and writer but she disliked his book 1776 because it just ended on 12/31/76. Many times a “series” is when an author writes a book and then it is successful and so they feel forced to write a sequel. One example of that is Ready, Player Two which never should have been written.
JMS and B5 was a unique concept at the time where TV was completely episodic, but he told a 5 year story arc (with the last two seasons somewhat messed up due to cancellation and renewal). Since B5 was a success we now see many series that focus on a long running arc and this can be great, until the show gets cancelled and they don’t finish it.
If you “pay money on the first book in a series”, your “contract” applies to the book you paid for, not to the purely hypothetical sequels.
All too often, the author is eager to continue, but the publisher is not.
I guess we have different senses of moral obligations to others.
Or, more to the point, different senses of others’ ethical obligations to us!
James Alan Gardner wrote this terrific series known as the League of Peoples universe. There were definitely more stories to be told there, but they must not have sold well enough. As I recall, the publisher didn’t want to buy another book and also refused to allow Gardner to take them to a different publisher. I don’t know if he had a uniquely bad contract or if this is a normal thing in the publishing world. It’s quite disappointing, because while the early books could be read as stand-alone books, by the later ones he was definitely leading up to something.
JPOd was quite clear that political promises were no contrzct with the voters, either.