Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Great Time Machine Hoax by Keith Laumer

The Great Time Machine Hoax by Keith Laumer
Ace Books, ISBN 0 441 302681 8
Price paid: 1,00$


British Humour is a genre by itself. One has only to read Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman to see a different, specific brand of humour that is not seen anywhere else. Well, almost. While Keith Laumer is an American author, he has somehow captured what makes British Humour so grand; he found the way to be humorously thrilled.

The Great Time Machine Hoax is not a very complex story. It is a quick, easy read and does not involve many characters. The ones the author uses, however, are peculiar enough to warrant all the attention. Chester W. Chester IV inherits his great-grandfather's mansion, in which is found a long time project, never finished: The Generalize Nonlinear Extrapolar. Genie, for short, is a quasi-sentient machine that has gathered information from all sources for nearly a century, becoming the closest thing to a being of all-knowledge.

Owning an incredible amount of back taxes (passed down from the deceased great-grandfather), Chester and his friend Case decide to use the machine and its holographic displays as a fake time machine, to put on a show (and charge viewers a good sum). However, the machine does much more than that and hilarity ensues.

Is it worth a dollar?

While it will probably not figure in your favourite books' collection, it is a fun read. The situations the characters face are not entirely original but it works. it is worth the dollar.

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