A nomad of the time streams epub

It was fighting dirigibles, faux Victoriana, and more dime-story philosophy than you can shake a stick at. I love it! Jun 27, Michael rated it really liked it. The first two parts were fun, and much more interesting than the previous volume Hawkmoon. Sadly by the time I got to the third part I was tired of the concept and ready for a change. Dec 31, Chris Amies rated it really liked it.

These novellas are strange Edwardian-baroque constructions, being essentially timeslip fiction as it might have been told by a pre-WW1 novelist, who assumed the Empire would last a thousand years and that the world of would be much like that of only more so.

The collection I shan't call it a trilogy; that would be to demean its origins has the subtitle 'A Scientific Romance', so the reader can see what is to come. In each of the three stories Oswald Bastable is witness to barbarism and eventually to a world-shaking apocalypse. And as the Ukrainian anarch Makhno says at the end of the sequence, the only way that this repetition of disaster can be avoided, is for each one to take personal responsibility for that person's one life.

Some of the same characters appear in different identities in each novella. This is fairly common with Moorcock, especially here in the Eternal Champion sequence; so we have the anarchist Lobkowitz, the Indian Professor Hira, and Captain Korzeniowski who in our world may have taken up writing under the name of Joseph Conrad.

Bastable, throughout the sequence, is no passive observer; trying to understand what is happening to him he is winkled out of his Imperial complacency and achieves a greater comprehension of the world and the political systems that make it go.

He is at first an involuntary wanderer of the time streams, buffeted by disaster from one to another, but a nomad does not wander aimlessly, and during his travels he meets Una Persson, a 'chrononaut' or time-traveller and who for some inexplicable reason is referred to in the back cover blurb as 'the red republican cosmonaut', as though she were Valentina Tereshkova.

Persson is instrumental in widening his horizons as well as recruiting him into her anarchist league. HG Wells, that indefatigable writer of scientific romances, would have recognised the politics as well as the love of describing vast machines. Then there is the Land Leviathan that the Black Attila, Cicero Hood, builds for his invasion of America; a vast thing like an armed ziggurat on wheels. In "The Steel Tsar", the Cossack hetman Djugashvili who in our timeline was Stalin represents himself and his power by means of four-metre-high robot effigies of himself, the first of which kills its maker - which may be a reference to the Russian Revolution and the way that those who created it were destroyed by Stalin's purges.

The vast machines background stories of human individuals on a darkling plain, where ignorant armies clash by night. This is my first foray into Michael Moorcock and one of the few steampunk type books I have read. Overall, I enjoyed the individual stories and was a bit intrigued by the concept of the time travelers. I don't know how much the Author's Notes and introductions added to the stories.

It kind of introduced this character that was displaced in time and dimension and let the character Bastable introduce his origin and This is my first foray into Michael Moorcock and one of the few steampunk type books I have read.

It kind of introduced this character that was displaced in time and dimension and let the character Bastable introduce his origin and story. The subsequent stories were handed off to the original narrator's grandson and the tone of these messages changed somewhat, so that they to me became less storytelling and more like a new release. I could have done without this or if they had continued in the style of the first intro.

Dec 20, jesse mabus rated it really liked it Shelves: science-fiction , fantasy. I understood that it is only the very best in us, our capacity for love and self-respect, that enable us to survive in a perpetually fragmenting multiverse. Only our deepest sense of justice allowed us to remain sane and relish the wonders of chaotic Time and Space, to be free at last of fear.

Further violence would bring only an endless chain of blo "There is nothing which gives one strength at a time of need than the presence of comrades who share the same ideas about humanity and justice. Further violence would bring only an endless chain of bloodshed and an inevitable descent of our race into bestiality and ultimate insentience.

To survive, we must love. Aug 22, David rated it liked it. Now we're into Moorcock deep cuts. Proto steampunk, anti-colonial, alternate histories with a pretty boring Edwardian hero, excellent battle scenes, and musty political theory. I read the originals, not the amended combo edition illustrated here. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm sure the "steampunk" genre that this book kicked off is far more interesting.

I was so excited to read a seminal work of something, and I felt hip and cool to open the book, but it's a bore fest. And a sausage fest. Seriously--there are so few contexts in which a story about only men are interesting, and this was a trilogy.

War, war, war. It's enough to make Scarlett O'Hara swear! There was one woman in all three books. It was the same person. She was named "Una Persson" if you can believ Ugh. She was named "Una Persson" if you can believe it and she was either a consort or a consort. In the last pages of the last book there's some crying because she was unable to stop the bomb from dropping. So we are to deduce that even though she's been trying for three books to change the course of history she is ineffectual.

Perhaps the author was making a point that no individual can accomplish anything in a symbolic way because he puts lots of speeches into characters' mouths to say it explicitly. The woman also appears to mention that there's a whole secret society of time travelers and to take the main character to the League. She is a messenger, here.

She doesn't even initiate him herself. Oh, she also delivers some letters from one guy to another. I had observed all these things in the first book and had hoped that the third book--written in the s--would have fleshed out her character a little.

She's just a beautiful tool. I just lost patience with the franchise. I am sure that steampunk is a creative field with lots of good storytelling and imaginative characters, and so we should credit Moorcock for starting it or at least thank the fan of his who makes that claim on Wikipedia. I'm just not sure I could stand to read another book by him. Alternate history always disappoints me, and most of the time it has interpersonal relationships and dialogue.

I would conclude that Moorcock had some political issues to work out, and that most of them involved the bomb. And monorails. Aug 27, Brant Satala rated it really liked it. I'm about half way through this book, and though I may be in a minority among Moorcock fans, I love it. I don't know why.

Maybe it's the way it fits to early Vangelis music while being read. Maybe it's the way Moorcock can be talking about , and it may just as well be Or maybe it's the way he can so masterfully lay out a scene and make characters interact so realistically. There are many moments in this book where I feel like I'm watching an old grainy, technicolor movie with actors wh I'm about half way through this book, and though I may be in a minority among Moorcock fans, I love it.

There are many moments in this book where I feel like I'm watching an old grainy, technicolor movie with actors who have too much hair spray in their hair, and cable-knit turtle neck sweaters. It's as if after every reading session, I expect the 's tv station in my head to have "In Search Of" with Leonard Nemoy come on next on a sunday afternoon.

There is definitely a Jules Verne, and H. Wells feel to a lot of this. And yet, it's so Moorcock-ian. I would not be surprised if Elric or Corum showed up at any moment. I think I simply love this book because it is only one of a handful of Moorcock books that I haven't yet read, and since I've been reading his books since high school, I hate to think that someday there will be no more new Moorcock books to read.

Warlord of the Air plots along with a few good action scenes, and builds to a quick, clean climax. There are some awesome lines, philosophies, and metaphysical vantage points in this story. I love the way Moorcock uses his characters to get the reader to look at British rule from outside of the box. Since discovering Moorcock is an Anarchist, I see it more and more in his writing, and respect the aspiration to rule oneself. I'll add more after I finish the book.

In the meantime, if you're thinking about reading this, but have doubts - don't have doubts. Dig in and enjoy it! It's a great story and a pleasure to read! Mar 29, Christopher rated it did not like it Recommends it for: People I dislike extremely. Shelves: fiction. About a third of the way through the last book of the series, the narrator tells the reader that he "pretended to nod" to another character.

The time I spent trying to picture what someone "pretending to nod" looks like was far and away the most enjoyable part of the experience of reading A Nomad of the Time Streams. This book was absolutely awful.

I've had a fondness for Moorcock for a long time, but his books never quite seem to meet the promise that the capsule summaries of their plots suggest About a third of the way through the last book of the series, the narrator tells the reader that he "pretended to nod" to another character. I've had a fondness for Moorcock for a long time, but his books never quite seem to meet the promise that the capsule summaries of their plots suggest. In this book's case, though, the execution is nightmarishly bad.

On the level of the plot, the story makes little sense. Characters display no consistency whatsoever, with the main character passionately declaring his hatred of someone with very little suggestion of why on one page only to swear his loyalty to him on the next. For an alternate history series, this series also shows no understanding of either actual history or of historical processes. On top of the inaccuracies in the historical background, the story focuses on the development of technologies without any sense of their emergence from existing precedents and the isolated development of new super weapons prove enough to turn the world upside down again and again.

Worst of all is the actual writing. In what appears to be an attempt to recreate the sort of voice used in the adventure fiction of the early 20th century, everything is described in mind-numbingly dispassionate prose.

Whereas the third book makes some progress by moderating these excesses, it too renders itself unreadable with pages and pages of supposedly revelatory insight into the true nature of the human condition that have all the depth and internal coherence of the musings of a depressed precocious teen.

Feb 19, Jamie rated it really liked it. To quote from another reviewer: "I couldn't find the edition of this Oswald Bastable trilogy that I read, which was called simply "The Nomad of Time". I read it because Neil Gaiman tweeted that he thou To quote from another reviewer: "I couldn't find the edition of this Oswald Bastable trilogy that I read, which was called simply "The Nomad of Time".

I read it because Neil Gaiman tweeted that he thought it might be the first known example of steampunk. It's built on solid sci fi themes that are treated with respect: a war that keeps happening in one way or another in alternate universes no matter how causality is tweaked, a world-weary figure not unlike the Doctor, really, or maybe Bill Murray in Groundhog Day who keeps trying and trying to get it right.

Mar 02, Tamcamry rated it really liked it. On the one hand, the story is very well written and entertaining. It consists of three short stories about the same character, Oswald Bastable. These stories are presented as memoirs or actual events, which in my view makes them all the more entertaining.

Final part of Moorcock's A Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy regarding the adventures of Captain Oswald Bastable and which has been seen as an early example of steampunk fiction. About this product. A Nomad of the Time Streams is full of sci-fi jargon about time travel, alternate realities and, of course, the multiverse but never gets bogged down in techno-babble. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs.

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EMBED for wordpress. Want more? Advanced embedding details, examples, and help! Previously published as volume 6 of The tale of the eternal champion This collection originally published as The nomad of time in The warlord of the air -- The land leviathan -- The steel tsar.