his novel is the third in The Chronicles of Solace, following The Depths of Time (2000) and The Ocean of Years (2002). The first book introduced us to the future of the 5200s, when Settled Space is filled with various terraformed worlds reached by a curious and bizarre method of starflight involving wormhole pairs and time travel. Adm. Anton Koffield, a member of the Chronologic Patrol charged with "protecting causality," has the misfortune to tangle with Oskar DeSilvo, the long-lived polymath mastermind behind terraforming and, apparently, a dozen other more nebulous and nefarious schemes. Losing his rank after the DeSilvo contretemps, Koffield sets out to track down DeSilvo and untangle his web of intrigue. Along the way, he casts his lot with Wandella Ashdin, an expert on DeSilvo's career; with Capt. Felipe Marquez of the Dom Pedro IV; and with Norla Chandray, second officer on the DP IV; as well as with a motley assortment of other loners. The second book finds the questers following a tangled trail to DeSilvo's lair on the abandoned planet of Glister, where they gain confirmation of their worst fears regarding the upcoming fate of the human race.
As DeSilvo clarifies further in the new book, all the terraformed worlds are doomed, unstable ecosystems forced too fast into existence. In a thousand years, all the worlds will be as rotten and unfit for life as the Ruined Planet, Mars, the first globe so changed. During that interval, humanity will flood back to the one original stable world, Earth, bringing with it hundreds of alien microbes and other environmental invaders. Eventually, Earth itself will succumb to plagues and mankind will go extinct. But the megalomaniacal, amoral genius DeSilvo has a plan—half altruistic, half self-serving—to circumvent such a fate. Using inventions that the Chronologic Patrol has suppressed for centuries in its Dark Museum, DeSilvo intends to time-travel at greater lengths than anyone else has ever dared try, and to do terraforming the way nature intended. He hopes to enlist his archenemy Koffield and Koffield's friends into his last-ditch scheme.
But even if Koffield and crew agree, more manpower and resources will be needed. For this DeSilvo is relying on Greenhouse, the last redoubt of the Solace system. But Greenhouse itself will not survive unless its technicians can ignite the NovaSpot artificial sun to sustain it. And Greenhouse's fate is also tied up with rebel activity on the dying world of Solace itself. Two big problems to surmount. Additionally, CP investigator Kalani Temblar is hot on the trail of DeSilvo. If she and her warship find him before the Harmonic Gates to reach the past can be established, intelligent life is doomed.
In the footsteps of Edmond Hamilton
Edmond Hamilton in his heyday used to be known as the "World Wrecker," based on his cavalier destruction of entire planets. Roger MacBride Allen zestfully carries forward that tradition of grand and grandiose conceptualization and rousing action in his Solace trilogy. The reader is not meant to look for deep characterization or extensive philosophizing here. Oh, sure, it's true that Allen makes the worthy effort to grant his protagonists some convincing internal life. Koffield is depicted as a man of injured pride and unswerving dedication to his principles. But his love affair with Norla is rather tepid. DeSilvo has his moments of self-doubt, as when he subconsciously dabbles in a suicide attempt on Glister. And so forth, for such other characters as Elber Malloon, a member of Solace's underclasses who must examine his natural loyalties. But basically, these folks enjoy just enough individuation to propel the action, and no more. As for any complex examination of moral and theological and ethical issues, there's just enough impassioned discussion to cover such simple themes as "survival is paramount" and "actions can have unintended consequences." No, what matters here are the mind-boggling concepts of time travel, world regeneration, stasis fields and so forth. And, somewhat unfortunately, that's where the novel scants itself.
Or rather, while Allen by the end does indeed do justice to his concepts, much of the novel is stuffed with less interesting subplots. For two previous books, the main thrust has been the eventual confrontation between Koffield and DeSilvo. We get satisfying payoff on that issue in part one of the present book. But immediately after, parts two and three—200 pages—detour to concern themselves with subplots on Greenhouse and Solace. Admittedly, all the threads cohere beginning with part four, but the really dazzling multiple climaxes of part five seem rushed and overcompressed by comparison. One could almost imagine the book with parts two and three missing entirely, and four and five beefed up.
In any case, however, readers will get full measure of satisfaction from Allen's bold cosmic shenanigans. Like Jack Williamson's The Legion of Time (1952), Allen's novel shows that the only thing more spacious and bizarre than space is time itself.
