Book #83 of 2021:
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
This 2007 title is a genre throwback in all the worst ways. It’s more interested in the scientific mechanics of time travel than in its flat characters, the women seem only there as objects of sexual wish-fulfilment, and the accumulated plot holes are pretty egregious by the story’s end. I’m troubled by the treatment of the protagonist’s Judaism as well; although I believe author Joe Haldeman is also Jewish, his hero’s disinterest in the news that a future theocratic America has no Jews at all (or in the unmentioned possibility of preventing the Holocaust when he finds himself stuck in the early 20th century) doesn’t sit right with me. If the surrounding narrative were stronger we could closely examine that element for nuance and subtext, yet since it’s instead just another flaw in a work full of them, I can’t say that it’s worth the effort.
Two stars for the entertainment factor of the first half of the book, but overall this is a novel that goes off the rails before it can find its center and never really recovers after that.
★★☆☆☆
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