Wow! This historical fiction/science fiction novel by a master of both genres was so absorbing that I stayed up late to finish reading it and to find out what would happen to Christopher Columbus in a re-imagined world, changed by time travelers from the future.

The book reminded me of Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. THe premise is similar: scientists from the future have found a way to look back, maybe even travel back, into the past by means of a “time machine.” Willis’s books are funnier, especially To Say Nothing of the Dog. However, Card’s Pastwatch delves more deeply into the inherent problems and temptations such an invention would bring to the attention of the scientists using it. Can we change the past to eliminate suffering and punish wrong-doers? Are our cultural mores and expectations really better than those of past cultures? If so, how do we know that? What about cultural imperialism? Is it a valid concern? TO be very specific, if you had the means to rescue a young man who is being sold into slavery, would you have the responsibility to do so? What if one change in the events of the past sets into motion a series of events that totally changes the future that you yourself are a part of, the so-called “butterfly effect”? All of these questions are a part of Pastwatch, but the book doesn’t give terribly satisfying answers to most of the questions. THe ending is somewhat overly optimistic, in my opinion.

Still, as I said, it’s a great story that includes both history (Christopher Columbus, native Central American cultures, and slavery) and futuristic/dystopian/utopian elements. I enjoyed it very much. If you’ve already read Pastwatch and liked it, I would recommend Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. And if you’ve already read Ms. Willis’s time travel books and enjoyed them, I’d recommend Pastwatch.

Oh, I was also reminded of LOST with scientists and mathematicians trying to explain concepts of time and time travel with time as a stream and distinguishable from what a scientist in the book calls “causality.”

“Two contradictory sets of events cannot occupy the same moment. You are only confused because you cannot separate causality from time. And that’s perfectly natural, because time is rational. Causality is irrational. . . . What you must understand is that causality is not real. It does not exist in time. Moment A does not really cause Moment B in reality. . . . None of these moments actually touches any other moment. That is what reality is—an infinite array of discrete moments unconnected with any other other moment because each moment in time has no linear dimension.”

And if you understand that, could you please give me an aspirin for my headache?