wiglaf - reviewed on 9/28/2013 + 16 more book reviews

I love science fiction, but I'm not a huge fan of most time travel stories despite their importance within the genre. Too many time travel stories are seemingly based on the premise that you'll be impressed at the gimmickry and while that may have worked for me when I was twelve it doesn't work for me today. The time travel stories which work are about a more universal theme which just happens to include traveling through time. H.G. Wells' The Time Machine works because of its lens on the potential distortionary effects of class stratification while Orson Scott Card's Pastwatch seems to emphasize the importance and power of individuals making moral choices to changes things for the better for whole societies. Kindred works because it gets you to examine history from the perspective of the slaves and the circumscribed sphere of often bad choices they had. At an emotional level you feel the frustration and powerlessness of a modern black woman as she is transported into slavery. I heartily recommend it both as a story and as a window into a time of tyranny in America.

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