October the First is Too Late. This book is actually a little oddly captivating at times. Many people are not very fond of the title, but the title is what made me interested in reading this book. That and of course the cover (And Sir Fred Hoyle for that matter). I'm not entirely sure what it's supposed to be, but what I can say is this: Any book that has great cover art (like most of these books from the 60's-80's) or a cool title will most likely get my stamp of approval. Sure, much of the stuff might be pulp or juvenile, but that doesn't stop it from looking awesome. Sci-fi books from this time are kind of like old heavy metal records. There are so many albums with really cool covers. Heavy Load, Mercyful Fate, Dark Wizard, etc. A lot of them are great albums, but some of them are mediocre, some are not good, and some are incredible. Same can be said with 60's/70's prog albums. So much cool artwork. Again, some are awesome and others mediocre, but they are almost always good in some respect. Whether it's a sci-fi book from the 60's, a prog album from the 70's, or a heavy metal record from the 80's, there's usually going to be some good thing about it. I might say that I was born too late.
I'll give my abbreviated summary of this intriguing little story. More of novella than a novel, it is a story of 2 people (a composer and a scientist) who get caught in an altered rift of time. Hawaii seems to be in present time, England seems to be caught in an early world war, most of North America seems to be several hundred years in the past, Deserts near Russia seem to have a flat and glass-like surface, and Greece seems to be caught in their classic period. It is a pretty cool idea for a short book.
The first major event happens when the two are in Hawaii and get word that the entire coast of California has disappeared. They travel there via plane to investigate and observe the coastline has no buildings and no evidence of civilization, just trees and natural landscapes. They travel across the country and see that everywhere else is in the stage of what it might have looked like several hundred years ago. When they arrive in Britain, they realize that they've entered a time during WW2. One of the men travels to Greece and finds himself in Ancient Greece where Socrates is out and about (although the main character never gets to speak with him...that would've been funny). Eventually, the main character decides he needs some space from the culture and seeks solace in an old temple outside of the city where he works on composing his greatest piece of music yet. He is challenged by a beautiful woman to a musical "duel" of sorts. He awakens the next day to find himself in a new place. Everything is pretty minimal, but the technology is way past present-day standards. Apparently, he is a few thousand years in the future. He and his friend discover that they have been brought here by the woman from the musical duel in Ancient Greece. They watch a very abbreviated four hour history of the world to get them caught up to the current time. The pattern they see is of a civilization building itself up and then eventually collapsing and destroying itself. It happens over and over for several hundreds of years until the current time. Eventually the two men get a choice to stay in the future or go back. One elects to go and one elects to stay, the end.
Obviously, there is always a lot more to the books than my abbreviated summaries, but this is basically how it went. The author actually does a decent job of peppering in meaning to the entire story with analogies of dimensions and rabbit holes. You could tell a little bit of thought actually went into it. The book is typically met with good to mediocre (and even some poor) reviews. But I think it is pretty decent, you could probably read it in an afternoon if you have the time. I'm going to go back to studying for the NBE now.
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