The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 8 October 2024
by Brian Paone
In 1981, the popular 70s rock band Electric Light Orchestra released their concept album Time. Discarding their well-known string section in favor of 80s synth-rock, Jeff Lynne and company composed an album of romantic science fiction songs thought to be the first concept album centering on time travel. If you first listened to it at just the right time, you might have become part of its 21st-century cult following. When it came out, a sixteen-year-old boy, with romantic longings, hopeful for the future, and a fan of good science fiction stories, was easily hooked by Lynne's catchy rock tunes and wistful romantic sweeps of synth and lyric. Time is now considered ELO's most influential album. Seriously, though, it is not the best rock and roll record ever made, and is certainly not even ELO's best (that goes to A New World Record, which itself has one or two sci-fi-ish tunes). But the record has tuneful and romantic hooks upon which it is easy to find oneself caught. For this reader and listener, it still bears the romantic nostalgia of 1981 that is hard to shake.
Because Time is so evocative, and because Jeff Lynne is somewhat evasive about what it all means, it is also easy to listen to the record and imagine the futuristic world it depicts. As a result, one imagines, the author of this entertaining novel sat down to put to paper his story based upon the record. Surely it is one of just a few books that fit into the micro-genre of "Books Based on Rock & Roll Concept Albums of the 70s and 80s." To begin with, its title is taken from a title of one of the songs. The overall framework of both the record and novel is that a man is taken somehow from 1981 to 2095 (the book was published in 2015), where he is alienated by the future and feels a longing to return home to the city he knows and the woman he loves. In the book, the time-travel conceit is clever, and the vision of the future imaginative though based on the songs. The author spices the text with many references to both song lyrics and titles from Time as well as ELO's other records. An afficionado of the band will also see many references to names and places associated with the group. Sometimes these references seem organic, but some seem forced into place. The result is somewhat uneven. But it's not merely fan fiction.
Our protagonist, Jeff Blue, left behind his wife, Julie, who is somehow duplicated as an IBM robot in 2095. Can he trust her (it?). How has his city fared in the intervening century? What's it like to fly to the Moon from Logan airport? Does the band's drummer sell a flower to our hero? The world of the future does not feel quite fully realized. But then, if you like ELO's record, maybe you already have your own vision of the story. Eventually Jeff is torn by events and the twists of technology into being unsure whether to return to 1981 (where his relationship is on the rocks in any case) or to remain in 2095, living and maybe working on the Moon. It's all fairly loose. The thing that makes ELO's Time so engrossing is its romantic longing and the power of Time itself and what it does to us. There is less of that in the book, and it seems to lose some of its emotional power. Things ramp up to a racy climax and an ending that may make you... well, we'll let you figure that out.