Rent Rainbow Mars

Synopsis

According to Larry Niven, time travel is logically impossible--sheer fantasy. So when time-agent Svetz heads back from polluted future Earth in search of extinct animals, he tends to sideslip into fantastic, fictional worlds. In short stories collected in The Flight of the Horse (1973), his quests for a horse, a Gila monster, and a whale unearthed a unicorn, a dragon, and Moby-Dick. Less comic but equally daft, Rainbow Mars combines both space and time travel to explore Mars in the deep past, before it was a dead world. Naturally it's populated by a menagerie of warring fictional Martians from Edgar Rice Burroughs (multi-armed sword-wielders), H.G. Wells (tentacles and heat rays), and less familiar authors. Svetz and companions are soon in big trouble. Complications include a gigantic alien tree extending into Mars's orbit--an organic version of the space elevator in Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise. One of these useful 'beanstalks' on Earth seems a highly desirable facility, but there are hidden drawbacks, and most of the multiplying timelines lead to disaster. This is fun for experienced SF readers who can follow the in-jokes and the switchback ride through tangled alternative histories. The earlier, even funnier Svetz stories are included as a bonus. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

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