Book Review: End of an Era

Déjà vu: The feeling that all this has happened before.
Déjà news: The feeling that this world event has happened before.
Déjà muse: The feeling you've written this story before.
Déjà boobs: The feeling you've motorboated these knockers before.
Déjà ... Dammit! What's the word for when you feel like you've read this book before?

I just finished rereading "End of an Era" by Robert J Sawyer. It wasn't my plan to re-read it. I just didn't recall reading it before. I thought it had been stuck on my "Read Fiction" shelf instead of my "To Read" shelf by mistake.

As I started reading it the book became familiar. I knew this stuff. I'd read this book before. But, what happened next? I couldn't recall. Maybe I read part of it and stopped for some reason. I kept reading. Nope, still familiar. Still don't know what happens next.

I read the whole book like that. I remembered reading all that before, but couldn't tell you what happened next.

It was a good book. Not one that I'd recommend as an introduction to this author, but still a good read.

A time machine has been invented. It does have the flaw that the amount of power it requires is inversely proportional to how far back you go. Going back an hour would take most of the power of the universe. Going back to visit the dinosaurs would take considerably less. At a set point the machine will be pulled back to the present.

These two guys are sent back to study the dinosaurs and hopefully figure out how they all died. They used to be friends until the wife of the main character left him for the other guy. The first thing they notice is that there's less gravity 65 million year ago. The next thing they notice is this group of dinosaurs that surrounds them, knocks them down, and coughs blue ooze on them. The ooze is a viral life form that is intelligent in large groups. It seeps into their brains, learns English, and oozes back out to get back in it's dinosaur.

Jumping ahead... the virus life form is from Mars. They use the dinosaurs as transport. They're at war with a species on the 5th planet from the sun. No, not Jupiter. The one between Mars and Jupiter. Finding that Mars in our time is dead, the 5th planet is an asteroid belt, and that they're extinct the virus creature wants to use the time machine to leap past their extinction.

The virus creatures put up satellites around Earth to make the gravity more like Mars. This, plus some genetic engineering, has allowed the large dinosaurs we keep finding fossils of to evolve. The virus creatures ride the dinosaurs for transport. They've engineered them to be weapons in their war against the people of planet 5.

See, they think like viruses, too. They move in, multiply, and spread out. Conquest is part of their basic biology. If they get back to our time they'll try to take over humanity. They hate anyone they can't conquer.

In the end the viruses try to invade the time ship by battering it with dinosaurs. Just as all looks lost our heroes manage to shut down the gravitational satellites. The dinosaurs bones break under all that extra weight. Those who survive that struggle to breathe. Many others starve to death while pinned to the ground. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are constant for at least the next several hours before the uninfected human duo are yanked back to their present.

It's a good book. Good enough that I read it twice. Apparently not good enough that it stuck the first time. I'd suggest "Calculating God" as a better introduction to Robert J. Sawyer.