Corrupting Dr Nice: Corrupting Dr Nice (HB) - Hardcover

Kessel's fluent, cinematic and often very funny SF comedy ranges from the late Cretaceous era through first-century AD Jerusalem to America in 2063. In this variant of time travel, each moment can be a separate universe. Thus one particular moment of early Jerusalem has spun off a new timeline where time-travellers saved Jesus, overthrew the Romans and imported future technology--and now run excursions to unspoilt moments where the crucifixion or Caesar's assassination are spectacles for eager tourist audiences. A suave con-man and his lovely daughter are swindling time-tourists with the ancient "badger game", and home in on a naive heir to billions who's smuggling a young dinosaur forwards in time--all this while a Jewish insurrection looms. True love blossoms amid the pratfalls, but gets fouled up before the action shifts to 2063 America. This is the home of time exploitation, featuring multiple versions of Marx, Freud, Jung, Einstein, Gandhi and numerous other historical celebrities abducted from past moments. The ethics of such time-tweaking is dodgy indeed, and provides a serious undertone to a mammoth TV trial whose legal AI is programmed to be swayed up to 20% by on-line public opinion: there are socko surprise-witness performances by Abraham Lincoln and Jesus. Thoroughly enjoyable silliness, which also pricks the conscience and ends as a movie romance should. --David Langford

* ¿The best time-travel novel ever written¿ Kim Stanley Robinson * ¿Lucid, humane and mercilessly funny. If there could be great date books like there are great date movies, this would be one¿ Jonathan Lethem * John Kessel has won the Nebula and Sturgeon Memorial Awards for short stories, as well as a Paul Green Playwright¿s Prize