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No Enemy But Time
Michael Bishop
Nebula 1982

Entertaining but more than enough challenging ideas to keep you thinking long after finishing the book. From the perspective of our most distant ancestors of the Pleistocene, reflections on the structure, history and economics of human society.

Poses questions like what sort of dreams come to those who have "drifted into the objectified territory of their subconscious, a 'dreamland' that is no longer a dream but a palpable place?" and makes thought-provoking statements like, "Each one of us is a ghost of every other, Each one of us is possessed by the spirits of our ancestors, living and dead."

And throughout, a wonderful sense of humor as in this description of the protagonist's girl friend: "I regarded her at that moment as an angel of transcendent apehood, a woman well ahead of her time."

The title comes from a poem by Yeats

(Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of a fight
With a common wrong or right.
The innocent and the beautiful
Have no enemy but time;
Arise and bid me strike a match
And strike another till time catch . . .)

and provides a broad frame of reference for the vast scope that spans our little known earliest history to the next phase of human evolution.

Vivid imagery like this description of animals on an African plain - "The landscape rippled with spots and stripes, all seemingly suspended in an ecology of mirage." - engage and paint a vivid background. Characters also receive some interesting imagery like "A slender, middle-aged man with dark hair and eyes like bloated cocktail onions".

Somewhat dated but an excellent book and well worth reading.

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