Crawford Kilian’s prequel to his 1978 novel The Empire of Time begins with a world in crisis. The time is the then-near-future of the 1990s. A prolonged economic depression and ongoing environmental problems has left America a desperate nation under military government. Leading the effort to address these many issues are the “Trainables,” people identified at adolescence with the ability to absorb enormous amounts of information rapidly. Their efforts to maintain social order are given an unexpected boost by the discovery of “chronoplanes,” alternate Earths at different periods in time that can be settled and exploited. Two young Trainables, Eric Wigner and Jerry Pierce, envision the chronoplanes as offering not just a new hope, but the opportunity for a different world in the present. Using the knowledge gained covertly by a trip to a future chronoplane, they conspire to turn their vision into reality – but will they succeed before their superiors in the government can stop them?

Kilian’s first novel in his “Chronoplane Wars” series was an entertaining book almost overstuffed with interesting ideas, and a prequel would seem to provide an opportunity to explore some of them in greater detail. Yet Kilian seems to approach this book with all of the enthusiasm of a high school student trying to complete his homework. Key developments such as the discovery of the chronoplanes are simply dumped into the story, with their impact upon events more described than shown. Instead the primary focus of the plot is on the conspiracy, yet even here Kilian does little to develop sympathy for his characters or suspense over the inevitable outcome. The result is a bloated disappointment that squanders the opportunity to develop the promise of his earlier work in the series. ( )

CHRONOPLANE WARS