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A World Out of Time
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Plot Summary of A World Out of Time
"Revived corpsicle Jaybee Corbell barely gets a glimpse of the dystopian 23rd centry before being trained (via RNA injections) as a Buzzard ramjet pilot and sent into deep space to spend the rest of his new life alone in the void. After he hijacks the ship in protest, one of his former captors has his personality beamed into the ship's computer and engineers their return to earth -- via a black hole that adds 3 million (objective) years to the trip. The Earth to which they return is drastically changed, and in imminent danger of being destroyed by a gas giant with a mysteriously skewed orbit..."
Darren Zieger, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of A World Out of Time
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book - very upbeat
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - science fiction story
Explore/1st contact/ enviro story Yes
Time Travel: - largely forwards/future
Plotlets: - preventing an ecological disaster
Spying & Investigations Yes
What is main char. doing? - rescue mission/escape from confinement
Repressive society story Yes
Repressive because: - strict rationing of freedoms/goods
Tech./$$$/Info hunt Yes
Stealing/recovering/destroying - cure/disease/bioweapon
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Time Travel story? Yes
Who's a slave/repressed? - humans are slaves of other humans

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - explorer
Age: - long lived adults
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - Computer
Age: - long-lived adults
Profession/status: - servant
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - throughout most of the book.
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Setting
Terrain - Jungle - Desert - Forests - Planet surface, need spacesuit - Space, need spacesuit - Domed/Underground City
Earth setting: - medium future 22-24th century - distant future
Takes place on Earth? Yes
Takes place in spaceship? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - explicit references to deaths
scientific jargon? (SF only) - a significant amount of technical jargon
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references only
How much dialogue? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to A World Out of Time
Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
Time's Enemy by L.A. Graf
The Ocean Of Years - Chronicles of Solace 2 by Roger MacBride Allen
The Corridors of Time by Poul Anderson
When the Past Meets the Present by John Orizon


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Larry Niven Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Dimitri Melamoud  

SCHOLARS:
Nesssus  Alan Tompkins  Aaron Branson  Harriet Klausner  Chris Stephensen  Gareth Powell  


Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).
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