The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma

PLOT SUMMARY: Privileged Andrew Harrington is a despondent young man who plans on killing himself. Eight years earlier, he had found the love of his life. It didn’t matter that their lives were vastly different — he born to a rich and entrepreneurial family and she a woman struggling to survive as a prostitute in London’s seedy Whitechapel section. He’s determined to declare his love for her and live happily ever after, even if it means leaving his privileged life behind. Everything changes however, when his beloved Marie Kelly becomes the last victim of the villainous Jack the Ripper.

That’s where H.G. Wells comes in. The publication of his novel, The Time Machine, has set off a furor of interest and curiosity about the possibility of time travel. There is even a company called Murray’s Time Travel that offers trips through time to witness a battle between ... Read More

The Map of the Sky by Felix J. Palma

The Map of the Sky is the follow-up to Felix J. Palma’s The Map of Time, a book that had much to recommend it but that I couldn’t in the end quite get behind. The Map of the Sky shares some of the same flaws as its predecessor, leaving me with a mixed reaction, but on the whole, I found it to be an improvement over the first book and more consistently enjoyable.

The Map of Time introduced H.G. Wells as a main character and centered its plot around his The Time Machine. Wells returns in The Map of the Sky, but this time the story uses The War of the World as its core, though Palma also brings in a slew of other literary/cinematic touchstones including John W. Campbell’s famous short story “W... Read More