Terraplane [Paperback]

A droll and disturbing novel about time-travel, Womack's second work (after Ambient ) presents a vision of the pastNew York circa 1939every bit as frightening as its vision of the future. The narrator-protagonist, Luther, is a spy for an American corporation doing business in 21st century Russia, a society that is a nightmare parody of a capitalist society in its final, self-destructing stagescorrupt, consumer-mad and violent. Luther and his pal, Jake, meet with two Russians who are also involved in industrial espionage, and who reveal a secret Soviet invention, a time machine that is the product of a clandestine ESP lab. Escaping from Moscow with their catch, Luther and Jake activate the time-travel device when cornered by the Soviets, and are hurled backward in time to Depression-era America. They land in New York City at the time of the great World's Fair of 1939, but it is a funhouse-mirror vision, with everything slightly askew. Events have deviated somewhat in this parallel world. Cuba is now a state of the Union, slavery wasn't abolished until the turn of the century; and FDR was assassinated before taking office, thus aborting the New Deal and throwing the country into an even more severe depression. The book follows these disoriented refugees in this slightly mad world, as they seek to recover the time machine so that they can return to the future. Womack ingeniously plays with history and science to create a cats-cradle of a narrative. The futurespeak language he has invented for his characters makes the beginnings of the book a little rough going, but once the characters land in the past, it quickly takes off into imaginative hyperspace.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A Terraplane was an American automobile, wasn't it? It's also an early clue to its passengers (or to us) that the 1939 they have entered from the 21st century differs from the one in history books. A Russian scientist who has defected to the past via a VCR is hotly pursued by the Soviets and by black American general Luther. Once the FBI joins the chase, the action starts popping like a string of firecrackers, but it takes a long fuse to get there. And some sparks don't ignite: e.g., Stalin as poster-boy for a consumer society ruled, like America, by a gigantic corporation. Womack has imagined some nifty solutions to the dilemmas of time travel, but his moral imagination wastes itself on sympathy for an assassin. Luther's narration, in a knotty, futuristic English, doesn't help. Hugh M. Crane, Cambridge P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A retired general and his hit-man kidnap a Russian scientist and travel through time to an alternate New York of 1939. Plenty of high-tech glitz charges this powerful, breakthrough science fiction novel by the author of Ambient.

Terraplane, the second novel in Jack Womack's acclaimed Ambient series, is a vision of an alternate reality-New York, 1939, as experienced by travelers from the twenty-first century. Retired general Luther Biggerstaff and his hit man Jake are on a covert mission to kidnap Soviet superscientist Alekhine for the multinational Dryco. But Alekhine has disappeared, leaving behind a device that catapults them headlong into the past. And this 1939 is different-F.D.R. has been assassinated; the Great Depression has cut even deeper; Churchill died in a street accident; and the world is at Hitler's mercy. The only hope Luther and Jake have of getting home again depends on an unlikely conjunction of the New York World's Fair, the blues of Robert Johnson, and the avant-garde physics of Nikola Tesla. Terraplane is a surreal and darkly comic journey into the twilight zone of history gone mad.

"Womack . . . performs feats of brilliance on many levels. . . . He succeeds in balancing blistering social commentary with shrewd literary experimentation. . . . Flecked with black humor, this is speculative fiction at its eerie best."-Entertainment Weekly

"Droll and disturbing . . . Womack ingeniously plays with history to create a cat's cradle of a narrative . . . [which] quickly takes off into imaginative hyperspace."-Publishers Weekly

"An information-dense, battering-ram English . . . that evokes and commands constant action. . . . Look for sequels. They will be loud and feral, and they'll fizz."-The Washington Post Book World

Jack Womack is also the author of Ambient, Heathern, i-which won the Philip K. Dick Award-Random Acts of Senseless Violence, and Let's Put the Future Behind Us. His short fiction has appeared in Omni as well as in various anthologies. He lives in New York City.