DAYS OF CAIN

Time-travel yarn from the author of This Side of Judgement (1994). Time is mutable and can be visited—you can even meet yourself—so to rationalize the situation and prevent tampering with history (in order that, in the remote future, God can evolve), the Moiety has been created. Time Monitor Gaspar James, from planet Arpad in the medium-future, is assigned by his mysterious, eccentric boss Coriolan to deal with a problem in 1943, where the charismatic Alma Lewin, once a colleague of Gaspar's, has gone ``renegade.'' But what is Alma attempting to achieve? Gaspar's attention focuses on the notorious death camp Birkenau, where he captures a courier of Alma's trying to smuggle in future antibiotics. But this is only a hint of Alma's well-organized conspiracy: She has obtained helicopter gunships from the future beyond 1943 and intends to assault not just Birkenau but all the Nazi camps and liberate the inmates—with incalculable effects on the future. Genuinely harrowing and impassioned, with wonderful characters and an unforgettable theme—the sole possible drawback being Dunn's unquestioning acceptance of orthodox time-travel mechanics and causality.