Loved Robert J. Sawyer’s standalone novel, The End of an Era. Time travel has been discovered and two unlikely travelers, two paleontologists from the 21st century, Canada -- (naturally since Sawyer’s novels often depict the awesomeness of Canadian culture – eh?) – with Brandy, a guy with many flaws and quite the Everyman in every respect, who just lost his wife to his best friend, Klicks, who is also aboard the same time ship.

Of course the resulting tensions between the two create a ripe atmosphere of humor as well as regret and some jealousy and shame, as they both discover the world of the Cretaceous Era. Turns out there are aliens! And they’re naturally viral, taking over dinosaurs for their own.

And the Earth’s gravity is lighter – we find out why. And the true intentions of these Hets is kept quiet – and we find out how. Brandy and Klicks are unsure how to proceed. Should they take the risk and bring them back to their own time, since this race is currently extinct? Or continue their research into what killed the dinosaurs?

Sawyer argues well with lots of science words and technology bandied about, about the lack of funding in research, the strain of relationships that creating a career which takes you miles from your wife for extended periods of time (though 60 million is a bit much), and the lack of evidence that one single asteroid did wipe out the dinosaurs.

Actually we do find out what actually killed them off. It’s fictitious, a lot of fun and suspenseful.

Also plenty of flashbacks are used as a device to get into Brandy’s head. We even get entertained by an alternate time line, where the “now” Brandy discovers the “time travelling Brandy’s” diary on a computer. The book is a bit fuzzy how that happened.

Overall, an entertaining read, could not put it down. Recommended.


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Loved Robert J. Sawyer’s standalone novel, The End of an Era. Time travel has been discovered and two unlikely travelers, two paleontologists from the 21st century, Canada -- (naturally since Sawyer’s novels often depict the awesomeness of Canadian culture – eh?) – with Brandy, a guy with many flaws and quite the Everyman in every respect, who just lost his wife to his best friend, Klicks, who is also aboard the same time ship.

Of course the resulting tensions between the two create a ripe atmosphere of humor as well as regret and some jealousy and shame, as they both discover the world of the Cretaceous Era. Turns out there are aliens! And they’re naturally viral, taking over dinosaurs for their own.

And the Earth’s gravity is lighter – we find out why. And the true intentions of these Hets is kept quiet – and we find out how. Brandy and Klicks are unsure how to proceed. Should they take the risk and bring them back to their own time, since this race is currently extinct? Or continue their research into what killed the dinosaurs?

Sawyer argues well with lots of science words and technology bandied about, about the lack of funding in research, the strain of relationships that creating a career which takes you miles from your wife for extended periods of time (though 60 million is a bit much), and the lack of evidence that one single asteroid did wipe out the dinosaurs.

Actually we do find out what actually killed them off. It’s fictitious, a lot of fun and suspenseful.

Also plenty of flashbacks are used as a device to get into Brandy’s head. We even get entertained by an alternate time line, where the “now” Brandy discovers the “time travelling Brandy’s” diary on a computer. The book is a bit fuzzy how that happened.

Overall, an entertaining read, could not put it down. Recommended.


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The only one of great Canuck hard-SF writer Sawyer's earlier novels I had still been wanting to read.