The Map of Time: Summary and book reviews of The Map of Time by Felix Palma, plus links to an excerpt from The Map of Time and a biography of Felix Palma.
The Map of Time A Novel
by Felix J. Palma
Hardcover: Jun 2011,
624 pages.
Paperback: Jun 2012,
640 pages.
Set in Victorian London, with characters real and imagined, The Map of Time is a page-turner that boasts a triple play of intertwined plots in which a skeptical H. G. Wells is called upon to investigate purported incidents of time travel and to save lives and literary classics, including Dracula and The Time Machine, from being wiped from existence.
What happens if we change history? Félix J. Palma explores this question in The Map of Time, and he weaves a historical fantasy as imaginative as it is exciting, a story full of love and adventure that transports readers to a haunting Victorian London for their own taste of time travel.
Palma is clearly an accomplished storyteller - the novel's fast pacing, imaginative exploits, and unexpected twists and turns make each story a fascinating piece in its own right; combined, the work is both an utterly perfect summer read and an extended meditation on the permeability of time and the limitations of technology, as seen through the lens of the Victorian age. Palma's narrator is sophisticated, an amalgamation of Dickensian omniscience and the knowing wink of postmodernism. (Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Palma makes his U.S. debut with the brilliant first in a trilogy, an intriguing thriller that explores the ramifications of time travel in three intersecting narratives.
Booklist
Starred Review. Readers who embark on the journey... will be richly rewarded.
Library Journal
Starred Review. Lyrical storytelling and a rich attention to detail make this prize-winning novel an enthralling read.
Scott Westerfeld, New York Times bestselling author of Leviathan The Map of Time recalls the science fiction of Wells and Verne, and then turns the early masters on their heads. A brilliant and breathtaking trip through metafictional time.
Cherie Priest, author of Boneshaker The Map of Time is a singularly inventive, luscious story with a core of pure, unsettling weirdness. With unnerving grace and disturbing fantasy, it effortlessly straddles that impossible line between being decidedly familiar, and yet absolutely new.
M.J. Rose, international bestselling author
Strange and wonderful. Magical and smart. Félix J. Palma has done more than written a wonderful novel, he's concocted a supernatural tour de force. Time travel, tragic love, murder and mystery all combine in what is nothing short of a surprising, satisfying and mesmerizing read.
H. G. Wells is not only a prominent character in The Map of Time; he's also a famous novelist, sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction." Born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, a small town southeast of London, Herbert George Wells grew up quite poor but, after an incident in 1874 in which he broke his leg and was forced to rest in bed, became an avid reader, which, later grew into a passion for writing. He attended a small local private school from the age of seven but, due to his family's financial troubles, he left at the age of 14 to become an apprentice draper (a dealer in fabrics and sewing materials).
Three years later he was fired from the job and shortly thereafter earned a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, where he studied biology with T. H. Huxley (Aldus Huxley's grandfather) - a move that was to predict his lifelong interest in and exploration of scientific...
A brilliantly original fiction that reveals how disparate people connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.
Sophisticated, witty, and ingeniously convincing, Susanna Clarke's magisterial novel weaves magic into a flawlessly detailed vision of historical England. She has created a world so thoroughly enchanting that eight hundred pages leave readers longing for more.
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(932 words).
Scott Westerfeld, New York Times bestselling author of Leviathan
H. G. Wells is not only a prominent character in The Map of Time; he's also a famous novelist, sometimes called "The Father of Science Fiction." Born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, a small town southeast of London, Herbert George Wells grew up quite poor but, after an incident in 1874 in which he broke his leg and was forced to rest in bed, became an avid reader, which, later grew into a passion for writing. He attended a small local private school from the age of seven but, due to his family's financial troubles, he left at the age of 14 to become an apprentice draper (a dealer in fabrics and sewing materials). 
