Maxine McArthur's Time Future is a thoroughly mediocre science-fiction novel with little to recommend it. Maria Halley is the commander of a space station that is being besieged, for no apparent reason, by an alien race. Unfortunately, the siege is the least of her concerns. In short order, she is confronted with an ancient ship with baffling technology that has somehow slipped through the besiegers; a hideously violent monster that is the identical twin of the one from Alien; and the surreptitious return of her hot, humanoid ex-husband.

As a formal matter there is nothing wrong with this setup. A diverse society, crammed into a pressure-cooker situation, and spiced with a mysterious arrival and hot, humanoid heavy breathing ("I prickled and throbbed under the dry wrap in response to his presence"): Connie Willis would have a field day. But McArthur doesn't pull it off. The story is, I gather, meant to be a science-fiction procedural, with Halley as the implausible private eye. (Doesn't she have a station to run?) But her investigation is too plodding, the prose too awkward, and the book -- at 450-plus pages! -- simply too long to generate much interest.

Copyright © 2007 Steven Wu