Michael Z. Williamson's That Was Now, This is Then

(Welcome to Day Two of Jimbo's Memorial Day Extravaganza! Today we're featuring Michael Z. Williamson.  Mad Mike seems to think I know how to do math. He's done five years in the US Air Force, three years in the Army National Guard, twelve years in the Air National Guard, then another two in the Army National Guard and another three in the Air National Guard. I think. Any mistakes are mine.  He deployed for the Mississippi flood in 1993 and for Operation Desert Fox in 99, as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2008, retiring as a Technical Sergeant. His army MOS was Untilities Equipment Repairer (52C30) and his Air Force MOS was Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration.

He got to play with some construction equipment and some small arms. 

He's married with a total of four kids from two marriages, three cats and some livestock.He is also the proprietor of sharppointythings.com and michaelzwilliamson.com, to go along with The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse

 

Being a book geek (and I think I qualify, what with having a blog about books and all) there are few better feelings that finally getting a chance to read a book that you've been waiting on. You all know what I mean, right? It's a rush to finally crack that spine (okay, open the file on your Kindle, but work with me here, okay?) and get to readin'. It is, however, better when that book is everything you wanted it to be.  So when I got to read That Was Then, This is Now by Michael Z. Williamson, I was both excited and happy. That's a powerful combination. And if you're reading it a little late because you didn't realize that it had released, that's your bad, or mine, as the case may be. 

Those of you who remember the first book in the series, A Long Time Until Now, will find all of their old friends back, if not always for a long time. Some of our friends have decided to stay home this time. I can't say I blame them. As much fun as these books are to read, living them might not be the most enjoyable thing ever. Living in the dim, dark past isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Personal lives are a thing too, and not all of the old crew is still in the military, so they can't be ordered to go. All this to say that, if someone is missing, it makes sense that they're missing.

Of course, we have a couple of additions to the team as well. Both are females that have their Ph.D.s and neither has my phone number. The former is fine. The latter would be unacceptable if they actually existed. Ya'll need to stop hogging up all the brainy chicks. Anyway...

This time we're headed back to grab another squad that got stuck, and things didn't go so well for them. They didn't have the skills that the first squad had, and they've been there longer. Things are pretty grim. But not everyone wants to go home, and their reasons, while not always admirable, make sense. And that leads to one of the cruxes of the novel.

When is it okay to take people's lives over and tell them what to do? If someone has established a life in a place where they are welcome and doesn't want to leave, do you have the right to drag them away? What if they're being there could cause problems for someone else later? What if you want to kick the dude in the junk for the reason he wants to stay? Does that have any bearing?

And, without getting too far into spoiler territory, I think I might just kick that dude in his junk if I ever meet him. Seriously. Read the book, you'll get what I'm saying. Fortunately, dude doesn't actually exist so I get to stay out of prison, but some things I just don't countenance. Ick. Not that he's portrayed as a hero or anything, but still. Then again, it's something that comes from the real world, so I get why it's here.

Military conflict with the natives of the time they've gone back to is part and parcel of the series. It's about what you'd expect. Williamson has a knack for showing the adaptability of literal cavemen in the face of technology they can't match, too. It's not a situation where the primitives give up and it's not to a point where they do something stupid either. Certain situations lead to conflict and always will. They do their best with what they have and they don't waste their lives. I'l take it.

I want to take a camping trip with the gear they get to take to the past this time, too. Seriously, every year when I do this (at least for the last few after I got a better idea of how to do this right) I send the authors a questionnaire so I can do their bio, and I always ask about what cool toys they got to play with while they were serving. I frequently hear about a lot of cool stuff, but I've never heard about ANYTHING that comes close to some of the field gear the Bykos (not the Cogni) have.

All of that aside, That Was Now, This is Then was a very human novel. The speculative element is there in the technological sense but, honestly, Mad Mike does one of the best jobs about really getting things down to the people and emotions that I've ever read. I'm guessing dude has some education (maybe formal, maybe not) in psychology, sociology and anthropology. I have a bit (freshman level classes I took in college but I got A's in all of them) and I'm seeing some things in here that look awfully familiar. Williamson has considered things in early societies that most authors would miss. Kudos to him. 

I'm also a fan of Williamson's take on time travel. Too many times it's something that's either taken for granted (Dr. Who) or at the very least one hundred percent accurate (Back to the Future) but that doesn't really make sense in a lot of cases, especially with what, for the Bykos, is new technology. Things get wonky and they don't always go right. Longer gaps in time are less precise, it all makes sense. It's consistently inconsistent. I like that. Too much science fiction makes technology infallible. That is clearly not the case here. 

There is an obvious opening left for a third book. I've heard rumors that we'll see it, but nothing seems to be confirmed at this point. While I can't make any guarantees, I really hope to see more soon, because there is too much awesome here for this series to die early. If it comes, you'll get a review here. If not, I will personally stick my bottom lip out so far that I step on it. Test me if you think I'm playin'.

Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Stun Guns

That Was Now, This Is Then

Michael Z. Williamson

Baen Books, 2021

That Was Now, This Is Then is available at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.