I'm Back, I'm Back From The Future!

It's been like a month since my last post, so I thought I'd drop by and help finn5fel carry the heavy load that is the daily updating of this blog. And, because it's also been like a month since I finished one book I promised I was going to talk here about, it's only fair that I'm reviewing it now.

The Plot to Save Socrates, written by Sunny Jhanna's first Guest of Honor Mr. Paul Levinson, is a very fast-paced and entertaining book. If I needed two months to finish it, that clearly wasn't because of the book itself, but because of my own problems to maintain a comfortable and satisfying reading schedule.
The Plot..., IMHO, is very well written and, to me, the plot is very intelligently crafted. Since the story centers around a bunch of different characters that are able to time travel, and all through it they meet and part and meet again, it would have been completely understandable that the reading process were confusing and misled the reader into a tangle, forcing him to reread entire chapters time and again to understand what's going on. But Paul Levinson designed his book not to be an indigestible account of facts, but a comprehensible and appealling story. So, he tells this story through a lot of micro-chapters that compel the reader to move forward and flip pages like a maniac. And this chapter disposition also achieves one more thing: it eases and empowers the reader into the sensations of time travelling and of being immerse in a circular never ending story.
It even may be difficult for the reader (i.e. me) to not run into a lot of loose ends that thicken the plot in the first few chapters, but when the end of the book is near, they magically start to reveal themselves, and everything fits perfectly into place, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. That, for instance, is the case of the unexpected final revelation of the book. Spoiler-free as this post is, I'm not going to give it away, but I'll say that I really didn't see that coming. And, this is the best part, it makes perfect sense into the story and almost forces the reader to a second reading.

I only have two little objections to make, if they can be called that. The first is that it seemed to me that in the first chapters all the characters bought very easily the time travel thing. Nobody, that I remember, was suspicious about any person claiming to be a time traveller. Not even the first time they met. And not even in ancient Athens. Then, I saw that it all had an easy and satisfying explanation, but I will not say more, again because of my spoiler-free politic.
And the second thing... Why is so important to save Socrates? Until the very end is not properly explained why the characters do what they do, but I really would have liked some more light regarding that on the first chapters. But then again, that's the book I'd have liked the most, not the book everyone would have liked the most. So my opinion here, I understand it, is worth less than naught.

I'm going to finish saying how much I really enjoyed the book. It's about time travel, so, what's not to like? And it deals with the countless paradoxes and consequences of it, but not too thoroughly. Because, from my point of view, this is a book aimed to entertain the reader, not to instruct him. Or, at least, it does both things, but the former is its main and more important goal.
So, as old finn5fel would say: this is a very compelling story and, in sum, a wonderfully crafted book that you could do worse than checking out. Go read it, and thank me later. Enjoy!