Subject: MEMORIES by Mike McQuay

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Date: 14 Aug 87 15:33:08 GMT

MEMORIES by Mike McQuay
	       Bantam Spectra, 1987, ISBN 0-553-25888-5, $3.95.
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		       Copyright 1987 Evelyn C. Leeper

     There are some ideas that are around as stereotypes or cliches for ages
before someone looks at them lopsided and says, "What if?"  Certainly the
traditional inmate of a mental institution who believes he is Napoleon is a
familiar character.  But not until now has anyone taken that idea and said,
"What if he really WERE Napoleon?"

     Well, Mike McQuay has done so.  MEMORIES is set in the same future that
McQuay used in his first novel, LIFEKEEPER.  That novel was basically a re-
telling of BRAVE NEW WORLD, but in MEMORIES McQuay breaks new ground.
Individually, the ideas are not new: consciousnesses traveling in time and
inhabiting other bodies, the sorts of personalities that an ultra-regimented
future will develop, the grandfather paradox.  But McQuay combines them to
make something new.  It's not entirely successful; I felt that the love
story tended to get in the way of the rest of the plot, and some of the co-
incidences were too "deus ex machina."  But on the whole MEMORIES gives us
some interesting views of how characters from different backgrounds would
react to the power to travel through time and (possibly) affect history.

     This novel, to some extent, follows the pre-destination theory of time
travel; that is, whatever you do in the past was already done.  In one sub-
plot (and there are several) one character does what he did because he had
done what he did.  (I am being purposely obscure here to avoid giving any
spoilers.)  Unfortunately, part of the impact of that sub-plot revolves not
only around the character not knowing history very well (which is
believable) but, more importantly, around the reader not knowing history
very well either.  The reader may very well react with a "Well, of course
that's what would happen!" when the light finally dawns on the characters.

     On the other hand, I found much of the main plot and other sub-plots
not as obvious, and I believe that the interplay of the characters was much
more the point of the novel than the plot.  In the aforementioned subplot,
the character's feelings are far more important than the actual events that
transpire, the reasons for the actions more important than the actions
themselves.  There is much of the child's wish "Please make that it didn't
happen" in this novel.  Yet, just as in real life, people who think they can
make things better often actually make them worse.  All revolutionaries
think they are making things better; some succeed, but many are trading the
frying pan for the fire.  In MEMORIES, many of the characters are trying to
make things better.  To the extent the results are pre-ordained, the results
of their actions are often the exact opposite of their intent.  Think of it
as "conservation of effort": whatever effort is put forth, whether for or
against a goal, will help to bring about the inevitable outcome.  This
conservation of effort is not so obvious as the TWILIGHT ZONE episode in
which a man goes back in time to prevent an accident and ends up by causing
it through the actions he takes to stop it.  But it is there.

     As a time-travel story, MEMORIES has more than the usual number of
ideas floating around in it.  The characters are real, and their
predicaments are real.  Though I was not impressed by McQuay's LIFEKEEPER, I
would recommend MEMORIES.

					Evelyn C. Leeper
					(201) 957-2070
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