From: g@crcomp.net   
      
   Titus G wrote:   
   > Don wrote:   
   >> Titus G wrote:   
   >>> Robert Woodward wrote:   
   >>> snip   
   >>>>   
   >>>> 1) This story had time travelers who manipulated time by changing events   
   >>>> in the past (and thus generate a new timeline). The story also had a   
   >>>> character (non-time traveller) who remembered the erased timelines   
   >>>> (IIRC, he, on occasion, couldn't find books he remembered reading   
   >>>> because they had been written in the erased timeline and not the new   
   >>>> one). I also remember that the last time manipulation that the time   
   >>>> travelers performed in the book erased a time line where that character   
   >>>> had been murdered. In the new one, he was still alive and he did   
   >>>> remember being killed. BTW, sometime during the book, the time travelers   
   >>>> became aware of him.   
   >>>   
   >>> Murder in Metachronopolis by John C. Wright?   
   >>> But it was first published in 2010 (isfdb).   
   >>> It is the first story in City Beyond Time sub titled TALES OF THE FALL   
   >>> OF METACHRONOPOLIS.   
   >>   
   >> Somehow the subtitle's significance eluded me until now. No wonder the   
   >> non-novel's non-sequitural narrative was incoherent.   
   >   
   > You have lost me. I do not understand the above comment.   
      
   Sorry, sometimes strange sentences slip out when my recreational word   
   play gets the better of me.   
      
   The plot knottiness in MURDER IN METACHRONOPOLIS (MiM) made an   
   impression on me over a decade ago when it was first read. When you   
   mentioned above how MiM is but one short story in a collection, a   
   hypothesis immediately jumped to mind of incoherence caused by   
   inadvertently reading the collection as if it were a novel.   
       But, no, when listening to it again during last night's dog walk   
   on icy streets, it became clear how easy it is to discern the short   
   stories that follow MiM. The problem irrefutably lies within the   
   intricately dense, Van Vogtish, MiM plot. Perhaps it over-stimulates   
   my mind. Regardless, it's too complex for me to grasp in a single   
   hearing or reading.   
       THE GOLDEN OECUMENE trilogy by Wright worked the same way. It   
   required repetitive readings (eg hearings) to fully understand.   
       MiM subheads each story snippet with a random integer. What are   
   they supposed to be? Something similar to nexus markers for THE GARDEN   
   OF FORKING PATHS by Borges? Are readers supposed to put them in order   
   to make sense of the plot? Such questions come to mind when MiM's either   
   heard or read.   
      
   --   
   Don.......My cat's  )\._.,--....,'``.                     veritas    _|_   
   telltale tall tail /,   _.. \   _\  (`._ ,.               liberabit   |   
   tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'              vos         |   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)