The Chronoliths

By: Robert Charles Wilson

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Scott Warden is a man haunted by the past - and soon to be haunted by the future. In early 21st-century Thailand, Scott is an expatriate slacker. Then, one day, he inadvertently witnesses an impossible event: the violent appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar in the forested interior. Its arrival collapses trees for a quarter mile around its base, freezing ice out of the air and emitting a burst of ionizing radiation. It appears to be composed of an exotic form of matter. And the inscription chiseled into it commemorates a military victory - 16 years in the future.

Shortly afterwards, another, larger pillar arrives in the center of Bangkok - obliterating the city and killing thousands. Over the next several years, human society is transformed by these mysterious arrivals from, seemingly, our own near future. Who is the warlord "Kuin" whose victories they note?

Scott wants only to rebuild his life. But some strange loop of causality keeps drawing him in, to the central mystery and a final battle with the future.

©2002 Robert Charles Wilson (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Not Wilson's Best

In The Chronoliths, the world is rocked by the sudden arrival of massive obelisks, or "chronoliths," which appear to be a future conqueror's monuments to battles that have not yet occurred. As the chronoliths continue to appear, the world descends into economic and social chaos. Robert Charles Wilson is a brilliant writer and this is standard fare for him: a character story involving normal people caught up in major, world-altering preternatural events.

While The Chronoliths has an interesting premise, it is flat and intensely boring at times. Much of the action occurs elsewhere when the viewpoint character is not present and we are simply told about things that happened. Wilson fails to use the chronoliths' potential. They are fascinating objects but they are reduced to a setting, a mere backdrop by which our hero, Scott Warden, looks retrospectively on his life. To make matters worse, Warden is unlikable and apathetic. We often get the sense that he isn't involved in the story but rather that he just happens to be standing there when the story occurs.

Wilson almost always surprises the reader with something completely unexpected at the end. Unfortunately, there are few surprises here. The chronoliths turn out to be disappointing and less interesting than expected.

The narrator is decent and he has a good voice. Unfortunately, he chose to read Scott's part in a slow, monotone voice that made the character sound constantly stoned. The lack of intonation made the boring bits worse and I often found my mind wandering.

If you're a Wilson fan you may enjoy this one, but it is hardly Wilson's greatest achievement. If you haven't read Spin or Blind Lake, I suggest going there first. Overall, The Chronoliths was anti-climactic. Whereas most Wilson novels leave the reader feeling awed, I finished it thinking, "Is that it?"

You people that gave this book 5 Stars....

We could not possibly have listened to the same story. I have enjoyed a few other books from this author, but this thing, this book is rubbish. Save your credit. Listen to Spin or Last Year....this one...it's a mess.

Couldn't finish it

It's very rare that I give up on reading a book. Maybe an abridged version would be better. I don't think I will buy anything else by this author.

Ultimately unsatisfying story

What was most disappointing about Robert Charles Wilson’s story?

Too much of the story remained unresolved at the end. Scott ended up a passenger, a witness to the events of his time, but all through the story, there was the promise that his role in somehow bringing about events, or his potential role in resolving the conflict at the core of the story, would be revealed. In the end, there was no reveal, and no satisfactory reason revealed for why we should care about him.

In like manner, the story of the Chronoliths was left unresolved. There was very strong hint that Scott's mentor Su had some role in "defeating" the final Chronolith (although we're never certain that it was the final one - the whole thing sort of petered out), but it's left ambiguous. I don't mind a little ambiguity, but not when it involves the organizing theme and central actor in the story. It seems as if Mr. Wilson just got tired of the whole thing and decided to wrap things up by making everyone older.

Would you be willing to try another one of Oliver Wyman’s performances?

Probably not. His inflections often did not match the descriptors in the text for the way characters spoke; I felt that he completely missed on Hitch Paley's style of talking during the latter part of the book. It also seemed that all of Mr. Wyman's female characters, with the exception of Su, spoke with the same voice.

Any additional comments?

I stayed with the book because the central conceit - giant monuments from the future, portending global conflict and conquest - promised some very interesting science fictional treatment of time, causation, necessity. But none of the promise was delivered on; we were left with no particular insight into either the science, the political / military possibilities, the paradoxical possibilities, or the characters themselves.

Slow moving family drama - no sci fi

I was expecting a hard-core sc fi I
but this is just some guy and his kid and his ex-wife talking about things