Collision Course

by Nigel Hinton

Ray finds himself in a moral debacle when a joy ride on a stolen motorbike ends in the inadvertent death of an old woman. Nobody sees the accident, and the teenager resolves to ignore his conscience and keep the transgression to himself. However, when reports of the incident begin to circulate in local newspapers, the incessant talk of the town eventually makes Ray vulnerable to the convictions of his own conscience. He is soon obliged to choose between guilt and his budding teenage life, or confession to the police in this stunning and heartfelt psychological novel.

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Fiction, Dystopia, British Literature, Amazon, Speculative Fiction

156 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 1972

About the author

Nigel Hinton was born and educated in London. After two years in advertising, he worked as an English teacher for nine years. His first novel, Collision Course (winner of the Dutch Silver Pen Award) was written as a result of a challenge from one of his pupils. He began teaching part-time and also worked as a professional actor before concentrating on his writing.

Nigel is the ever-popular author the Beaver Towers series of stories for primary school readers (which has been adapted for TV), and, for secondary school readers, he wrote the Buddy trilogy. His novel The Finders won him the Federation of Children’s Book Groups Award.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

DAW Collectors #43

Cover Artist: Chris Foss

Bayley, Barrington John, Birthplace: Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK,9 April 1937 - 14 October 2008

Alternate Names: Alan Aumbry, Barrington John Bayley, Barington Dž. Bejli, James Colvin, John Diamond, P. F. Woods, Peter Woods.


A Variant Title for this book was: "Collision With Chronos"

The book is based on a hard science Fiction premise, the intersection of two time waves, one from the future heading into the past, and the “present”, heading into the future. Ihere are two “presents” moving towards each other with the possibility of annihilation.

The “now” band of time is but a side effect of the universe and not a principle. The time bands crops up at varying points heading in varying directions across infinite universes. What’s so interesting about this interpretation of time and time travel is that most time travel cliches (time loops, meeting oneself in the past) are done away with. Time travel novels tend to follow the same ground in slightly different paths.

"Collision Course" is a breath of fresh air as far as Time Travel books go, n the story Henske, an archaeologist, works at an archaeological dig at an “ancient” city. However, mysterious evidence crops up that the ruins are actually, inexplicably, getting younger.

Bayley, A long-time friend of Michael Moorcock, gave him a great deal of early exposure in his role as editor of New Worlds in the 1960s and 1970s, Barrington Bayley was a member of threesome including Moorcock and J G Ballard which plotted to overthrow traditional science fiction.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third I've read by Bayley where he takes the quotidian ideas about "time" and pretzelizes them. What if time is a local phenomenon, not a universal one, and what if it is a wave front where the only thing that matters is "now": the future is barren and empty because nothing's there yet, and the past is a spent thing devoid of consciousness. Multiple timestreams / time-waves can exist, and travel in any direction relative to a reference point. Collision of wave fronts is cataclysmic and obliterates both.

It has some beautiful imagery and thoughts. Alien ruins age in reverse, because they are part of a timestream approaching from the far future. A vast alien intelligence traveling in its own wavefront whose identity is neither singular ("I") nor group ("we"), and prefers the pronoun "here" instead.

The entire attitude of the Titan Legion, the racial purists, whose whole philosophy and theology hinge on a previous alien invasion that the facts uncovered by archeology and biology are bent to agree with their established dogma.

While far less gonzo and quirky than his others--it is practically sedate by his standards--it remains a "big picture" production where details and ramifications are swept aside, and if you pick at any particular flaw the whole thing falls apart.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

And just like that, I’m a BJ Bailey fan!

Books like this are the reason why I prefer reading older books - there’s so much packed into this slim book.

This future society of “true men”( read Nazis) while fighting to maintain their racial purity by removing deviant, lower races, discovers ancient alien ruins that are aging in reverse!

This discovery prompts a time travel expedition including the physicist who built the time machine and the archeologists who was studying the ancient alien ruins.

The rest of the book is so different from any time travel books I’ve ever read I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
Some of the ideas reminded me of Carlo Rovelli’s book: The order of time. The concept that “now” for you is a local effect, and isn’t the same everywhere. Some of the other concepts may not be Rovelli approved but are very interesting. There are many different “now’s” moving in different directions and two of them are going to collide!

I’m on the lookout for more Barrington J Bailey books.
I love finding authors who were as good or better than their peers at the time but aren’t remembered as well.

Sensitive readers be warned: the evil space nazis make incessant use of racial slurs.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Bayley for his whacky plots and absurd mash-ups. Read "Zen Gun" if you ever want a space opera mini-epic that plunges into some weird territory while keeping things fresh and fun.

If you like what you read, consider picking up this book towards the end of Bayley's repertoire. The ideas here are interesting: suppose that time does not move in a single direction; further suppose that there are two civilizations on Earth that occupy time dimensions that are headed towards an inevitable collision. What follows is less so. You've got an Evil Empire, some heroic scientists, a few revolutionaries, and a more advanced race. This is Star Trekky stuff with different names and labels--and a dose of racial slurs, courtesy of said Evil Empire, who has a repellent stance towards anyone who looks or speaks differently. Unfortunately, Bayley lays this race-hate on thick and employs slurs throughout the text with Twain-like frequency.

On the plus side, this did whet my appetite for more science fiction in the near future.

[Rog Petersen · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars
Once the big idea (time can move in different directions) is revealed, some boilerplate SF stuff happens, complete with literal deus ex machina.
The sweet Chris Foss cover is printed badly and off kilter in the usual DAW style.

[David Sarkies · Rating 3 out of 5]

A morality tale for pre-teens
16 April 2012

I was originally going to trash this book for being boring and pointless, but I as I think about it more, and also read some of the reviews of it, I guess I have come to a better understanding of the purpose behind this book. The story is about a young boy who steals a motor bike for a bit of a joyride, however he cannot actually ride the bike, loses control, and kills an old lady. Then, in a fit of panic, he runs off with the bike, effectively getting away with murder. Mind you, when I first read this book I was in year 9, which means that I was 14 years old, so it was a very long time ago. I guess in a way I am glad I did have a glance over some of the reviews of this book, because I probably should not simply write it off as being pointless.
We read this book in English and I am sort of wondering why it was a book for English Literature since it seems to deal a lot more with ethics than it does with literature. However, when we consider a lot of the books we will read in English Literature a lot of them will deal with conflict and conflict resolution as well as ethical dilemmas. That is the nature of literature and I guess this is what sets what one of my teachers called 'airport trash' apart from true literature. As I have said myself, a book is worth reading if it teaches you about yourself or the world around us, and this is something that this book certainly does, despite it being targeted at a young audience (there are a lot better books out there that deal with similar themes).
The idea behind this book is the concept of guilt, and I guess this is what sets the book apart from a lot of other books we encounter. A cardboard character, in a similar situation, is likely to ignore the fact that he killed somebody. The main character in this book is torn apart by it. Granted, nobody actually knows that he did the deed, but he does, and he struggles with his guilt over the fact that he did kill somebody. However the catch is that he not only committed manslaughter (depending on the jurisdiction that you are in – this is England – in some places killing somebody on the road, and then running off is actually a lesser charge. In South Australia the charges are Cause Death by Dangerous Driving, and Leaving the Scene of an Accident. Mind you both are serious charges, but they do not hold the same seriousness as does manslaughter). Oh, the difference between manslaughter and murder is that murder is intentional whereas manslaughter is not, however for a manslaughter charge to stick, one has to demonstrate what is called gross negligence. While there will be a court hearing if through your actions somebody dies, the court needs to be convinced that you were so negligent in your actions that you had no concern whatever over the effects of your actions on other people. Oh, and murder carries a mandatory gaol term whereas manslaughter does not.
I guess in a way I wish I listened to the theme in this book back then, rather than ignoring it and running off on my own little adventures. Okay, an adventure is not really an adventure unless there is danger, but that is beside the point. The school that I went to was a Christian School, and obviously they were attempting to teach us to recognise that there are consequences to our actions. Further, it is never the case that we can truly get away with murder. Okay, there are people out there who have no concern over their actions and can kill people without feeling guilt, however it is likely that these people have become so twisted and torn inside that they are merely shadows of humanity.
While I have not returned to the play Herakles yet (and will be doing so shortly) I will use this as an example to continue my exposition. While people may be monstrous in war, that does not mean that they can easily return to civilian life and live the life of a civilian. What Herakles demonstrates is that when one has been torn and corrupted by war it is difficult to truly settle back down into a life of peace. While it may seem good in one case to be desensitised to murder, it has its drawbacks, and some very serious drawbacks at that. Once a murderer, always a murder, unless there is some intervening event that will purify your heart and turn you away from your wicked past and create in you a new and moral person. How we come to that I will not outline here: I have done so elsewhere.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

2025 Book #6:
Collision Course (1973) by Barrington J. Bayley

A book that is more high-concept, politically charged, and better written than it needs to be. Collision Course is set (mostly) on a far-future earth that is now completely ruled by what is essentially a white-supremacist social class (calling themselves the “Titans”). Not only have the Titans expelled all other “undesirable” humans to reservations, they have also come up with a mythology to justify their position of power, a story that foregrounds their struggle against a group of alien invaders in the distant past. But the ruins of this distant alien civilization – as our archaeologist protagonist Rond Heshke notes – seem to be getting newer as time passes. (Perhaps this was the inspiration for the time tombs in Hyperion?) What follows is simultaneously an elaborate exploration of a speculative concept involving time-travel and time-manipulation, and a deconstruction of hierarchical social structures. As a result, conceptual breakthroughs in Collision Course are both technical/scientific (for example, as Heshke realizes that streams of time can flow in various “directions”) as well as social (as Heshke comes to realize the error of the Titans’ ideology of racial supremacy). Admittedly, this novel is overstuffed and chaotically rushed toward the end, and its critique is rather heavy-handed and aimed at an easy target. Also, Bayley’s portrayal of non-white people, while inarguably sympathetic and ostensibly progressive, still sometimes relies on crude 1970s stereotypes, which might be awkward for the contemporary reader. However, I found Collision Course to be an exciting read, no doubt because of the verve of Bayley’s writing and the originality of his approach to time-travel. Bayley’s prose isn’t particularly rich, but it’s confident and perfectly paced. This could have been just another rote space opera, a dumb battle between civilizations across space and time. But Bayley’s commitment to following through on his SF premise elevates Collision Course for me. Recommended. (4/5)

[Mike Franklin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collision with Chronos is probably the most novel time travel book I’ve read which immediately makes it at least a little bit special (in the nicest possible way). At the beginning of the book he credits the model of time described in the book to J W Dunne and his books An Experiment with Time and The Serial Universe. However, don’t panic, you don’t need to read these books, Bayley does a perfectly good job of explaining the ideas himself! What is interesting though is how this model effectively removes the ability to manipulate events in the past and so removes most of the paradox problems. But it also introduces various other aspects; all of which contribute to an intriguing story.

The future Earth is ruled by an extremely authoritarian and even more extremely racist government whose authority is enforced by an elite cadre of “Titanium Legions” who ruthlessly subjugate “subspecies” of humans, also referred to as “deviants” or “devs”, isolating them in reservations to preserve the pure blood of “True Man.” Heshke, an archaeologist, whilst investigating alien ruins on a future Earth, discovers anomalies in the manner of their decaying and, after informing the authorities, he is whisked away to assist in the investigation of an alien artefact that seems to indicate these aliens are returning to invade Earth again. But maybe things are not so simple and maybe “again” is not quite the right word to use.

Though I’m sure the dystopian society is an intentional criticism of racism, those aspects of the book that focused on it, and that is a large proportion of the book, were, frankly, not pleasant reading and it made my read of what is a pretty short book by modern standards rather a slog at times. This isn’t really a criticism as racism is never going to be a pleasant subject to read about but that does not make it a subject that should not be addressed in books. The one criticism I would raise on this subject is that Bayley’s handling of it was a little too simplistic; too black and white.

I also had some other more prosaic problems with Collision with Chronos; the characters were pretty two dimensional and women might as well not have existed; they hardly appear in the book at all and, when they do, they hold almost no importance beyond a symbolic one. Okay, it was published in 1973 and attitudes have changed and at least they aren’t presented as nothing more than sex objects but to effectively ignore them completely seemed a little strange. On the other hand Bayley’s world building is superb and the story he builds within this strange universe is both clever and engaging and certainly gave me a view of time that I had never considered before.

On aggregate Collision with Chronos is a very good book but a little heavy handed and somewhat dated. Still well worth a read though and I shall probably try his book The Fall of Chronopolis which seems to be held in higher regard.

[Nick J Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the distant future, humanity has colonised the solar system and is able to manipulate time. Earth has become a backwater, having culturally degenerated to a state of fascistic dictatorship. Most of the human race resides within huge interstellar space stations, maintained through a strict class system specifically designed to avoid nepotism. On Earth, variations on the human form have evolved in the radically segregated environments left by a global nuclear war. An eccentric scientist makes the discovery that an entire alien species is traveling backward through time from Earth's future and is on a direct collision course with the human race. Impact will cause the end of all life on Earth!

Collision with Chronos is the third book I've read by Barrington Bayley. He is fast becoming my favourite author. What I love about his stories is their thorough exploration of some truly out-there ideas. This one, like The Fall of Chronopolis, is centred around a conception of time that resists multiverse theories by viewing it as a non-consistent phenomenon produced by the tension between chaos and order. In an afterword, Bayley attributes this idea to J W Dunne. J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis have also made use of this theory. Barrington's usage is more direct, and much more clearly explained. He uses it as a vehicle for a climactic plot and narrative structure that in places becomes somewhat disorientating.

There are some decidedly psychedelic moments as the two time frames converge but Bayley keeps his prose clear and descriptions succinct. The pace is good throughout, and the key theme of racism is addressed unflinchingly. The white supremacism of the Nazistic Earthlings is lampooned throughout and there are many moments of gentle humour as both they and the hedonistic space-faring humans presume their own superiority over the other. These moments are welcome because overall Collision with Chronos is a fairly ominous read, dealing as it does with humanity's capacity for inflicting injury and subjugation upon itself.

World War II and the holocaust lie in the background and clearly Bayley is making earnest calls for compassion and tolerance in a world that had recently stood on the brink of nuclear annihilation. That is not to say that this novel is a po-faced diatribe. Quite the opposite. I found it to be a thrill ride of the just-can't-put-it-down variety. Bayley writes beautifully. His sentences are flowing and his vocabulary is vastly extensive. But he is not a show off. Substance always takes priority over style, story over theme. His novels are intellectual without being pretentious. His voice is unique and I think I'm addicted to it.

[Bron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dates from 1973. I read it in 1980 (that's the date I've written in my paperback copy) and I remember it mostly as being an interesting take on time travel, based on real scientific ideas. There's also a twist on an idea covered by Star Trek - and later Stargate SG1 - of a divided society where an upper elite is free to study science or the arts while a.lower class does all the work of production and maintenance.

Reading it in 2023, I see that it's a scathing criticism of racism and the stupidity of pursuing ideology to its extreme ends, even when scientific discoveries are telling the leaders they are completely wrong. This all feels very familiar somehow, even if we're not yet living in a dystopia.

I was expecting the book to feel more dated than it does. It's set in our future, possibly a long way in our future, but there's been at least one cataclysmic war, so technological development has been patchy, in some ways more advanced than ours, in other ways less so. The white race has gained universal supremacy and believes the other races are the result of mutations. You get some way into the story before you start to realise that the deviants are probably just people with ordinary but non- white ethnic characteristics. Racial purity has become a religion, a fanatical one and ultimately leads to the downfall of earth's leaders. The author is British and would have been growing up during World War II. You can see where he got some of his inspiration.

As might be expected from a novel of this era, the characters aren't as well developed as we've come to expect, and nearly all are male. There are no women playing an active role. And some of the language used to describe the 'deviants ' is shocking, but stay with it, the ultimate end of this book is to demonstrate we are equal and need each other. There's aliens too.

[Patrick Scheele · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a couple of interesting SF ideas, but they never really go anywhere. The characters are bland and forgettable. The factions are, without exception, impossible to root for. They're either hateful and violent (titans and the reverse-time aliens) or passive and dumb (the dev and the chinese-in-space). Of course there's also the entity, whatever it was called, which just acted as a deus ex machina and conveniently solved the unsolvable problem and provided the poor little dev, who couldn't be bothered to even try to help themselves, with a happy end.

Meh. I'm not even sure what the underlying message was supposed to be. "Racism is bad" maybe? Or "fighting back against evil is futile"?

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

Barrington J. Bayley’s Collision Course (Collision with Chronos) (1973) is based on a fascinating hard sci-fi premise, the intersection of two time waves, one from the future heading into the past, and the “present”, heading into the future. In short, there are two “presents” moving towards each other with the possibility of annihilation.

Of course, Barrington J. Bayley has to explain these complicated paradoxes and actually comes up with an interesting if somewhat hokey (but original) theory. The “now” band of time is but a side effect of the universe and not [...].

[Ari Damoulakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please do not read the book description, it will spoil the book.
Even though this has literally been written decades ago, I still think this is an excellent and very realistic book for teenagers.
It is not too action-packed however, I rather recommend it for teenagers who love realism, scene description, and a little bit of suspense.
I am subjective here.
I really enjoyed it because it was, and still is, my perfect cup of tea together with Kinders van die Aarde.
You will probably have to recommend this book to, or be, quite a specific kind of teenager to really like this.
But if you can somehow find the right teenager to match with this book or Kinders van die Aarde, I think you then have the possibility to have then fostered a love of reading for quite a long time.

[Stephen James Entwistle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read part of this in secondary school English and have tried to find it for years because I was gripped by the first chapter, but I struggled to find it. I found it recently and read it. It was ok, a simple but exciting concept, but the way events play out after were a bit slow and the actions of the main character were foolish, but I suppose that’s a teenagers mindset.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give some points for “weird” but I take them back for “incoherent.”

[Wiesia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wyobraźnia Bayleya wzbudza podziw. Jego pomysły na technologię przyszłości, bardzo oryginalne. Jest to jedna z tych książek, które będzie czytać się z ciekawością pomimo upływu lat.

[Antek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mieszane uczucia, chwilami bardzo ciekawe, chwilami trochę zbyt łopatologiczne nawiązania do ziemskiej historii, wybijało mnie to z narracji. Chętnie kiedyś wrócę, to krótka książka, ale gęsta.

[Dumisani Chiwala · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a nice book it teaches people about growing up and that you can't hide from what you have done and what you have become

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking over a list of Seiun Award winners (that's the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo Awards) when I noticed something odd on the list of best translated novels:

1970 The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard
1971 The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
1972 Nightwings by Robert Silverberg
1973 The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
1974 Dune by Frank Herbert
1975 Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
1976 ...And Call Me Conrad by Roger Zelazny
1977 The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance
1978 I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A. Heinlein
1979 Ringworld by Larry Niven
1980 Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
1981 Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan
1982 The Genesis Machine by James P. Hogan
1983 Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward
1984 The Garments of Caean by Barrington J. Bayley
1985 The Zen Gun by Barrington J. Bayley
1986 Elric saga by Michael Moorcock
1987 Neuromancer by William Gibson
1988 Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith
1989 Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
1990 Collision with Chronos by Barrington J. Bayley
1991 The Uplift War by David Brin
1992 The McAndrew Chronicles by Charles Sheffield
1993 Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
1994 Entoverse by James P. Hogan
1996 The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Timelike Infinity by Stephen Baxter
1997 End of an Era by Robert J. Sawyer
1998 Fallen Angels by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
1999 The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
2000 Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick
2001 Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer
2002 There and Back Again by Pat Murphy
2003 Illegal Alien by Robert J. Sawyer
2004 Heaven's Reach by David Brin
2005 Distress by Greg Egan
2006 Diaspora by Greg Egan
2007 Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve
2008 Brightness Falls from the Air by James Tiptree, Jr.
2009 Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
2010 The Last Colony by John Scalzi
2011 Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
2012 The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
2013 The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
2014 Blindsight by Peter Watts

Okay, that's a pretty good list of the major figures of sci-fi, leaning a bit more towards hard-SF than the Hugo Awards do and being light on female authors ... but, who the hell is this Barrington J. Bayley guy? I mean, the Japanese must really love him. They've given him more awards than anyone but Robert J. Sawyer.

Well, Wikipedia to the rescue. Turns out he was a new wave author who influenced Bruce Sterling and Alastair Reynolds. Huh, I love those guys. Better check Bayley out.

Luckily his works are available in reasonably priced ebooks.

And yes, I can definitely see the influence on Reynolds. The opening scene in Revelation Space is remarkably similar to a scene early in this book, and the climactic battle is very much in Reynold's style, with all the fighting taking place off screen while the characters deal with the intellectual issue at the heart of the story.

Too bad it all gets wrapped up with a deus ex machina.

I can also see why the Japanese like this. It has a lot in common with sci-fi anime -- villains who, despite being monstrously evil, are still presented as acting within their own moral framework (think of the House of Zabi from Mobile Suit Gundam), and the deus ex machina is one of those philosophical conversations that take place in a vaguely defined and surrealistic floaty place (the end of Madoka, the end of Penguindrum, the end of Mospeada, the end of Akira, etc., etc.).

[· · Rating 3 out of 5]

(6 July, 2023)

Great idea and wonderful ending. There is a bit of very ordinary storytelling in the middle but, overall, this is a good time travel tale. Contained herein are some ideas on the nature of time which are freaking mind-melting: conscious time, three dimensional time, oblique time - whoa!

The Earth is controlled by a domineering elite, the Titans, one with ideas of racial purity and an overtly aggressive mindset. They stumble upon a huge discovery, freak-out and decide blunt force is the answer: an observation on the time of this novel's original publication and, sadly but predictively, our own. Out of the blue, 'saviours' arrive but they are as fucked up as the Titans. The outcome is unique, to say the least, then we are left with a commentary on our nature and on how we might never change.

The racism of future humans and other biased, sentient beings, is almost comforting, as in it's great to know we remain as clueless as we are today (er... in general terms of course). Some aspects of the story make no sense or are not explained adequately (exempli gratia; which set of grandparents get the grandchild? How does time differentiate living and inert entities?). This is also peopled by barely fleshed out characters, this is such a small book would it have hurt much to add a few more details to their lives? The author also drops the reverse 'others' way too fast and, lastly... where are the women?!?

The ending, with humans still not able to rise above their violent tendencies, is depressing... and an all-too-true reflection of us now. The message? Humans suck! We'll always be petty, stupid and obliviously content with it all. Yep!

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent little novel that plays with the concept of time. In an unspecified future, Earth is ruled by white supremacists (Titanium Legions) while deviant sub-races (devs) are relegated to reservations. The Legion is obsessed with racial purity and blames an alien civilization for the hardships of True Men. The ruins of this alien civilization are scattered across the Earth, and the Legion is trying to uncover the alien secrets to insure a defense against a future alien intervention. There investigation uncovers a time ship, and with this, they discover that the alien ruins are actually getting younger and not older! A war in time with these aliens seems inevitable until Earth is contacted by a colony of earthmen of Asian descent. The Asians have live in an ingenious space city and are masters at manipulating time. Surprisingly, they offer to help the racist Legion. This short novel is packed with many ingenious ideas. Written today, this book would certainly have been 2 - 4 times longer, if not an actual series. Bayley's works deserve rediscovery, and this book is great fun!

[Francesco · Rating 3 out of 5]

La fine del tempo sulla terra.
“Rotta di collisione”, del recentemente scomparso Barrington J. Bayley (1937-2008), è uno dei vecchi romanzi della serie Cosmo (1978, v.o. 1973) che mi strizzavano l’occhio dalle bancarelle in fiera durante il Salone del Libro Usato di Milano dello scorso dicembre.
Ancora una volta, a farla da padrone in questa storia è il Tempo. Continua a leggere qui:
http://fantascienzaedintorni.blogspot...

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine an Earth ruled by a Fascist regime whose primary goal is racial purity. Now it finds itself being invaded from the other side of the time-stream. That’s the premise of Barrington Bayley’s novel Collision Course.

http://fireandsword.blogspot.com/2007...

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barrington Bayley packs more into under two hundred pages than most authors come up with in a lifetime. The plot is barely functional and the characters are there just because it's hard to sell a novel unless it has some characters, but the imagination on display is breathtaking.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bayley always has interesting ideas. They rarely conform to the accepted tropes of science fiction, which makes them fun to read. His craftsmanship (characters, plot, style) is good but not outstanding.

[Joost van Hoek · Rating 5 out of 5]

De zilveren griffel uit 1979. Ik vond het boek goed toen ik twaalf was en nog steeds eigenlijk best wel. En dan verwoord ik het bewust zo wijfelend omdat ik met sommige boeken een lange relatie heb en ik vind het dan lastig om objectief te blijven.

[bluetyson]

isbn,original

[Dmadden · Rating 4 out of 5]

More sheer nutsiness from Bayley. He cracks me up.

[Jim S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My copy is entitled Collision Course but Wikipedia says it's the same book.

[Anthony Perkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the 1st book that I've read. I can't remember when was the last time I read this but I love the plots of the book.