Time of the Cat is another entry in this year's Self Published Science Fiction Competition (#SPSFC4), in which I am a Judge for the second time. The novel is a more humorous/comedic take on SciFi, featuring a version of time travel that is reliant upon talking cats in the 24th century and a bunch of time travelers who range from serious to utterly selfish...and nearly all of whom are obsessed with their favorite tv show. Add in an opposing group of time travelers who are obsessed with partying and messing up the timeline with anachronisms and endnotes/footnotes that try to pile on additional absurdities, and well you can see how this could be a fun lighthearted jaunt.
And Time of the Cat is exactly that, which makes it a very easy book to read and enjoy - whether that be in print or in audio. The story didn't make me laugh exactly, but it kept me entertained with its light humorous tone and most of the characters were pretty enjoyable, even if the character development of some of them was rather shallow. And the ending involves a resolution of a major plot twist basically occurring completely off page, which was kind of annoying, but really it didn't matter too much with the tone of it all. I wouldn't mind this book making it to the next round of the SPSFCs, even if I'm not sure it's much better than that.
NOTE: I read this half in print and half in audiobook. The audio reader is excellent and the book weaves its endnotes into the audiobook pretty excellently so you don't miss much: some end-notes are inserted directly into the narrative, others are put at the end of each chapter and given a few extra words to explain what the notes were referring to in the text. This works impressively well to keep the humorous asides of the notes intact.
Plot Summary:
In the 24th century, the secret to time travel has been discovered: humans can travel through time only when they are accompanied by a cat. Fortunately - or unfortunately - it has also been discovered that cats can talk and are fully sentient who are occasionally willing travel partners. And so the students of Chronos College - humans and cats alike - train to go back in time together to explore history...or well, at the very least, to look around old history in order to find lost episodes of their favorite tv show. Which coincidentally happens to be one crazy wild English period drama from the 1965-1986 called Cramberleigh.
Ruthven used to be a time traveler alongside his cat Aesop....who died on a mission one day. Since then, Ruthven has worked at the college cataloguing old media...such as episodes of Cramberleigh, of which he is obsessed. So when Ruthven's good extremely handsome friend Oxford comes back with a recording of a long lost clip show episode of the series, he's extremely excited....but even Ruthven couldn't have guessed what the lost episode would reveal: the location of the legendary lost time traveler Cressida Church.
Soon Ruthven, Oxford, and an assorted group of friends and friend cats will attempt to go on a trip through time to the shooting of their favorite TV show...albeit to rescue Cressida, not to actually just sight see. But when something goes wrong, the group will find themselves scattered through the timeline...into time periods where something has gone very very wrong.
Time of the Cat starts by seeming like it's going to follow a central main character in Ruthven, but really by the time things get going the story is largely jumping back and forth between its human and cat characters as the story jumps throughout the timeline. Fortunately, this isn't too much of a problem (see below) since this is not a story that's really one meant to be a character piece: it's supposed to be a fun humorous time travel story which revels in absurdities that are humorous: like time travelers being obsessed with a silly old tv show that borders on ridiculousness (a Victorian period piece show that becomes a spy show and a time travel show etc etc); or the bad guys just enjoying partying with historical figures in time periods with technology it shouldn't have; or even the main characters being largely vain idiots who care more about experiencing history...even if them being too active in doing so could lock off a year in a way so as to make it impossible for everyone else to enjoy the same year.
The Humor is based upon absurdities of the situations - from what is found in the past to just the interactions between the human and cat time travelers - rather than in jokes, and I never really laughed at any of it, but at the same time, it was amusing enough to make me smile. The story's plot twists generally work and are decently set up well...and when they aren't they rely enough upon the absurd so as to still work and keep you amused. And the characters here are enjoyable even if they're not always likable (one of the human time travelers, Monterey, is a pompous vain asshole, but the story and the character himself is aware he's a vain jerk, so it kind of pulls it off). Overall, it's very easy to get into Time of the Cat and to be drawn in to reading large amounts at a time.
That said, Time of the Cat has some flaws that keep it from being a must read. As I mentioned above, the story jumps around between character points of view, and the characters are distinct....but the jumping around prevents really much character and relationship developing from really happening or working. For example, there's a romantic attraction between Ruthven and his friend Oxford setup in the very first chapters that then goes completely unmentioned for hundreds of pages before being returned to and paid out upon, and it feels like it was an utter after thought. And while it doesn't really matter too much to the story, the book's plot sets up a conspiracy between various characters (well multiple conspiracies) that is a big deal...and then has the conspiracy dismantled off page while the book's text turns to the more personal matters of Ruthven. Again, it's not the biggest deal as the book tells the story the author wants to tell but the conspiracy is such a big deal to the characters its kind of weird and off that the story treats it in the end as an afterthought.
Overall though, Time of the Cat is a light fun humorous time travel romp that will be very enjoyable for those who are looking for a lighter read that isn't trying to be anything more.
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