Jacob Ryerson is part of a scientific team that is going to step back through time for the very first time in an attempt to study early man. Jacob is a military man and he knows that no plan ever goes the way people intend it to once that plan is implement. Naturally nobody listens to the ex-Special Forces Staff Sergeant and just as naturally everything goes to shit. Thankfully Jacob is along for the ride to help clean up the mess.
Size: 3209 KB (640,158 words)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Sex Contents: Some Sex
Tags: Ma/Fa, Ma/ft, Fa/Fa, Fa/ft, Consensual, Fiction, Science Fiction, Far Past, Time Travel, Exhibitionism, Violent
Review by rgmanneck [other reviews by rgmanneck]
Reviewed: - (Review Updated: )
This is the longest story I've read here on SOL. I loved it from the first paragraph and couldn't stop.
I usually don't read time-travel stories, but this has anthropological and archaeological perspectives that will intrigue both the reader of action/adventure and the reader with an academic interest.
The author plotted out painstakingly the evolution of three people sent back in time constructing a new civilization of over three thousand, moving them through all kinds of pitfalls, heartbreaks and calamities that face humankind. It is also uplifting in that with strength and smarts, humankind can prevail. There's hope, and the author has shown us that in this very moving, epic story.
Review by RabbiRabbit [other reviews by RabbiRabbit]
Reviewed:
I enjoyed this story. To be clear, I do not finish stories that I do not enjoy, why bother. Suspension of disbelief is not more required here then it is in a story when a wife comes home to find her husband fucking their fourteen year old daughter and strips off and joins them instead of cutting his nuts off.
So back in time they go, sent from a corporation for "scientific research." Or not.
The woman doctor, her companion (female)/aide/mechanic/lover, and of course the former military special operator. Needless to say, you cannot go back in time without a trusty fifty caliber sniper rifle with a night scope...I mean who would do that? In fact that 50 cal was my one real problem with the story, our hero keeps firing it off hand, and sometimes from the back of a horse, which he manages to stay on. My guess is he never fired a fifty cal sniper rifle.
There is much mystery in this, we do not really know when or where they are. The people they encounter are hunter-gatherers; they have not yet discovered agriculture. Normally that would put the story about ten thousand years in the past. And chauvinist that I am, I was assuming that wherever they were, they were in what is now the United States. But they had horses. Horses got here when the Europeans got here, so wherever they are, they ain't here...or, parallel time line. I am assuming we will find out when the story is finished and it is almost finished.
There is a lot of sex happening and most of it is off screen and not much of it is described in any really erotic way. If you are looking for a stroke story, read one marked stroke story.
There are a lot of descriptions of how our timeline intersects with a more primitive society. Since that society, in this story, doesn't seem to be violent I am not sure who the primitives actually are.
The Blind Man spends time describing how he and those he gathers about him survive and then thrive. Introducing some technology (which is of course magic, thank you Arthur C. Clark) takes up less space than one would imagine, or at least less space than i had anticipated. He does take up a lot of space describing what he sees and how he and the rest adapt to their situation. I found this interesting and creative. He does not go into all the detail that Roust does on the prison planet, he does however do into enough detail to keep those parts of the story interesting.
It is relatively well edited and proofread; as a grad student I know all to well just how difficult it can be to make a long story/paper mistake free. Dr. P. at my school will mark off points for a misplaced coma in a footnote. As she said, she's not Willy Wonka and does not sugar coat excrement. I love that line. It's how I teach. It was also my answer when I was asked if I grade on a curve. But back to "What Lies Beyond."
If you like time travel to significantly less technically advanced cultures, then this is a most enjoyable story.
