What Am I Reading Wednesday: All The Time In The World by Michael Siddall

First off, let me say that I actually have voice enough this week to make a video. What a whopper that will be...


All The Time In The World Begins with Ben, a lawyer some where I'm guessing not London but definitely in that region of the planet. He is pretty much every single man at age 49.  Widowed, questionably grown or not children and very much settled into what is his life.

He gets this mysterious catalog in the mail and instead of tossing it out with the trash, like normal people do, he actually takes the time to look at it. Out of that he thinks he's buying a GPS, a 5000 pound GPS, but a GPS all the same. Hey I thought they used Euros???

Hey I have 5000 any currency laying around  just waiting for me to waste on a GPS I could get for $50 at Target. I'm just saying.

But he spends the money and gets a time machine that at first is really bored with him. It talks and tells him what the machine can do. Yet through out the book we find Ben having to figure stuff out. WHAT??? You have a 5000 BP talking time machine and you still have to work stuff out? Ask the Machine you Dummy.

Ben decided that he likes time traveling and spends the rest of the book alternating between learning about the world and studying the habits of certifiably insane famous people. His goal is to understand the mind of the man who rapes and kills his wife. The man who committed the crime seems more than a bit off

He once he figures out how to change history he visit the Captain of the Titanic, the alley where the first Jack the Ripper Victim was found, the birth, lives and death of Bonnie and Clyde and a slew of other people places and things. 

He even visits himself in the future only to realize that he's been followed by another time traveller who's purpose does not get revealed ever. We know why it exist and what it's purpose WAS but as the story progresses, it's priority changes and that is never expressed.

Here's why this book is getting such a bad reveiw. It does not tie up all it's loose ends. The questions, I as the reader should  have aren't good questions. Ben at one point is in both his vacation cabin and his home close to his work at once in the same time. Early in the book he says he takes two weeks off, but then a year goes by. He doesn't quit work until nearing the closest thing to a climax. I had to guess the climax.

In a section where four people die there's only two people in the room? I spent more time screaming "what the fuck" at my living room than actually letting this story flow. Only because in my humble opinion it did not flow. The word for this story is inconsistent.

I get a little bit more vitriolic on YouTube:

 I can honestly say that if I could revise this story and eliminate all the simpleton errors I'd like this book. Truth be told, this is probably a first draft that got printed by accident, I hope. The concept behind it rocks my world, however the presentation from the front cover to the back and it's description and how it works with the book are just awful. Not to mention how much the writing needs stream lining.  This story seems rushed and unedited.

Sorry Michael Siddall but this novella should have never hit the streets in this condition.
No Thumbs, not even a fist.


Next week: Lothaire by Kresely Cole.