News Flash...MAMMOTH is Nahin Approved!

I just finished John Varley's latest novel MAMMOTH. Knowing that this novel would contain elements of time travel I had been anticipating reading this with an eye toward determining if it would adhere to the principles of scientifically plausible time travel as laid out by Paul Nahin in his seminal work TIME MACHINES [ISBN 0-387-98571-9]. Varley's other foray into time travel, MILLENNIUM (including earlier variants The Gate and Air Raid) violated a key principle; that of altering the past, or the future. I am pleased to announce that Mammoth is Nahin Approved. The past and the future are preserved. In fact, the characters marvel at the way events unfold before their eyes that coincide with events they remember in their relative past. This places MAMMOTH in rare company. Most time travel stories revolve around changing the past, or trying to restore the past to prevent some future disaster. Varley avoids this by building his novel around the characters instead of the plot, even though this is a strongly plotted novel. Varley fans can expect his trade-mark tidy ending that wraps everything up happily for the protagonists; even so, he includes enough twists to keep the reader guessing. MAMMOTH is another installment in the longest running winning streak of novel length work in all of science fiction. Varley is 9 and 0.