The Map of Time

Lately I have been on a time machine reading bender. This book fit right in. It's London in 1896, and after H. G. Wells has published "The Time Machine" time travel is on everybody's mind. The three main stories in this book all deal with this. One man wants to prevent the death of the love of his life, one woman wants to escape the life she is supposed to live, and one inspector has to solve a murder with an unknown weapon. In this story many famous real people from the time, such as H. G. Wells, Jack the Ripper, the Elephant Man, Bram Stoker, Henry James and others are mixed with fictional characters, telling a great and believable story about how time travel took over London society. The story is told by an all-knowing narrator who sometimes shows himself, to explain why he is not showing us certain scenes or explaining a bit more about the background of the character.

The three stories are separate, so it seems, but they all belong together, and characters meet, influence each other and interact. Great idea, very original (to me).