| | |  | SHOP BY TYPE | Home » » The Lord of the Sands of Time (Novel) | | | | | | | Description: | | L to R (Western Style). Sixty-two years after human life on Earth was annihilated by rampaging alien invaders, the enigmatic Messenger O is sent back in time with a mission to unite humanity of past eras—during the Second World War and ancient Japan, and even back to the dawn of the species itself—to defeat the invasion before it begins. However, in a future shredded by war and genocide, love waits for O. Will O save humanity only to doom himself? | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Issui Ogawa | | Paperback:
| 260 pages | | Publisher:
| VIZ Media LLC | | Publication Date:
| July 21, 2009 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1421527626 | | Product Length:
| 7.9 inches | | Product Width:
| 5.28 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.59 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.49 pounds | | Package Length:
| 7.87 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.12 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.63 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.49 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 4 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 I'm not sure why I liked it so muchMay 23, 2010
This book was a very interesting experience for me. I'm still not sure why I liked it so much. With some books, it's the characters or the plots/ideas or the technology.
All I can say was this was a very powerful book for me. It seems like such a formulaic situation, go back in time to prevent the time traveling bad guys from destroying humanity (even David Weber did it). But the depth that this book goes to both in terms of time travel and the effects on the future and a branching time-line was, if not unique, then very well done.
I was disappointed that the book was so short, but that's all that was needed to tell the story.
This is one that will stick with you for a while.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 charming story, but not for hard SF fansSep 07, 2009
Artificially intelligent semi-organic beings were created to battle aliens bent on annihilating humans. The story follows one of them as he learns who he is and what his purpose is. He falls in love even though he knows he's going to be sent away and will never return.
The story is much better than the cover blurb and the title led me to anticipate. Overall I enjoyed the story. Most of the time the author allowed the reader to discover the world, but occasionally had expository dialog where one character tells another something he should have known. The characters were appealing and the dialog was fun. There were a lot of battle scenes that were interesting to a point. Ancient Japanese weapons and tactics versus space aliens. Over all I saw it as a love story. The ending was quite satisfying.
Some of the story didn't make sense, particularly the timestream travel limitations didn't seem consistent, and the aliens' motivation for the total destruction of humanity. The author also really didn't seem to understand what anti-matter really is.
I read this story because our book group was interested in reading Japanese science fiction. I offered to read it first since I had some experience reading translated Japanese fiction (Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the Word, and an anthology Speculative Japan ), I have children who are into manga and anime, and I spent two weeks in the country while attending the Worldcon. I would not have chosen to read this book based on the blurb. This story is consistent with the other translated japanese stories I've read. There is more interest and authenticity in what the characters think and feel than there is in the external world. From my limited experience: for a taste of Japanese SF try the anthology first.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Something different and amazingAug 20, 2009
I picked up this book while traveling for work, and I was astounded at how good a story it was. I read the majority of it in one sitting. While it is truly a sci-fi story, it is rounded out very well with philosophy and a bit of romance. The writing itself is also quite excellent considering it is a translation. The writing style is very direct and yet elegant at the same time.
The main focus of the plot is on ancient Japan, however it isn't an overwhelming cultural tsunami. A great deal of the story also takes place in the future and focuses much more on humanity as a whole for its thought-provoking sub-story.
It would definitely be worth a read by anyone interested in the sci-fi genre.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Add a star for alternate timelines fansAug 12, 2009
I enjoyed this novel, the underlying premise involves time-travelling soldiers of the future attempting to thwart an alien invasion by going to earlier eras and readying the people to fight the aliens. Ogawa handles the premise deftly, weaving in AI and alternate realities ideas into a multiple-timestreams fabric without bogging down in the details. In fact, for a book so full of heady concepts, it's a surprisingly quick and straightforward read. Whereas most alternate realities novels tend towards epic length and breadth, Ogawa keeps a tight focus on characters and plotline, and doesn't lose track of things as he tells the back story in flashback while progressing the current timeline story. Despite the tight focus, and naturally being based in Japanese history, his canvas is indeed world- and epoch-wide. There's plenty of sci-fi action propelling the thought-provoking concepts, I think this one would satisfy most action fans, "hard" sci-fi fans and "deep" sci-fi fans. I'm kinda all three and I enjoyed it.
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