The Day Before Tomorrow by Gérard Klein

The Day Before Tomorrow Reviews

• 
  Karl

  DAW Collectors # 11
  
  Cover art: Josh Kirby
  
  Gérard Klein (born 1937), known also as Gilles , is a French science fiction writer.
  
  AKA (under the pseudonym of Mark Starr)
  
  The Federation's time travel door is on the remote planet Altair II. It must be far away from the rest of the Federation because time travel only works across vast distances in space. This is to prevent paradoxes--the idea being that if your trip backwards in time also moves you to another planet many light years away, you can't influence your own past.
  
  Jorgenssen and the team arrive on Ygone with simple instructions: find the primitive city in the valley below, drop off a psychic device, and leave. The device will infect the Ygone people with dangerous ideas, which will develop and grow and result in a civilization-destroying war before Ygone advances enough to threaten the Federation. The author doesn't explain any of that right away, though. He only reveals the mission bit by bit throughout the book. It's maddening and aggravating.
• 
  Erik Wirfs-Brock

  Picked up this little curio because it was French,and therefore guaranteed to be a little different than the average cheesy (and dusty) paperback, and found it to be quite solid. The plot concerns a team of time travelers from a galactic empire who travel plan to destroy a civilization before it can become a threat to the empire, and the mystery they discover when they try to carry out their mission. While the resolution to the plot seemed familiar from other time travel tales, the description of a civilization living in harmony with nature and itself was actually really well done, and the more psychoanalytic passages were interesting markers of the novel's 60s/70s origin. Doesn't quite reach the memorable heights for science fiction of the era, but more than forgettable pulp.
• 
  Robert Jenkins

  This novel concerns a group of time-travelers who seek to preserve their civilization by going to the past and altering the destinies of other civilizations in the past so they never become a threat in the future. On one such mission, they begin to encounter resistance from parties unknown...
  
  The book started off well - it's usually entertaining to see how authors untie the knots that many time travel stories get themselves into. But in this case the ending fell a little flat. Still an enjoyable read overall.
• 
  Cuauhtemoc

  I really tried to like a lot this book from Gérard Klein because he deals with time in somehow different nuances than USA authors. However, this book is not at the same level that "The Overlords of War" that read some months ago.
  
  Maybe if you read this one first you will find it more enjoyable. At some point, I think it becomes predictable and you kind of guess the plot.
  
  I am really struggling to get my hands on SF books written in languages other than English. So, for me reading this book served two purposes: enjoying myself and practicing my French... voilà!
• 
  Steven Peterson

  An intriguing work. One of those time travel works. Perhaps analogous to Asimov's work, "The End of Eternity." Here, the "action" takes place in the Federation. The society is stable, protected by teams who can, through time travel, remove threats to the status quo. A team proceeds to the planet of Ygone and run into a situation the likes of which had not yet been encountered. The strains of creating stasis are worked out in this book.
• 
  Socrate

  Pe Altair, marele dreptunghi negru iradia o lumină întunecată, la limita vizibilului. Inginerii Timpului pregăteau o expediţie – a treia în mai puţin de un an. Bătrânii îşi aminteau de o perioadă când expediţiile fuseseră mai puţin numeroase. Dacă ar fi avut gust pentru reflexie, s-ar fi neliniştit din cauza acestei frecvenţe noi a explorărilor temporale. Dar rolul lor nu era acela de a pune întrebări, iar de gândit, nu gândeau deloc. Pe Altair, atribuirea diferitelor specialităţi era foarte precisă.
  Rolul inginerilor Timpului era acela de a ajusta multisenzorii unui spaţiu horowitzian cu o precizie mai mare de ordinul a şaisprezece zecimale. În parte, rezultatul putea fi obţinut cu ajutorul aparatelor. În rest însă, Altair trebuia să se bazeze pe abilitatea lor.Era considerabilă. De fapt, cu mult mai considerabilă decât riscurile pe care le implica operaţiunea. Iar aceste riscuri erau ele însele enorme, având în vedere cantităţile de energie implicate în proces. Nu se pot manipula neglijent nişte forţe capabile să rupă echilibrul stabil al unui timp şi al unui spaţiu. Majoritatea locuitorilor de pe Altair II, singura planetă locuibilă a sistemului, credeau că o eroare din partea inginerilor Timpului ar fi însemnat doar pierderea unei echipe, moartea probabilă a şapte oameni. Se temeau de o asemenea eventualitate, pentru că şi ei erau oameni, iar moartea era pentru ei un lucru pe cât de rar, pe atât de neplăcut, precum şi fiindcă ştiau că fiecare dintre componenţii unei Echipe de Explorare şi Acţiune Temporală valora o sumă imensă, fără îndoială echivalentul averii a două sau trei dintre cele mai puternice planete ale Federaţiei Cuceritoare, care grupa nu mai puţin de şase mii de sisteme planetare, sub autoritatea Acrăi. Oamenii, însă, nu ştiau adevărul. Numai Arca şi membrii consiliului său îl cunoşteau – şi inginerii Timpului, evident. Inginerii Timpului ştiau că o eroare din partea lor ar fi însemnat fie o modificare, poate catastrofică, a viitorului planetei Altair II şi, pornind de acolo, al restului Federaţiei Cuceritoare, fie un cataclism capabil să distrugă cel puţin o parte din galaxie, propagându-se apoi ca o undă de şoc până în cele mai îndepărtate zone ale universului. Dar inginerii Timpului nu săvârşeau erori. Nici măcar nu-şi imaginaseră vreodată posibilitatea de a comite o greşeală, şi nici ce anume ar fi avut de făcut, dacă eroarea era comisă. Alţii erau însărcinaţi cu acest lucru, şi ar fi intrat în acţiune dacă era necesar. Pe Altair II, rolurile erau foarte precis definite şi distribuite cu cea mai mare băgare de seamă.
• 
  John Loyd

  The Federation sends teams back in time in order to keep them from becoming a threat. Jorgenssen and his team are sent to Ygone and quickly discover that the briefing they got is wrong. The major city, Dalaam, has a forest, they are attacked by technology way beyond what they supposedly had, and when they try to retreat they the time door they left camouflaged as a rock, it is now just a rock. With nothing left to do Jorgenssen visits Dalaam and speaks with the residents.
  
  A major theme is inner turmoil, especially Jorgenssen battling against himself. Another is that a static society will become stagnant and eventually die out. How entertaining are those themes presented in the context of this story? Well, the plot elements felt more contrived than clever, but it was readable and the characters had to make a choices. 3.3 stars.
• 
  Deborah Ideiosepius

  I am not keeping up with reviews at all; this was a great, classic sci-fi from a French author and it deserves to have more said about it but...
  
  Reviewed on YouTube is all I have time for
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFxbF...
• 
  Aksel Erzinclioglu

  Interesting idea and well executed. I thought it was a little slow for a while in the middle but it really picked up with an exciting page-turner of a climax! I would recommend.
• 
  Cristian

  Inceputul e promitator pentru mine. Arme, deplasari in timp...dar se da repede pe alt traseu cartea. Nu e de lasat, dar foarte putin e actiune si tensiune. Recomand.