COLLISION WITH CHRONOS

Cosmic Catastrophe!!

Winner of the Japanese SEIUN Award, 1990 DAW, 1973, under the title COLLISION COURSE Allison & Busby, 1977, under the title COLLISION WITH CHRONOS Cosmo, 1977 (Italy) as "Rotta di collisione" Fontana, 0-00-614907-3, 1979, cover art by Colin Hay Czytelnik, 1983 (Poland) as "Kurs na Zderzenie" Pan, 1989, omnibus edition with FALL OF CHRONOPOLIS, cover art by Chris Moore Hayakawa, 1990 (Japan)

It couldn't be true - but it was.

The ancient ruins that dotted Earth's landscape seemed to be disobeying the laws of time, become less and less decrepit as the years went by.

Everyone had his own theory, but it was only when scientists perfected their time machines that the awful truth dawned. The ruins were getting younger every day, and the builders came not from the past but from Earth's own future, from a society occupying the same planet yet moving in time in the opposite direction, their present lying in the Earth's future, their future in Earth's past.

The two worlds were hurtling towards each other in time at a terrifying speed. Soon, unless something drastic was done, the two would collide and both would be annihilated in a horrific and extraordinary cosmic accident...

"..one of the best treatments of time paradoxes in sf." - David Pringle

"Toying with the time theories of J.W. Dunne, this novel, a merciless thriller, is the most original exploration of chrono-paradox in modern SF. Cliches are ground to dust by the dynamic -- overworked effects such as looped causality find no refuge here. The basis of the plot, that two separate "presents" are moving toward each other from different times and that the meeting of realities will be disastrous, is presented with a detachment which adds to the menace." - Rhys Hughes

"Bayley's first real corker. A complex, clogged book exceptionally rich with ideas." - Andy Robertson, Interzone

[read Brian Stableford's review of the novel]

Barrington Bayley: "The picture of time used as a background to this novel can be said to owe something to the discussions by J. W. Dunne, of An Experiment With Time fame, particularly from his book The Serial Universe.."