A time travel novel that’s more than just dinosaurs
As far as I can tell, the novel takes place in the present day (1970s). It has been discovered, however, that certain human beings possess a faculty for time travel, which, when properly developed and practiced, allows them to walk back through time. Of all these talented individuals, no one surpasses Grant Ryals, who is able to travel much farther back and remain far longer than any other time traveler. Ryals has achieved worldwide fame for his adventures in the Mesozoic Era, from which he has returned with photographs, films, and specimens of dinosaurs and other prehistoric life. Ryals is not interested in celebrity, however. He is a quiet man from rural Missouri who just wants to live a private life devoted to paleontological science. Ryals founded and funded the Chronological Institute, a paleontological research center, complete with a museum and zoo. While he is clearly the most powerful stakeholder in the Institute (imagine if Neil Armstrong founded NASA), the staff that he has hired to manage the daily affairs of the establishment are trying to wrestle control away from him. Ryals find himself reluctantly having to deal with such present-day woes when he would much rather avoid human interaction altogether and escape into the distant past.
As you’re reading The Shores of Kansas, the novel seems to be leading into one of two directions, either (a) a survival adventure in the prehistoric past or (b) Ryals makes an inadvertent change in the past that alters the present. As you cross the halfway point of the book, however, neither of these plot scenarios has yet materialized. The bulk of the novel, rather, is about Ryals’s life in the present day and his struggles managing the Institute and dealing with fame. It is surprising how little time travel actually takes place in this time travel novel. Instead, this science fiction is mostly just fiction about scientists—how they live their lives and conduct their research within the academic system through which discoveries are made and published. While this may sound less exciting than one would expect from a book with dinosaurs on the cover, I found this novel quite compelling and captivating because of its “realistic” approach to time travel and the depth, complexity, and authenticity that Chilson puts into the character of Ryals.
Had I not seen Chilson’s name on the cover, I would have sworn this novel were written by Clifford D. Simak. It has all the hallmarks of a Simak book: a Midwestern setting, an appreciation of country living and the outdoor life, time travel to prehistoric times (see Simak’s short story “Project Mastodon” and his novel Mastodonia), and an interest in higher education and academia (Ryals’s Chronographic Institute is not affiliated with a university, but it is run very much as an academic research institution). The one portion of the book that tells you this was not written by Simak is a chapter on Ryals’s sex life, which definitely evokes the swinging ‘70s and reads as if it were written by someone a generation younger than the more demure Simak. Since I’m a big fan of Simak’s work, I make this comparison as a compliment to Chilson. I don’t know much about Chilson’s career, but if I ever come across his name again on the shelves of a used book store, I will certainly consider any novel of his well worth the wager of a few bucks.
are you sure robert chilson is an old dead guy?
ReplyDeleteI think he's still alive. I don't take the title of this blog too seriously. The book is almost 50 years old though. Chilson would be about 80. Long may he live!
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