Dinosaur Beach

I have apparently neglected Keith Laumer, from what I've seen in this book, I will be making amends to that. This book starts off with a bang and never lets up.

The main character, Igor Ravel, is a happily married young man in 1936, Buffalo, New York. Or is he? On the first page he tells his pretty wife that he's going to the corner to get a beer before dinner, what he doesn't tell her is that he won't be coming back. While he's having his beer, a strange man tells him that in a couple minutes a man will come in sit at a certain stool at the bar, then turn around and shoot him. And right on time the man comes in, sits on the stool predicted, but then Igor gets up and goes to confront him, from there the action picks up, and Igor leaves, and we find out he is an agent for a time sweeping organization named Nexx Central. He eventually shoots the "man" who warned him, and that turns out to be an enemy robot/android called a krag. Then Igor transfers back to his rendezvous point in a supposed "safe" zone back in the pleistocene era, where the base is located while they attempt to use their time traveling abilities to go to trouble spots in time to "clean up" the messes that previous time expeditions had caused. While he waits to have his debriefing and the usual mind sweep (to ease the burden that time travelers have of leaving people and places they truly love) he wanders down the prehistoric beach. While he's gone the "safe zone" is attacked and Igor is stranded with nothing but large man-eaters for company.

My one draw-back from this otherwise fine novel is the constant jumping in time and finding out that Igor is really not what he appears or even thinks that he is. I will be reading more Keith Laumer. Some of my reading associates on Facebook have already given me some recommendations. I look forward to it.