“You’re just a bunch of dust mites at the end of the day, so what if one of you flies through the window.”
I wanted to love Ryan Collett’s George Falls Through Time (William Morrow 2026), I really did, but I feel a touch misled. I thought the novel would be full of humor and whimsy, a warm hug of a story about a gay man who time travels from 2026 to the 1300 while walking dogs in Greenwich Park and falls in love with a servant named Simon who shows him how to love and be loved, and he slays a dragon because he’s named George, and the patron of Saint of England, Saint George, is kind of known for slaying a dragon. I thought it would be cute, and the blurb didn’t really alert me that this was not going to be cute and whimsical.
This is more introspective literary fiction than a whimsical time travel novel. I was disappointed, and I am going to blame the cover. It’s well-written. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a perfectly fine book. I just couldn’t stand one more page of self-loathing George; in either 2026 or 1300, he was insufferable in every timeline.
The most interesting part of the novel was the dragon and how he’d leave refuse from the future in his wake -microwaves, plastic bottles, parts of a car. This and King Edward’s investigation into the dragon and George’s stories of being a time traveler are by far the best parts. The ending is rushed, but fully depicts that circular “history repeating itself” notion as well as the idea that nothing is ever new. As the dragon says, there is no future – only the present and the presenter.
I liked Simon, despite his early aggression, and I felt he deserved much better. I also liked the dogs, which might be why I disliked George so much – he gave zero shits about those dogs and honestly, that says a lot about a person.
Don’t read this book if you want fun and whimsy. If you want introspective, woe-is-me musings from a man so full of self-loathing that you’ll want to vomit, go ahead; at least it’s a quick read.
A Girl Named Tommi 