The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi

One of the reasons that I write these blog entries is that they help me clarify my thinking about a book. That means that writing them is work -- I'm not just putting my thoughts 'on paper', I'm thinking things through as I write, which typically means a fair number of false starts and rewriting. I see words on the screen and what I've written leads to new thoughts, or sometimes I realize that what I've written is not really what I meant.  After that there's the process of making the sentences and paragraphs into a coherent narrative.

None of this is really a problem, but as I was writing an entry on The Third Rule I started thinking about generative AI. I used to follow a Tech Writing blogger, who is now all in on using AI in his work.  A relative told me this summer that he uses AI to help him generate Linked In content to support and promote his business.  Could I use AI to make writing a blog entry easier?

I put what I'd already written and some bullet points outlining what else I might add into Claude AI.  

I'm sharing the results below.  <spoiler alert>  I didn't actually complete a blog entry using Claude. </spoiler alert>  In fact, the whole experience soured me on completing this blog entry at all!  But I thought I'd share the process in case anyone finds it interesting.

-------------my original opening paragraphs and notes---------------

Here's what I fed into Claude, with the instructions to complete a blog entry for me.

First rule of time travel: You can only travel to a point within your own personal past. Second rule: Your trip can only last 90 seconds. Third rule:  You can only observe.

This is a fast-paced SF thriller. As the book opens we are time travelling to the plane crash that killed the protagonist's immediate family when she was a teen. From there the pace rarely falters as The Third Rule follows its scientist heroine as she struggles to keep her professional and personal worlds from unwinding.

Parts of this book work really well -- I literally gasped when I realized (via a throwaway line) that one of the rules of time travel had just been broken.  The science of time travel is well-done too, and the explanation of how it all works is interesting and plausible. I also liked the way Fracassi added the time travel explanation to the story by introducing a journalist who needs things explained to them -- because the presence of the journalist is a key plot point in Beth's struggle to save her life's work from rapacious capitalists. In the end, the explanation ratchets up the tension rather than slowing down the action. 

Beth's grief at the death of her husband and the impact of that grief on her life 

Points I want to make:

Good Side

• The premise of this kind of limited time travel is interesting.
• I literally gasped when I realized (via a throwaway line) that one of the rules of time travel had just been broken.  
• The science of time travel is well-done too, and the explanation of how it all works is interesting and plausible. 
• I also liked the way Fracassi plausibly added that explanation to the story by introducing a journalist who needs things explained while making the very presence of the journalist a key plot point in Beth's struggle to save her life's work from rapacious capitalists. In the end, the explanation ratchets up the tension rather than slowing down the action. 

Bad Side

• Beth was one note emotionally: she is constantly devastated by past trauma, angry, impatient, stressed and always falling apart
• Jim, the billionaire owner of the Langan Corporation (and Beth's boss) is a cartoon capitalist villain
• Supporting characters are inconsistent/not well drawn
•  Tariq is Beth's assistant,  and is mistreated / ignored by Beth until he suddenly reveals himself to be her biggest supporter and a holder of critical info
• Jonathon the therapist: is he supporting Beth, or betraying her to corporation? There are mixed messages, and in the end I honestly wasn't clear. 
• There is a Chekov's gun situation with Abigail: she takes Beth aside to tell her that despite appearances, she has Beth's back, and then nothing comes of it

• Means of resolving the story was unsatisfying: basically, 'there are some things humans just can't understand', and then everything is mysteriously resolved, the end.

------------Claude's First Draft ----------------

And you can see below what Claude gave me.  My reaction -- OMG this is terrible.

A Time Travel Tale That Almost Sticks the Landing

Book Review: "The Third Rule of Time Travel" by Philip Fracassi

Philip Fracassi's "The Third Rule of Time Travel" presents an intriguing take on temporal mechanics wrapped in corporate thriller packaging. While the book delivers some genuinely clever moments and solid scientific groundwork, it stumbles when it comes to character development and narrative resolution.

What Works Well

The premise itself is compelling—Fracassi constructs a limited time travel system with specific rules that feel both innovative and plausible. Rather than the usual "anything goes" approach to temporal manipulation, these constraints create real tension and stakes. The science behind the time travel mechanism is surprisingly well-researched and explained in ways that enhance rather than bog down the story.

Speaking of explanations, Fracassi makes a smart narrative choice by introducing a journalist character who naturally needs the complex concepts spelled out. Rather than feeling like an exposition dump, this device becomes integral to the plot as the journalist's presence directly impacts Beth's struggle to protect her life's work from corporate exploitation. It's elegant storytelling that actually ratchets up tension instead of deflating it.

The book's standout moment comes when a seemingly throwaway line suddenly reveals that one of the established time travel rules has been broken. I literally gasped when I caught it—a testament to how well Fracassi had established the rules and their importance. These moments of realization make the reader feel genuinely clever for paying attention.

Where It Falls Short

Unfortunately, the character work doesn't match the strength of the concept. Beth, our protagonist, operates on a single emotional register throughout: devastated, angry, impatient, and constantly falling apart from past trauma. While trauma responses can certainly be persistent, Beth's one-note emotional state becomes exhausting rather than sympathetic.

Jim, the billionaire antagonist and owner of the Langan Corporation, feels like he stepped out of a cartoon about evil capitalists. He lacks the complexity that would make him a truly compelling villain—he's simply rapacious capitalism personified without nuance or believable motivation beyond pure greed.

The supporting characters suffer from inconsistent development. Tariq, Beth's assistant, spends most of the book being mistreated and ignored by Beth, only to suddenly emerge as her biggest supporter with crucial information when the plot demands it. Jonathon the therapist sends mixed signals throughout—is he Beth's ally or will he betray her to the corporation? Beth's trust in him wavers without clear reasoning, leaving readers unsure whether this ambiguity is intentional characterization or simply unclear writing.

Most frustrating is the Chekov's gun situation with Abigail, who takes Beth aside for what feels like a significant moment to assure her that despite appearances, she has Beth's back. This setup promises a payoff that never comes, leaving the scene feeling pointless in retrospect.

The Unsatisfying Resolution

The book's biggest disappointment comes in its resolution. After building intricate rules and complex corporate machinations, Fracassi essentially throws up his hands and declares that some things are beyond human understanding. Everything gets mysteriously resolved without clear explanation, leaving readers who invested in understanding the system feeling cheated. It's a frustrating cop-out that undermines the careful worldbuilding that came before.

Final Verdict

"The Third Rule of Time Travel" succeeds as a thought experiment about temporal mechanics and corporate overreach, but fails as a fully realized story. The clever premise and well-integrated exposition show Fracassi's potential, but the weak character development and unsatisfying resolution prevent the book from reaching its full potential. Time travel enthusiasts might enjoy the novel approach to temporal rules, but those seeking rich character work or a satisfying conclusion should look elsewhere.

Rating: 3/5 stars

A promising concept that doesn't quite deliver on its potential.

---------------------- Michelle edits Claude --------------------------

I thought what Claude came up with was terrible, but both the blogger and my relative had said that in order to get something usable they needed to edit the AI's initial output and/or do a second prompt with feedback on the initial AI output.  

So I started editing. But I gave up in despair before I was done because:

• it wasn't fun
• it wasn't going to be less work than actually writing an acceptable blog entry myself.  And it felt like the end result was going to be inferior too.

When I gave up on editing the AI output, I also decided not to try doing a second prompt.  (See reason #1).

Overall I'd have to say that using AI for a writing task was a fail. Even if you could argue that the failure is on me because I didn't try a second prompt. But I'm willing to live with that.  :-)

<I originally had the text of my attempt to edit Claude below.  But I removed it because I didn't get very far and it wasn't very interesting.>

On not finishing books ... or why I am going to abandon my bookclub

If I start a book, I usually finish it.  But over the last year or so I haven't been finishing much non-fiction: particularly not complex, long, and intellectually challenging non-fiction.  I'm looking at you, Adults in the Room by Yanis Varoufakis and The Righteous Mind by Jonathon Haidt!

Okay, both of those books are really popular non-fiction, but each of them has complexities.

In the first, Varoufakis explains the history and economics of the credit crises of 2008, the underlying causes of the ongoing collapse of the Greek economy, and the various proposals that the Northern European economic superpowers had for "fixing" the problem, along with his own analysis and counter-proposals to lift his home country from the mess.  It's actually a fascinating read, even before you dive into the personalities, politics, and maneuverings of the brief era when he was the Greek finance minister.

I didn't finish it.

I rarely read -- have never read? -- a book like this in isolation.  As the title of this blog implies, I'm usually reading more than one book in parallel, often one "serious" book and one simple consumable book at the same time.  But that's not really the problem here.  Over the past year or so I've just had other things that I've needed to do that have limited the time and attention that I have to spend on a book like this.

That's what happened with Adults in the Room. I'd read 50 pages, 25, a hundred, then go on with the other things in my life that were a more immediate priority.  I'd come back to the book several days later, and read 5 pages more.  Somehow a week and a half would elapse, and suddenly, I couldn't keep the thread anymore.  What was that economic argument again?  Who was that person? What does that acronym mean?  When is it, in the life of the book?

Something similar happened with The Righteous Mind.  It's a book about moral psychology.  How do humans make moral judgements? What current research is there on how and why we do this? What are the impacts of our moral psychologies on our politics, our society, on our everyday human interactions?  What does all of this say about (mostly) the current US political scene, and what are the practical implications for politics and society?

In the case of the Righteous Mind, it wasn't so much the difficulty of following and remembering the arguments and terminology of an unfamiliar field that gave me grief.  The difficulty of the book came in following, remembering, and accepting controversial research and ideas.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm willing to learn, and to be challenged. But 95+% of anything I've ever read that has resembled sociobiology has been a smug, self-serving, "just so" story composed to justify the author's reactionary ideas about why people and society HAVE TO be exactly as they are. "Women have evolved to be loving baby-carers while men are intrepid hunters, because I made up a story about hominids based on stereotypes.  So shut up and get back into the kitchen, you sweet little no-nothing.  It's SCIENCE."

Ahem.

To be fair, very little of Haidt's book is based on sociobiology. (That's just my allergy talking.) The book is overall pretty interesting and I felt that I was learning some important things even as I was mentally arguing with the author.

I didn't finish it.

I'd been following Haidt out onto a limb, step by step.  He had evidence, he explained limitations, he was travelling in an interesting direction that seemed worth exploring. I followed him, with reservations, preparing to leap with him into the next tree to see where we might end up. But.... my breaks in reading his book became longer than the intervals of reading, and at some point ...my foot slipped, I missed the branch, and I plummeted out of the tree.

In other words, Haidt's arguments felt and looked like garbage again.

It had just been too long for me to remember how we'd gotten to the spot we were at, and it would take too long for me to retrace my steps.

Before I'd begun them, I'd been really interested in reading both Adults in the Room and The Righteous Mind.  As I read them, I learnt something, and the reading was a pleasure, not a chore. But...instead of finishing these books, I just have the regret of not finishing.

Which is why I'm finally quitting my bookclub.  My book club books have become one of the things that keep me from reading the books I really want to.

In the end, I'd far rather have read Adults in the Room or The Righteous Mind than The Parcel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, At Home, or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And while I enjoyed Less, The Sympathizer, and A Gentleman in Moscow, would my life have been less rich or interesting if I hadn't read them?  Maybe, a little.  But of those three, only The Sympathizer really gave me any insights I wouldn't have otherwise had.

So, even though The Origin of Waves is beautifully written, I'm going to gracefully detach myself from the group by expressing my appreciation for being included and by talking about how my other priorities don't allow me to continue.  Maybe in August, seeing as I won't be around for July's book anyway.

I'll miss the social aspect, but there are so many other books I'd rather read than the ones that this bookgroup is interested in.  There might even be other books that I'd much rather write.

Relaunched book blog

Yes, I've decided to relaunch the book blog, but I'm going to do it a little differently than I did it before.  Rather than blogging about every single book I read, I'm going to write about some of them.  Most of them even.  But I'm going to feel free to omit talking about anything that I didn't find particularly interesting.  I may periodically list the ones that come "between" the books I actually review though.

In that spirit, I've read the following books since I last reviewed one:

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
May 2015
Pages: 383

The Second Confession by Rex Stout
May 2015
Pages: 197

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (skimmed)
April 2015
Pages: 344

A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
May 14-20
Pages: 329

Late April and May were a stressful time, hence the generally unchallenging comfort reading.  

Back again?

April 2015

Hello Readers

After a long absence, I'm back.  I blogged about every book that I read from March 2012 to March 2013.  And after that, at least according to my blog, I planned to blog intermittently.  My personal plans were to wrap up a couple of personal projects, and then launch into some other types of writing in parallel with the time and energy freed up from the book reading and blogging.

Sigh.  Best laid plans o' Mice and Men....

Well, there were some successes.  I did *finally* finish the book of family photos that I slowly built from my maternal grandfather's pictures.   And I had copies made for various members of my family.   Maybe I can post it at some point, and you can see it too.

And I did draft a submission to the National Energy Board regarding the Kinder Morgan application to twin their existing pipeline and build a new heavy oil terminal at Burnaby Mountain.  One day that submission will be a part of the public record, and you can feel free to read it at your leisure.  (Sadly, I chose to write about the terminal itself, and the impact of the terminal and increased levels of shipping on the Maplewood Flats wildlife refuge.  Which means that the last minute choice by Kinder Morgan to explore redesigning the route through Burnaby Mountain and the terminal itself is directly relevant to my submission -- so I haven't finalized and submitted my comments yet. )

I even prepared and delivered a talk at the CIDM Best Practices conference in September 2014.  (Based on my reading of Switch: how to change when change is hard, and the work that I and my colleagues did to implement some of the lessons of the book for a documentation project.)

And I haven't stopped reading.  

There conclude the successes.  So, back to the blogging, at least intermittently.  And welcome to my first blog entry of 2015.  Stay tuned for my first online book review since 2013.  

Book blog, part II

Well, I spent a year blogging about every book that I read over the course of a year:  Feb. 2012 to Feb. 2013, roughly.  And then I stopped.

Why did I stop?  Well, it was good discipline to write about every book and I found it interesting to try to think of something to say about all of them.  I was also interested to see how the totals of book numbers and types would come out, and it was fun to record the page counts and dates so that I could do that.  But.... as silly as it is, I found the whole process a bit inhibiting too.  More than once I found myself hesitating at the bookshelf or the library, thinking..."oh, I can't read ANOTHER one of those".  Or "I guess I HAVE to finish this one so I can blog about it."  I even found myself turning to video games or Netflix to avoid the issue.  So, at the end of February, I finished my "last blog book", wrote a summary blog post, and had done.

Except that I wasn't.  I enjoy reading.  I enjoy writing.  And my blog gave me a little place to share what I was reading and what I was thinking about those books with the interwebs.  So, I've decided to continue, but on a more casual basis.  Rather than committing to writing about every book that I read in 2013, I'm going to write about every book that inspires me to write, for whatever reason.  I'm also considering other writing projects.   But we'll see how that goes.

If you were following my blog before my "concluding post", you can catch up by reading about Sing the Warmth, Sussex Drive, and Naked Brunch.

Last post?

I have been very, very lazy when it comes to this blog.  About a month ago I realized that it had been a year since I started writing it.  Which meant that it was time to wrap things up, or at least write a wrap up post.  And hey, maybe I could take a break from writing something up about every book that I read while I was doing it!   That decision was fatal, of course.  I've spent the last month on an undocumented reading binge.  And on having a cold.  I'm sure it was the energy drain of the cold that really stopped me from finishing this blog article....;-)

Ahem.  At any rate, how did it go?

I thought I'd start by sharing some stats.

Over the course of the year I read 63 books and 20,323 pages.  I took on average 15.68 days to finish each book.  But that average is pretty deceptive.  My median time to complete a book was only 8 days.
The average was driven up by a couple of books that took forever to finish (Remember Thinking Fast and Slow? 138 days to completion.)  And while I was too lazy to calculate separate average times for fiction and non-fiction, as I was doing the sums I noted that I read nonfiction much more slowly than fiction.

What did I read? Twelve books of nonfiction, three books of poetry, and forty-eight works of fiction.  Hm...that comes out nicely.  One book of non-fiction and four works of fiction monthly.

Did I ever manage four books at a time?  I was too lazy to go back and chart how many books I was reading at any given time over the course of the year, but I did note that over Xmas I was reading (drum roll please) FIVE books simultaneously:

• Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama 
• Sibleys' Birding Basics
• Snobbery with Violence
• Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
• Second Chances

Tah dah!  Two books leaning to the serious side, and three leaning to the ....less serious side.  All at the same time. Apparently it is possible for me to read four books at a time, plus or minus one.

And finally, did I keep my commitment to blog about every book I read over the course of that year, and did I admit when I didn't finish something?

To answer the second question first: no.  I started out with good intentions.  But I didn't end up blogging about books I didn't finish.  I started several that I lost interest in and I wasn't interested enough to keep track of them and write about them.

And did I blog about everything I read?  Well, no.  I deliberately omitted one or two.  But that was just to maintain an aura of mystery.

In conclusion:  thanks for reading.  It's been fun.  I hope that any of you who followed this blog found it at least moderately interesting.

Best books?

I started this blog last February, so it's too early to summarize my year's reading and the experience of blogging about it for a year.  But now that the New Year has come and gone, it does seem like it's time to summarize the books of 2012.

Best books so far?  Yes, it needs to be plural:

• Best nonfiction:  Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnemen.  Thought-provoking.
• Best fiction:  The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.  She's matured so much as a writer since she wrote The Bean Trees.
• Best SF: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.  Dark, unlovable, and brilliant.
Runners up:
• Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts.  Well-written period piece, with more than a soupcon of irony.
• Ready Player One by Eric Cline.  Just fun, even if the last third of the book was a little disappointing.
• Best poetry: Memory's Daughter by Alice Major

I could pick out more "bests".  But I don't really think of mysteries in that way.  And I didn't read enough of any other type of book to really judge a category.

My new blog

Okay, I don't actually know why anyone would be interested, particularly, but I've started a new blog.

Like my last blog, I decided to write a few articles to see if I'd continue before launching it to "interested" parties.  This one is simply a record of everything that I read from February 2012 until February 2013.  Why?   Well, here's my "intro" post where I explain my rationale and blog title.

What have I read so far? Here's the list as of April 3:
Tommy Douglas by Vincent Lam
Elements of Style by Strunk and White
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stig Larssen
Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott
After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn
Memory's Daughter by Alice Major
Great Houses of England and Wales by Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd and Christopher Simon Sykes
Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Allan Bradley

I've labeled the various articles by type of book (SF, nonfiction, work) in case that helps you understand which books you might be interested in. If there is no end date listed I haven't finished it yet.  And yes, I'll admit it if I don't get through something.

Feel free to add your own comments about books you've read, or suggestions for things that I ought to read.

Four books at a time

I enjoyed blogging about my recent trip to Mexico (see my Tea or Chocolate blog).  Now that I'm back in Canada and am preparing to go back to work, I'd like to continue.  When thinking about a theme, books naturally occurred to me.  I read a lot (or at least I used to).  Blogging about what I read would give me an excuse to keep blogging, would likely help me get more out of the books that I pick up,  and who knows?  Someone might be interested in reading my reviews. I think I'll give it a try, anyway.

As an added twist, I'm going to try to review every single book that I read over the course of the year.  I'm curious how much I read these days, and am also curious what the current distribution of books is.  I don't usually keep track.

As for the blog title......I like reading more than one book at a time. I'm not always in the mood for the same thing.  For example, I may alternate between something serious and something light.  When I have more time I might read three things:  maybe something non-fiction, a serious novel, and a mystery.  But when I have even more time and more energy (like I did on our recent Mexico sabbatical), I sometimes go farther..... up to four books at a time.

Frankly, reading four books is something I've tried to do many times but may never have actually achieved. Three books is doable, where "success" is defined as making progress on all of the books and eventually finishing them all.  But every time I start that fourth book....one of them seems to fall off the mental radar.

So, I'm not sure if reading four books at a time is an aspiration (one day I will have enough time and focus to successfully keep four books going at once!), or a fool's errand (who on earth can keep that many mental threads going at once? And who would even want to?).  But given that this book blog is an experiment of similar "dubiosity", I'm taking "four books at a time" as my title.