Time Scout by Robert Asprin
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unbelievably stupid and not remotely believable. Sometime in the future, time travel is possible, both “uptime” and downtime.” To do this, time scouts are needed to scout unknown areas and guides are needed to show tourists scouted areas such as historical Rome, Victorian England, shogun Japan, etc. The most famous time scout of all time is the stupidly named Kit Carson, who is retired.

One day, some total massive hottie, the like of whom has never been seen in the universe shows up on the space station in a massive rush looking for Kit. She is secretly 16, but “looks 18,” so it’s okay that every male who sees her, regardless of age or marital status stares and drools. All men think with their penises in this book. Even Kit, who’s old, when he sees her, is struck dumb with amazement. Then she announces she’s his granddaughter and wants him to train her to be a time scout! No more incestuous thoughts, I guess. Still, everyone else wants to pork her.

Kit tries to talk her out of it and enlists the aid of every time scout around and the top weapons specialists and researchers around. She thinks it sounds romantic and knows nothing about it. Well – get this – first of all, you have to be a scholar. You pretty much have to have a PhD. Many have PhDs in History or Anthropology or other Humanities discipline. Margo, the girl, doesn’t study. Hates school. Then, since you’re visiting who knows how many foreign countries, you have to be fluent in many, many languages. Kit is fluent in 20. Margo barely knows one. Then, you pretty much have to be a special forces veteran. A PhD. Yep. You have to know how to fight anyone anywhere and how to beat the hell out of anyone and kill them if need be. You also need to know your weapons. You need to know how to use, fire, and clean hundreds of guns. Margo has never picked one up. You need to know blades. Margo has never picked one up. You need to know at least three to five martial arts, black belt level, probably more. Margo took a few classes of one in high school. And one of the time scouts who’s helping to train her who seems to be about 40 develops some type of romantic relationship with her even though they have absolutely nothing in common and even though it’s statutory rape. Apparently, the author, Robert Asprin (Linda Evans is a collaborator, but I’m not convinced she did that much, because I have some respect for her), really wants to fuck a 16-year-old girl. Really badly.

And yet, I’m willing to bet, Margo triumphs over all and becomes a successful time scout, the first female one, no less, and everyone is happy. I say I’m willing to bet because I didn’t finish this joke of a disaster. It’s too stupid to waste my time on. There are too many other good books to read. This was honestly one of the dumber books I’ve picked up in a long time and rest assured I will never read another book by this author, who must be a total dumb ass. One star. Definitely not recommended.

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