David Butler (4) (1936–)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, Kubla Khan,Or, A Vision in a Dream (A FRAGMENT.) is the key to the plot of this rather dated science fiction novel, set to start out with in an English public school, and then at Oxford University, then at a scientific research institute near Geneva, Switzerland, and finally in 13th century China at Xanadu.

The science starts out with black holes and particle accelerators, and somehow (unexplained) becomes time travel for mice, and then time travel for men and women.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

Perhaps Anglophiles who like cricket and Coleridge, and know a bit about the Mongol emperor Kulblai Kahn will enjoy this book. I found the scientific devices implausible, and the characters fairly wooden.… (meer)