The Chronoliths

According to best-sci-fi-books.com, The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson is one of the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books. I've just finished reading the novel, and found it very entertaining, but calling this a time travel sci fi book is a bit of a stretch. Ok, there are enormous monoliths appearing out of nowhere - as it turns out, these Chronoliths (as the monoliths come to be called) are coming from the future, but there are no humans traveling, either into the future or the past.

For this reason, I won't be labeling this under "time travel", but it does qualify to be placed in the "dystopia" category.

The book grabbed my interest right from the beginning with the protagonist being an ex patriot slacker living in Thailand. Although I've never been to Thailand, I'm familiar with that type of character here in Philippines. The first of the Chronoliths appear in Thailand, but the story doesn't remain there very long. Chronoliths are showing up all through out Asia, commemorating military victories by someone named "Kuin", twenty years in the future.

As the Chronoliths begin to show up in other areas of the world, both pro-Kuin and anti-Kuin political movements spring up across the globe - along with chaos, economic problems, apocalyptic cults, and warfare.

I enjoyed the book, but there will be no spoilers here, other than to say, "all's well that ends well".