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Title: Kelly Country

Author: A. Bertram Chandler

Narrator: David Franklin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-07-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi: Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

An If-Of-History Novel

The United States won its independence in 1776, and the world has never been the same since. What if Australia had followed suit? How would our world have been different? Thats the theme that fascinated A. Bertram Chandler who saw, in the famous Ned Kelly, the possibility of an Australian Washington.

For Ned Kelly was not just a lawless bushranger. He was a man of unusual imagination who created his own armor, gathered a band of Irish rebels, and took arms against the frontier law of old Australia. Now, by time machine and calculated interference, a certain 20th Century John Grimes goes back and alters history. Kelly survives!

Members Reviews:

Time Travel, and how one event can change the fate of nations

Ned Kelly was a bushranger, and Australian Outlaw who was hanged in 1880 after the failed ambush of a train. But he was a man with imagination... when he was captured he was wearing armor which stopped most of the bullets aimed at him. He sent a political manifesto to express his aims to the Australian government, a manifesto dangerous enough to be suppressed at the time. And he was in an Australia where widespread dissatisfaction with the order of things was rampant. What if things had worked out differently?

An American scientist is asked to apply a technique he has invented for probing "ancestrial consciousness" to a sci-fi writer (Grimes) whose ancestor was at the ill-fated train ambush, so that he can write an article on ned Kelly for an Australian magazine Ned Kelly is famous in Australia in the same way the Jesse James is in the United States. But when he goes back in time and is seeing things through the eyes of his Great-Great Grandfather it turns out that he can influence him slightly, enough to make sure that a schoolmaster does not warn the train in time to prevent the ambush. When Grimes returns the present he knows is changed. Kelly's descendents have become "hereditary presidents" and Australia is in the throes of a political and military crisis. And he must continue to go back in time for the sake of the latest Ned Kelly, to write a true history of the way Austrlia became a "free republic," with the help of his ancestor and Ned Kelly the First.

Well-written and easy to follow, even if you aren't that familiar with Australian history. Definitely worth getting if you can find it.

Not really a John Grimes story...

I bought this because it's promoted as a "John Grimes" novel. Unfortunately, it's only somewhat connected to that character. Despite that, I enjoyed the book. I had heard of the name Ned Kelly, but didn't know where from. A interesting twist on the time travel concept.

It's just not that exciting

I imagine the book would be more interesting if I were Austrilian, but as time travel story it's just okay. There isn't alot of drama. You're really worried about the timeline. The tension doesn't really build until the very end of the book.

Not my idea of science fiction

I almost couldn't finish this book but persevered. I found the story got lost in facts making it a choppy read. The ending was the best.