TIME STORM

The expansion of the universe, it seems, has strained the fabric of space-time, producing a spreading network of temporal stresses and cracks that represent localized reversals of entropy. (Unfortunately Dickson seems to have got increasing and decreasing entropy mixed up; the explanation sounds more garbled every time he trots it out.) A group of survivors of the ""time storm"" fuse their mental energies to achieve temporary stasis--and later an escape to the future--under the direction of narrator Marc Despard, the only human being who can psychically perceive and manipulate the space-time patterns of the storm. But the real concern here is tense, hard-driven Marc's gradual, portentous transformation through the bonds of love and trust he forges with his fellow-survivors. Dickson can create interesting situations and likable individuals--notably a young black leopard who has adopted Marc as a long-lost parent. What he can't do is dig himself out from under a lot of pseudo-scientific props and a graceless prolixity that's big on ""new sensitivity,"" ""awareness of life,"" and ""configuration of forces.