Don't judge a book by it's cover. It's much stronger than it looks.

Background Information

A Time Odyssey is a series of books created by by Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Stephen Baxter (the writer of Xeelee Sequence). The series is not a sequel to the Space Odyssey series nor a prequel, but it is a orthoquel, which is a neologism coined by Clarke, combining the word sequel with ortho, which is the Greek prefix meaning "straight" or "perpendicular". you can view more info here here.

The series deals with an alien race which starts an endless mission to regulate the development of sentient life in the universe, in order to prevent all other species from harnessing too much of its energy and to stop the universe from getting destroyed. Thetr are three books in the series, and while it isn't anywhere near 2001: A Space Odyssey or Rendezvous with Rama quality, it's up there power-wise.

Standing in the Battledome

In the OBD, Time Odyssey is rarely used (Or more like never used since Hellspawn28 was one the of very few Clarke fans in the OBD) but it is a very powerful universe since they have reality warping/powerful time manipulation weapons on a universal scale, and an (pseudo) omnipotent alien being named The Firstborn who made a multiverse that contained the species' homeworld in different time periods.