In this science fiction-mystery, people move back and forth in time as easily as taking a bus. Thus time travelers can go back and hang out with their past selves or leap ahead and spend time with their future selves.
Time machine
Wedding festivities can be celebrated by a slew of 'silvers' (future incarnations of oneself) and funerals can be attended by a batch of 'greens' (past incarnations of oneself).
From green self to silver self
Travelers can hop into the future to see how a job interview or relationship turns out or visit the past to give themselves (or other people) things. Nevertheless, NO TIMELINE CAN BE CHANGED WHATSOEVER....NO MATTER WHAT. This premise makes no sense from the get-go (even bringing something to the past changes things) and the book requires a hefty suspension of disbelief. That said, I like the story, which is clever, unique, engaging, and women-centric.
*****
The story:
In 1967 four brilliant women - Margaret, Grace, Lucille, and Barbara - invent time travel. The early experimental trips trigger mental illness in Barbara, so the other women - fearing bad publicity and loss of funding - ruthlessly eject her from the program.
Over the years, time travel becomes a big enterprise run by the 'Conclave', which has very restrictive policies about who can take time-trips. Fearing even a whiff of 'mental instability', the Conclave subjects prospective employees/time travelers to written tests, interviews, and intentional harassment.
Applicants are also assigned unpleasant tasks and required to participate in deadly games.....all to weed out the 'weaklings' who might be freaked out by seeing themselves or loved ones die, etc. In addition, anyone in the program who starts to show signs of mental deterioration is dismissed forthwith.
This regimen is strictly enforced by Margaret, who's matured and become director of the Conclave. Unfortunately, Margaret has also become narcissistic and power hunger.
Jump to 2017 and former time traveler Barbara (Granny Bee) is a widow who lives with her granddaughter Ruby, a psychologist.
When Ruby receives a newspaper clipping from the future, about the mysterious death of an elderly woman in 2018, she fears it refers to Granny Bee - and becomes determined to find out if this is the case. (People insist on believing they can change the future!)
Skip ahead once more to 2018, and Odette - a graduate student who works in the local museum - finds the body of an old woman in the building's basement.
The unidentified victim has been shot in a locked room - but there's no gun - and the scene is suffused with blood and plastic shards. Odette is freaked out, can't sleep or concentrate, and decides to investigate the murder to ease her mind. Thus Odette applies for a job as a detective for the Conclave, so she can go back in time to see what happened.
As a potential employee, Odette meets Margaret and the other founders of the Conclave - Grace and Lucille - who still work for the organization. She also makes the acquaintance of more job candidates and additional employees. Over time Grace learns about the culture of time travelers - a conceited, clannish bunch who think of themselves as better than 'emus' (people who don't time travel, and thus pass through time in a single direction).
Odette meets Ruby as well, when she becomes Ruby's patient for psychotherapy. Odette wants to stop the horrible flashbacks that (mentally) return her to the scene of the crime and interfere with her daily activities.
This is the bare bones of the plot, which is vastly complicated by the past and future Graces, Lucilles, and Margarets that pop up here and there; by additional people that jump back and forth in time; by romances among the characters; and so on. The romance angle is especially weird when it involves people that would normally reside in different time periods. Thus a person can have an affair with the younger version of a person who's currently in his/her dotage. Crazy, right? 😎
The Conclave has singular laws for time travelers, and there's a unique vocabulary for people who engage in time travel. Here are some words/expressions related to time travel:
• Common chronology - the sequence of events experienced by non-time travelers.
• Completion - to live an incident you've already read or heard about.
• Echoing - returning to an incident you've already experienced.
• Forecasting - intercourse with one's future self. (How cuckoo would that be?)
• Liebestod - A trip to see a lover for the last time before one's death.
• Personal chronology - The sequence of events experienced by an individual time traveler.
• Swim in the same cut - People whose personal chronologies match well, because they belong to the same team (at work).
• Wenches - Freshly recruited time travelers.
• Zeitigzorn - Feeling angry with someone for things they won't do wrong for years.
I applaud the author for creating the compelling, convoluted plot (she must have had walls covered with flow charts) - and for presenting the story in a comprehensible manner. The mystery element is especially intriguing, and I liked the solution to the crime.
Though I enjoyed the story and (more or less) accepted the bizarre sci-fi facets of the plot, I did find one idea very troublesome - that past and future versions of oneself can hobnob together. I just don't see how this would work without generating a paradox.
Still, I strongly recommend the book to fans of 'soft' science fiction, for its originality and inventiveness.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Kate Mascarenhas), and the publisher (Crooked Lane Books) for a copy of the book.
Time machine
Wedding festivities can be celebrated by a slew of 'silvers' (future incarnations of oneself) and funerals can be attended by a batch of 'greens' (past incarnations of oneself).
From green self to silver self
Travelers can hop into the future to see how a job interview or relationship turns out or visit the past to give themselves (or other people) things. Nevertheless, NO TIMELINE CAN BE CHANGED WHATSOEVER....NO MATTER WHAT. This premise makes no sense from the get-go (even bringing something to the past changes things) and the book requires a hefty suspension of disbelief. That said, I like the story, which is clever, unique, engaging, and women-centric.
*****
The story:
In 1967 four brilliant women - Margaret, Grace, Lucille, and Barbara - invent time travel. The early experimental trips trigger mental illness in Barbara, so the other women - fearing bad publicity and loss of funding - ruthlessly eject her from the program.
Over the years, time travel becomes a big enterprise run by the 'Conclave', which has very restrictive policies about who can take time-trips. Fearing even a whiff of 'mental instability', the Conclave subjects prospective employees/time travelers to written tests, interviews, and intentional harassment.
Applicants are also assigned unpleasant tasks and required to participate in deadly games.....all to weed out the 'weaklings' who might be freaked out by seeing themselves or loved ones die, etc. In addition, anyone in the program who starts to show signs of mental deterioration is dismissed forthwith.
This regimen is strictly enforced by Margaret, who's matured and become director of the Conclave. Unfortunately, Margaret has also become narcissistic and power hunger.
Jump to 2017 and former time traveler Barbara (Granny Bee) is a widow who lives with her granddaughter Ruby, a psychologist.
When Ruby receives a newspaper clipping from the future, about the mysterious death of an elderly woman in 2018, she fears it refers to Granny Bee - and becomes determined to find out if this is the case. (People insist on believing they can change the future!)
Skip ahead once more to 2018, and Odette - a graduate student who works in the local museum - finds the body of an old woman in the building's basement.
The unidentified victim has been shot in a locked room - but there's no gun - and the scene is suffused with blood and plastic shards. Odette is freaked out, can't sleep or concentrate, and decides to investigate the murder to ease her mind. Thus Odette applies for a job as a detective for the Conclave, so she can go back in time to see what happened.
As a potential employee, Odette meets Margaret and the other founders of the Conclave - Grace and Lucille - who still work for the organization. She also makes the acquaintance of more job candidates and additional employees. Over time Grace learns about the culture of time travelers - a conceited, clannish bunch who think of themselves as better than 'emus' (people who don't time travel, and thus pass through time in a single direction).
Odette meets Ruby as well, when she becomes Ruby's patient for psychotherapy. Odette wants to stop the horrible flashbacks that (mentally) return her to the scene of the crime and interfere with her daily activities.
This is the bare bones of the plot, which is vastly complicated by the past and future Graces, Lucilles, and Margarets that pop up here and there; by additional people that jump back and forth in time; by romances among the characters; and so on. The romance angle is especially weird when it involves people that would normally reside in different time periods. Thus a person can have an affair with the younger version of a person who's currently in his/her dotage. Crazy, right? 😎
The Conclave has singular laws for time travelers, and there's a unique vocabulary for people who engage in time travel. Here are some words/expressions related to time travel:
• Common chronology - the sequence of events experienced by non-time travelers.
• Completion - to live an incident you've already read or heard about.
• Echoing - returning to an incident you've already experienced.
• Forecasting - intercourse with one's future self. (How cuckoo would that be?)
• Liebestod - A trip to see a lover for the last time before one's death.
• Personal chronology - The sequence of events experienced by an individual time traveler.
• Swim in the same cut - People whose personal chronologies match well, because they belong to the same team (at work).
• Wenches - Freshly recruited time travelers.
• Zeitigzorn - Feeling angry with someone for things they won't do wrong for years.
I applaud the author for creating the compelling, convoluted plot (she must have had walls covered with flow charts) - and for presenting the story in a comprehensible manner. The mystery element is especially intriguing, and I liked the solution to the crime.
Though I enjoyed the story and (more or less) accepted the bizarre sci-fi facets of the plot, I did find one idea very troublesome - that past and future versions of oneself can hobnob together. I just don't see how this would work without generating a paradox.
Still, I strongly recommend the book to fans of 'soft' science fiction, for its originality and inventiveness.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author (Kate Mascarenhas), and the publisher (Crooked Lane Books) for a copy of the book.
Rating: 4 stars
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