A time-hopping dramedy that’s often fun and insightful.
In Blaisdell’s debut SF novel, time travel becomes commonplace—and then unexpected flaws emerge.
With the invention of “digitime™” in the 2020s, traveling into the past becomes possible, as well as widely accessible. Transportation services called TimeLiners take passengers to various times in history, although no further back than 1850. The trip can be personal—one may see one’s late mother as a child, for instance, or watch one’s first kiss; alternatively, some wish to see a particular historical moment unfold live, such as a notorious criminal’s shootout. For some people, the nostalgia quickly wears off, as visits to the past tend to put its worst elements into sharp relief, such as racism and sexism. For others, though, the past offers a place to hide. Purple-haired stand-up comedian Casey Clement, for instance, has dealt with her share of turmoil in her life, and, in order to avoid her ex-husband, she escapes into yesteryear. Around the same time, Guy McGee, after learning a secret about his parents, goes on a quest to 1955. Much of Blaisdell’s story has a tongue-in-cheek tone, as when time-travelers experience turbulence when passing through “turbulent years.” However, the ensemble cast is seriously engaging; it includes Casey’s physicist mother, who searches for her missing daughter; fans who literally chase after such celebrities as Albert Einstein; and the Timemaster, the creator of the time-travel tech, who has a personality and social-media presence that the public generally despises. Many readers will appreciate when characters reluctantly acknowledge that memories don’t always accurately represent the past. The author aims to simplify the story’s time travel elements, essentially disregarding the famed butterfly effect to allow for mass, worry-free travel. “Disruptions,” however, remain possible, which raises questions than aren’t satisfactorily answered. A plot turn in the final act, although predictable, begets a fantastic ending.
A time-hopping dramedy that’s often fun and insightful.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2025
ISBN: 9798307134436
Page Count: 402
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.
Weir’s latest is a page-turning interstellar thrill ride that follows a junior high school teacher–turned–reluctant astronaut at the center of a desperate mission to save humankind from a looming extinction event.
Ryland Grace was a once-promising molecular biologist who wrote a controversial academic paper contesting the assumption that life requires liquid water. Now disgraced, he works as a junior high science teacher in San Francisco. His previous theories, however, make him the perfect researcher for a multinational task force that's trying to understand how and why the sun is suddenly dimming at an alarming rate. A barely detectable line of light that rises from the sun’s north pole and curves toward Venus is inexplicably draining the star of power. According to scientists, an “instant ice age” is all but inevitable within a few decades. All the other stars in proximity to the sun seem to be suffering with the same affliction—except Tau Ceti. An unwilling last-minute replacement as part of a three-person mission heading to Tau Ceti in hopes of finding an answer, Ryland finds himself awakening from an induced coma on the spaceship with two dead crewmates and a spotty memory. With time running out for humankind, he discovers an alien spacecraft in the vicinity of his ship with a strange traveler on a similar quest. Although hard scientific speculation fuels the storyline, the real power lies in the many jaw-dropping plot twists, the relentless tension, and the extraordinary dynamic between Ryland and the alien (whom he nicknames Rocky because of its carapace of oxidized minerals and metallic alloy bones). Readers may find themselves consuming this emotionally intense and thematically profound novel in one stay-up-all-night-until-your-eyes-bleed sitting.
An unforgettable story of survival and the power of friendship—nothing short of a science-fiction masterwork.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13520-4
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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