Books shelved under “Time Travel”

Time travel, like any subgenre of science fiction, shifts in response to the anxieties of our time (pun intended). These days, a lot of time travel focuses less on visiting the past or fixing one’s personal past and more on the existential anxieties we have about where humanity is going. Travelers, a Brad Wright series on Netflix, capitalized on this idea quite expertly. Hive, by D.L. Orton, reminds me a lot of Travelers…

A few weekends ago, I discovered the first season of Halo was on Netflix and virtually binged it. It was better than I expected—for my expectations were low—and exactly what I craved: something visually stimulating, with a clear story, yet ultimately not all that … meaningful, I guess? “Mid” is probably the right term all the kids are using these days. Anyway, The Third Rule of Time Travel is just like that. Like the Halo…

Damn but William Gibson can write! I realize this might feel like a contradictory pronouncement to the one I made at the start of my review of The Peripheral, but I assure you the statements are compatible. I wasn’t aware of this sequel, Agency, until recently, but it was nice to pluck it from my library’s shelves. While you don’t need to have read the first book—this is a very loose sequel, with…

Another story about stories, this time a metafictional romp through a Scientologyesque religion and the end of the universe. Lavie Tidhar’s The Circumference of the World is imaginative and, dare I say, quite a bit wacky; however, it never coalesced into something I would call enjoyable. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC.

Delia is a mathematician from Vanuatu, though now she lives in London. Her boyfriend’s disappearance causes her to start looking…

Time travel stories can come in so many forms! It has been a while since I’ve read a Benjamin Button–style story. A Second Chance for Yesterday has its protagonist, Nev, hurtling backwards in time. The title is everything: sibling authors writing under the name R.A. Sinn ask us if a person can reform simply by having the chance to do things over, albeit in reverse. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Solaris for the eARC.

Nev…

William Gibson is one of those authors whose books I think I like a lot more than I do. Likely because his fingerprints are all over science fiction these days, some subgenres more than others of course. There’s no denying that he is a brilliant inventor of ideas and extrapolator of futures. But I think there is probably a reason it has taken me so long to finally read The Peripheral. I kept telling…

First, some praise for the simplicity of this title. Too often novels think they need to be cleverer by half and jam entire sentences into their titles or create cute, quirky subtitles in emulation of the eighteenth century. Thrust is as prosaic a title as its contents are poetical. Lidia Yuknavitch says in the acknowledgements that she wanted to play with the novel as a form, and that is evident throughout. Now, I like me…

Did I apply for this book on NetGalley solely because of the title and story’s surface similarities to Oona Out of Order? You bet I did. Cassandra in Reverse even has a blurb from Margaret Montimore. But don’t let this association colour your ideas about Holly Smale’s take on time-hopping through one’s own life, for this novel is very much its own story—and it’s a good one. Thank you to publisher MIRA for the…

Are we the baddies? is one of my favourite tropes in fiction. Emily Tesh plays this trope straight to great effect in Some Desperate Glory. This is a story of deradicalization, and it’s one that in this day and age needs to be told. If we as a society are going to continue making progress on issues of social justice in an age where misinformation online abounds and assists in radicalizing our friends and…

As I’ve said in the past, I am very selective about the anthologies I read. Novels are my jam when it comes to fiction, short stories and novelettes and novellas much less so. Nevertheless, when Derek Künsken’s collection Flight from the Ages And Other Stories came up on NetGalley, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to request an eARC for review. Künsken might fast become one of my favourite living science-fiction authors. Ever since I…

Time travel always opens up such interesting storytelling possibilities, loops and predestination paradoxes among them. We humans are so immured in the linearity of time that these possibilities can be tantalizing, frightening, and even bewildering. Add on top of that metafiction, the idea of a story escaping itself into the real world, and you get some truly fascinating plot ideas. Sea of Tranquility tries to create such an atmosphere of possibility. Though I wouldn’t say…

Every once in a while, I dip my toes into a science-fiction thriller, like I did with Constance. The Paradox Hotel is another such blend of mystery, science fiction, and tension, but this time instead of human cloning, we get time travel! The question at the heart of Rob Hart’s story is actually asked by an artificially intelligent drone: why do humans deal with pain by lashing out at others?

January Cole is the…

My best friend Rebecca gave this to me thinking it would be right up my alley—and she was correct. I read it while on a plane to visit her in Montréal, and we had some great conversations about Oona Out of Order. There are some obvious comparisons here, particularly to Slaughterhouse-Five. It also reminded me quite a bit of one of the most affecting novels I have ever read, My Real Children.…

Longtime readers of my reviews should not be surprised that I love time travel. I have a whole bookshelf dedicated to it, and I love Doctor Who. So Time Travel: A History by James Gleick was really a no-brainer. This is going to be a short review, because I don’t have a lot to say: this book does what the title promises. Gleick presents a brief history of the concept of time travel…

If there is one thing I can say about Jo Walton, it’s probably that her novels never fail to surprise me in various ways. Some of her novels I have loved—years later and I still can’t stop thinking about My Real Children, whereas others I only tolerated or didn’t quite enjoy. The more I read of Walton’s work, the clearer it is she has certain motifs she likes to return to time and…

Over a decade ago, I read Lilith’s Brood. I immediately recognized the power of Octavia E. Butler’s writing, her utter willingness to exploit science fiction to the fullest extent that it can comment on our society. Since then, I have always nodded along and agreed every time someone calls Butler a grandmaster of science fiction and fantasy. She is an icon. But I didn’t read anything else by her.

Until now.

Kindred is the…

Jo Walton’s novels are always so creative and refreshing, and The Just City is no exception. This book stretched my mind and my imagination just enough without overwhelming me with the philosophy. Perhaps the best part of this book is how Walton plays with the Greek gods (primarily as inspired by Homeric tradition) while simultaneously acknowledging their rapey tendencies in a very real way. This is a challenge for authors who want to play in…

From women writing subversive TV now to women inventing time travel! The Psychology of Time Travel is a quirky part mystery, part love story. As the title suggests, Kate Mascarenhas focuses more so on what it would be like to be a time traveller rather than on the social, historical, or future repercussions of mucking about with a timeline. Along with bringing up the usual questions of free will versus determinism, etc., this book seeks…

Like so many time-travel stories, This Is How You Lose the Time War is frustratingly, endearingly, eerily beautiful. It takes a special kind of talent to write time travel well—you need not only that non-linear perspective that many writers find necessary even for linear plots, but you also require a certain level of sheer, Lewis Carroll-like madness to conceive of a multiverse so vastly alternative to our tiny slice, or strand. Amal El-Mohtar and Max…

Every single review panning this story for not making sense is entirely deserved. Time travel stories are difficult to write and, even when written well, difficult to parse and read. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine.

But Permafrost is so very much my thing.

In structure, it reminds me of Palimpsest, by Charles Stross. Both are novellas with a single protagonist recently initiated in time travel. Both are fairly convoluted in terms of…