Skip to main content

The Memory Collectors (SF) - Dete Meserve ****

Dete Meserve structures her novel around four characters, each getting their own chapter in rotation until storylines start to cross. This is a difficult approach to engage with, as after the first four chapters it's hard to have any connection to a character, but in the context of the storyline it makes sense, and after a while everything does start to fit into place.

Each of our four is making a journey back in time using new technology developed by Californian startup Aeon Expeditions (founded by ex-husband of one of the four, Elizabeth). This is not time travel as science fiction usually portrays it. It is reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's striking time travel novel The House on the Strand. In that book, the protagonist is able to mentally travel back to the fourteenth century, while his body remains in the present (putting him in danger, as his physical body moves across the landscape following the mental one in the past). in Meserve's book, the characters do travel back to a point in their past where they experience an hour being themselves at that point in time (not with their present bodies), but are able to act independently from their past lives, even though as soon as they return, the timeline snaps back to the way it was.

As we get into the plot, Meserve beautifully handles weaving together the four stories, ending up with a real page-turner for the chapters where, during a single day, all four live new versions of a life-altering event. I had to stay up late to get through these chapters - the whole thing is done with flair. My only slight moan plot-wise is the ending, which ties everything up with a bow and skirts over the apparent implication that at least one of the characters should be charged with murder. But that doesn't really matter - at the heart of the book is a 'what-if' of what would we do if we were sent back to a crucial turning point in our lives, with the potential to experience it differently, even though it won't change the real world.

Time travel is theoretically possible but not practically doable, so even with modern physics in mind, SF resorts to McGuffins to make it happen. Although there may be a scientific sugar-coating, under the hood whether it's the TARDIS, a DeLorean with a flux capacitor or Wells' Time Machine, what we experience is no more scientific than Mark Twain's use of a bump on the head in Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Meserve weaves in suitable scientific terms like closed time-like curves, but leaving aside the practical impossibilities of using these, the physics would not enable travel to before they were invented - and they would not magically transform you back into your past body. But as there isn't a true hard science time travel story, we have to just go with the flow.

Overall, the premise is fascinating and despite the unlikely time travel mode, it was an engaging read, climaxing with the fateful day where it becomes an energetic page-turner. 

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Luna: Moon Rising (SF) - Ian McDonald ****

I'm not the natural audience for this book. Game of Thrones l eaves me cold - and it's hard not to feel the influence of GoT (and a whole lot of Dune )   underneath a veneer of science fiction and the trappings of a South American drug cartel in the cod-medieval family power battles and chivalric details. There are even dragons (of a sort). I'd be really sad if the future did involve this sort of throwback feudalism. However, remarkably, despite this I found Luna: Moon Rising kept me engaged. The fact is that Ian McDonald can put together a good plot with intricate machinations, which is enough to carry the reader through what can be a bewildering collection of characters. The two page scene-setter saying who did what to whom at the start was useful, but I could have done with family trees for the main family as I was constantly forgetting who was who - especially easy as McDonald endows many families with characters with the same first initial (e.g. Ariel and Al...
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures of a Computational Explorer - Stephen Wolfram ***

Stephen Wolfram, the man behind the scientist's mathematical tool of choice, Mathematica, plus a whole host of other software products, including the uncanny Wolfram Alpha knowledge engine, is undoubtedly a genius of the first order. In this book, we get an uncensored excursion into the mind of genius - which is, without doubt, a fascinating prospect. The book consists of a collection of essays and speeches that Wolfram has produced over the last ten to fifteen years, covering an eclectic range of topics. Like all such collections, the result is something that lacks the coherence of a book with a narrative that runs through it, inevitably introducing a degree of repetition and a mix of interesting and not-so-interesting topics - but there's likely to be something to catch the attention anyone who is into computing or mathematics. One of the most interesting pieces is the opening one, where Wolfram describes being a consultant on the SF movie Arrival. He seems to hav...
Post a Comment
Read more

E=mc2: A biography of the world’s most famous equation – David Bodanis *****

David Bodanis is a storyteller, and he fulfils this role with flair in E=mc2. The premise of the book is simple – Einstein himself has been biographed (biographised?) to death, but no one has picked out this most famous of equations, dusted it down and told us what it means, where it comes from and what it has delivered. Allegedly, Bodanis was inspired to write the book after hearing see an interview with actress Cameron Diaz in which she commented that she’d really like to know what that famous collection of letters was all about. Although the book had been around for a while already when this review was written (September 2005), it seemed a very apt moment to cover it, as the equation is, as I write, exactly 100 years old. So when better to have a biography? Bodanis starts off by telling us about the individual elements of the equation. What the different letters mean, where the equal sign comes from and so on. This is entertaining, though he seems to tire of the approach on...
Post a Comment
Read more