What if it was possible to enter your own memories and try again?
Rating: 5/5
I actually read this book after having already completed Blake Crouch’s other more recent novels Book: Dark Matter and Upgrade. Like those I found this one compelling and thought-provoking.
Something that is difficult to pull off well is intricate representation of time-travel. Generally, I enjoy mediums that explore these concepts surrounding time and space and our inevitable lurch forward. Usually, there is bound to be some inconsistencies in any time travel based story as it’s hard to do well. This story offers an interesting premise in that in a sense old timelines function more so like separate old dimensions/branches. But interestingly bystanders are swept along in mind-numbing return to reality as branches merge and pass each other.
It’s a strange concept to consider, in a sense it seems as though time is more linear than the underlying premise suggests. No matter what happens people gain old “dead” memories of these branches suggesting there is no branch. Towards the end though we encounter a POV from one the protagonists prior to a jump from the future. The description sounds bleak, the previous “persons” on a timeline lose their control of the wheel. In one sense literally since the character is using a vivid memory of driving her first car. It’s sad to think about the number of times the protagonists need to make these jumps to the past and the memory “death” they experience.
I think the outcomes explored towards the end regarding unstoppable information spread and military co-opting of the technology make sense. Having only a basic understanding of neuroscience and instrumentation I think the author in the interest of conflict does slightly neglect the true complicated process it would be to design such a device. I think hardly any character aside from the main character would be able to recreate the device from memory. The vivid depictions of repeated nuclear bombardment are truly terrifying.