Publishers Weekly
08/29/2016
British author Dickinson makes his U.S. debut with a murky, dystopian thriller, which depicts a 24th-century world replete with brutal, militaristic societies of slaves and biomechanically enhanced superhumans. Time-travel technology allows visits to eras before the NEE (Near Extinction Event), which transformed the world and its surviving inhabitants. Spens is a guide at a time-travel “resort,” where tourists can visit early 21st-century England. When a visitor vanishes from a group excursion, Spens must pursue her. He slowly realizes that his quarry may be an agent from another time whose actions in the past may change the future, causing humanity’s near annihilation—or preventing it. The leaps of time, identity, and chronology create a dark, chillingly claustrophobic atmosphere, but the choppy chronology and elaborate sci-fi imaginings overshadow and obscure the plot and meaningful character development. “Travel is confusing,” is a frequent refrain, and the same can be said for this ambitious but unsatisfying vision of the future. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.). (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"As fresh and compelling as it is high concept ... Packed with dry humor, satirical swipes at the twenty-first century, and vivid characters....Immensely enjoyable."—SFX
"Welcome to the 21st Century....Echoes of Bradbury and Orwell, in the service of a crackerjack conspiracy plot; a seductively intriguing work of speculative fiction."—Kirkus
"The leaps of time, identity, and chronology create a dark, chillingly claustrophobic atmosphere."
—Publishers Weekly
"Dickinson has created a bleak future world and spins a plot most appropriate for readers who appreciate ambiguity."
—Booklist
"The story is slowly but surely teased out, intermittently dropping little details while advancing the plot at a breathtaking pace."—SciFiNow
"Riveting"—The Sunday Times
NOVEMBER 2016 - AudioFile
This audiobook might be less confusing if it were called “Time Tourist,” but that's the least of its problems. Narrator Peter Kenny’s clipped British accent is pleasant, and he helps listeners keep the many characters straight. But the plot is a bloody mess. The crux of the story is that sometime later in this century we start getting visitors from the future—time tourists who get to spend an hour or so in the past, subject to many rules and regulations. That's fine, but then the story shifts to other characters on a seemingly different timeline, and it gets confusing. Kenny breathes life into the principals, giving them various nuances, but, ultimately, listeners will spend a lot of time scratching their heads. M.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2016-08-07
Welcome to the 21st century. Please don’t feed the natives.Dickinson’s twisty conspiracy thriller turns an often troublesome narrative device—time travel—to wonderful advantage, wittily exploiting the trope’s opportunities for structural inventiveness, worldbuilding, and sly social commentary. Hundreds of years in the future, after a “Near Extinction Event,” the surviving humans have sufficiently rebuilt to the impressive extent that time tourism exists as a feasible vacation option for all. The easiest era to get to (and the cheapest) is our own familiar early 21st century. In the novel’s drollest construction, the current era is an underwhelming novelty attraction, a drab, stinking curiosity; visitors content themselves with a visit to a shopping mall, a handy distillation of human achievement and values to this point. When a tourist goes missing, her minder is plunged into a bewildering, temporally Byzantine plot with apocalyptic implications. Standard stuff, but Dickinson gets there in style, employing alternating points of view (or…are they?) and tantalizingly doling out details of the evolved future humans (they are tall, pale, and have trouble with our food) and society (numbered cities administrated by Orwellian departments of Happiness, Safety, and Awareness). The characters are well-drawn and distinctive, Dickinson’s literary prose glides through the plot thickets with graceful assurance, and the whole immersive enterprise concludes on a satisfyingly poetic note. Echoes of Bradbury and Orwell, in the service of a crackerjack conspiracy plot; a seductively intriguing work of speculative fiction.
