The Book Depository The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
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Description: The Psychology of Time Travel : Paperback : Bloomsbury Publishing PLC : 9781788540124 : : 07 Mar 2019 : A time travel murder mystery, set in a female-centric alternate world. The Book Depository The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781788540124
MPN: 9781788540124
GTIN: 9781788540124
Author: Amazonian Customer
Rating: 5
Review: The Psychology of Time Travel is one of the best and cleverest novels about time travel that I've ever read. The premise is that back in the seventies, four women invented time travel. It's expensive technology, and therefore becomes the occupation of a select few, run by an organisation called the Conclave. There are none of the usual constraints about paradoxes and so time travellers can meet their future or past selves with no consequences - nothing they do can change the past. Kate Mascarenhas has completely thought through how such a world would work. The time travellers self-govern and have their own currency. As time goes on, their inability to alter the future lead to a strong faith in fate. She's also invented slang, for example the instantly understandable Green-me and Silver-me. Much of it however relates to sexual activity - which says a lot about the morality of the time travellers! At it's heart is a locked room mystery. A body is found in the locked boiler room of a museum; unidentifiable, and clearly not a suicide. The chapters are told from the viewpoint of a number of characters and from a variety of timelines. As the story progresses it becomes clear that all of these characters are interlinked. It's extremely well constructed though, so it's never confusing (although you do have to pay attention). The characters are all fascinating and the way their stories interweave is engrossing. Absolutely brilliant.
Author: Wembley
Rating: 2
Review: Poor. An overhyped and so very disappointing attempt at a time-travel thriller. I suspect this was supposed to be a YA/children’s book, but was not marked as such so I will review it as a book for adults. The genre is well-worn and writers really need to bring something new. By focusing on the psychological the author manages to slow things down rather than moving them forward, without throwing out any good insights. From a hard-SF side it flops badly as the key aspects – such as why it is impossible to change anything in a world where time travel is routine – are ignored. The unobtanium nuclear power source and peculiar radiation-resistant bacteria should have been done properly, as they are key plot elements. This feels too much like SF written by someone with no sense of the genre. More importantly there is a dire lack of sympathetic characters, and it is hard to care much about the murder. The one stand-out character, the Thatcheresque Margaret, sadistic chief of the time-travelling Conclave, fails to make much of an impact. Someone in this position would be threatening global domination across time, not indulging in petty staff bullying, like a mean office manager rather than a chronological dictator. The murder at the centre of the story, and the solving of the crime, lacked essential drama. Time travel is a superpower with huge implications; here it is mainly used as a sentimental means of revisiting dead relatives. There is a tragic deficit of imagination when it comes to the potential of time travel, here is goes no further than toys, importing future sweets, and phoning your dead granny. There would be nice incidentals in a story, but are too weak to carry it. There are some great time-travel thrillers out there with strong female characters, and I would strongly recommend, for example, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. This one was a missed opportunity.
