Author: Elan Mastai
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Release Date: 7th Feb 2017
Synopsis: You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we’d have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren’s 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed...because it wasn’t necessary.
Except Tom just can’t seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that’s before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.
Review: When people say "this books about Time Travel" I think a lot of us can have a tendency to switch off. Its a subject not that I have no interest in, I think it's fascinating, but one that I feel, at least in hard core sci-fi/fantasy books can get bogged down in. There is always a lot of science and detail that my simple mind struggles to really understand on the complex level I want. I'm not saying this is a uniformity, I haven't read enough to be able to claim that. I only start out with this, to prove that a) I can be wrong and b) that not all books follow the same patterns.
If this is what the future brings, in many ways i'm excited, its a while new world, but with any vision of the future there's a step too far. We push and we push today and this future was very much an emphasis of what we're trying to do. It feels fresh and easy and futuristic. Then we're brought back to reality.
This book was not what I expected. AT ALL. Voice in any book is important and I regularly talk about the conversational fluid aspect of a voice, but this was possibly the most conversational tone I have ever read. and it worked in nearly every respect. You get swept up along with Tom's narrative, you felt a connection to Toms plight. Hes fighting in a world he doesn't fit in and this is a feeling a lot of us can relate to. He wants to be more, he wants to show something and you egg him on in his fight. Then one small...slip up...changes everything, and the book travels and everything turns 180. Suddenly Tom is the complete opposite of who he thoughts he was. This was a really nice dynamic that gave a bit of crunch. You got to see both potentials of Tom on two different parallel time streams which both come with pitfalls as a character. Tom was not perfect in either world and the conflicting nature of who he was and wanted to be and how people saw him played out very well. As well as this you got to see opposites of every character, and it was that great element of sliding doors and how one simple decision doesn't affect you but everyone. The only criticism in this was that because it was so open and conversational, and Tom had to make so many decisions that it became very self deprecative and this became repetitive in his ability to record events.
I like a book that makes you think and consider and this very much played up to that. If you could change history would you. If you could explore another time would you? It's interesting how different this is for everyone. To include a cliche quite "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility".
If you're looking for something light, funny with a bit of heart and a bit of grit this would be a great summer read.
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