Holy mother moly I loved this book.
Plot driven? Check. Genre fiction? Check. New worlds? Check (several checks). Dense complexity to the point of ridiculousness? ALL THE CHECKS.
Rebecca is doing okay. She has a job and while she’s not crazy about it, hey, it’s a job. She’s (happily?) married though her husband works all hours and is utterly consumed by the “causality violation device” he’s working on – and don’t you dare call it a time machine. Lately, though, there’s something … off. She can’t put her finger quite on it, but the world just seems a little wrong. Maybe her husband’s work isn’t as stalled as he, his colleagues, and the rest of the world all think it is.
This world Dexter Palmer has created exists right next to ours. I really enjoyed discovering it as I read. It was like one of those old Highlights magazine “circle all the differences between these two pictures”. I liked the characters (except maybe Philip, he seemed a little like a Big Bang Theory-style caricature), I liked their flaws and how those flaws influenced the way they moved through the world. I liked how the occasional very minor side character got a PoV chapter or two. I liked the science!
If you liked the science realism of The Martian, I definitely recommend Version Control. I’m hesitant to say too much because the discovery in this book is so much of the fun. Just somebody go read it because I wanna talk about it.
I really liked this one….a lot. His other one is no less interesting, but a little weirder (well, way weirder).
If you haven’t already read it, I found Liz Moore’s The Known World, to be a good related, but distinct read.
The Known World is excellent!!!!