Sci-fi. Time travel. Near-future (and near-past, and distant-past, and really-distant-past) almost-Earth. Feminist. Very clever – in world-building, in how it deals with time-travel, in its politics. Quite liked the writing too. But it was a bit disappointing in terms of storytelling. In particular, there were a handful of scenes, mostly early on but a couple towards the end as well, where there was some kind of transition of some significance – a character coming to a decision or reversing course or figuring something out – and it just felt like the groundwork, either informational or emotional, hadn’t been done for it to land like it was clearly meant to. Also felt a little underwhelmed by aspects of the ending. All of which is too bad, because I quite liked Newitz’s first novel, and there is still lots to appreciate in this one in terms of, as I said, how clever it is about a lot of things. I definitely have enough faith in her skills that I’ll keep my eyes open for whatever she writes next.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.