Paperback, 368 pages
Published Feb. 21, 2017 by Broadway Books.
One night after an evening out, Jason Dessen, forty-year-old physics professor living with his wife and son in Chicago, is kidnapped at gunpoint by a masked man, driven to an abandoned industrial site and injected with a powerful drug. As he wakes, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." But this life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife; his son was never born; and he's not an ordinary college professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? How can he possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could have imagined--one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. …
One night after an evening out, Jason Dessen, forty-year-old physics professor living with his wife and son in Chicago, is kidnapped at gunpoint by a masked man, driven to an abandoned industrial site and injected with a powerful drug. As he wakes, a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend." But this life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife; his son was never born; and he's not an ordinary college professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something impossible. Is it this world or the other that's the dream? How can he possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could have imagined--one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. --
Many friends who read sci-fi more often than me recommended this one and I am not sure why. The premise was interesting and I was quite hooked until maybe the halfway mark, after which it felt like a stretch.
Easy read. Romantic elements. Thoughtful ending.
this book is completely idiotic
First of all, I kind of liked this novel, it generated some thinking. Second of all, I have an issue.
If every choice Jason makes creates a new timeline with a new Jason that works to get back to his "original timeline", why doesn't every choice Daniela (or Jason 2, or any single one of their close friends, family, pets or house bugs) make create a "new original timeline", why is there only one of those, and why do all the Jasons end up in exactly the same one
I also kind of want to know what happens in that timeline after protagonist-Jason escapes. I pity the police department tasked with making sense of that crime scene, and the myriads of dejected Jasons moping about.
First of all, I kind of liked this novel, it generated some thinking. Second of all, I have an issue.
If every choice Jason makes creates a new timeline with a new Jason that works to get back to his "original timeline", why doesn't every choice Daniela (or Jason 2, or any single one of their close friends, family, pets or house bugs) make create a "new original timeline", why is there only one of those, and why do all the Jasons end up in exactly the same one
I also kind of want to know what happens in that timeline after protagonist-Jason escapes. I pity the police department tasked with making sense of that crime scene, and the myriads of dejected Jasons moping about.
Excellent, excellent book. Loved the idea(s) behind the plot.
Excellent, excellent book. Loved the idea(s) behind the plot.
