Inception meets True Detective in this science fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind…“I promise you have never read a story like this.”—Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark MatterShannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal … Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family—and to locate his vanished teenage daughter. Though she can’t share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra—a ship assumed lost to the currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has triggered this violence.
Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence to crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.
Luminous and unsettling, The Gone World bristles with world-shattering ideas yet remains at its heart an intensely human story.
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Wow. I keep trying to figure out how to describe this one, and keep getting lost in my own head as a result… (NB: Once you read the book, you’ll smirk at that sentence – it’s perfectly in keeping with the tone and action of the story!) There is SO MUCH going on here – not in a multiple story lines sense, so much as in an “it’s incredibly dense and the explanations are convoluted and complicated and full of under- (and over-) tones of science and religion and mythology and suspense and psychology and sociology” sense…
The book is dark and horrifying and clever and brilliant and weird and fascinating, and it has taken me longer than I anticipated to read and comprehend it all – and I’m still quite convinced I missed a slew of connections and analytical bits.
You could write a thesis on this, read it seven times, and still probably not get everything out of it… I won’t do that – it was too dark for me to say it was something I’d rush to re-read. The book wore on me; Shannon’s world is horrendous, even while it’s wildly entertaining to visit. But – importantly – this doesn’t detract AT ALL from a single read for entertainment…
I found the book thoroughly engaging and fascinating and for the vast majority I was flipping pages furiously – simultaneously cringing to see what came next and dying to get there so I’d have my curiosity sated. It’s a tour de force – and you won’t look at the world (or space!) the same after reading it…
My review copy was provided by the Penguin First To Read program. The Gone World releases in the US on February 6, 2018.
I found this time travel book to be original and unusual. Great character development. A great find for free on Kindle Unlimited
The end of the world keeps getting closer and closer in this innovative time travel tale. NCIS officers are tasked with traveling DEEP TIME to solve/avoid crimes by taking a look at the future. Navy officers are exploring DEEP SPACE while the rest of the world slumbers unaware these unique Technologies are in use. Things go bad on one of the deep space journeys where life is found and it makes its way back to earth with bad consequences.
The story follows an NCIS officer as she attempts to find ways to stop the end of the world. As she jumps back-and-forth in time the story twists and turns in most unique ways. While things get complex, the rules outlined in the story keep things somewhat grounded and never incoherent as the story moves forward towards a compelling conclusion.
The author does a great job developing and following his rules. The characters stay the same while their circumstances and stories keep adjusting in tune with the rules of time travel as outlined in the story. Interestingly enough I had just read “Recursion” by Blake Crouch a week earlier. That story made a bloody mess out of time travel which ruined his good idea. The difference between the two books was staggering and made this one even better thanks to the way the author built this story.
Was a thoroughly interesting and page turning exploration of time travel and its effects. Interesting characters that change with the permutations. The violence and mythology were both a bit much for my taste.
Approaches Time Travel from a novel perspective in which familiar tropes are turned inside-out to become Big Ideas with far flung consequence, while maintaining the intimate characters and story telling of a first-rate thriller.
Astounding in its breadth even as it remains local in its resolution. Fans of Dan Simmons, Greg Bear, Sue Burke and Annalee Newlitz will be overjoyed.
Good science fiction. I do love time travel. Very fast paced, clever plotting, a strong female heroine who works for NCIS, and some good minor characters, too. There’s also a fair amount of violence and gore. Sometimes I felt I was in a hospital Emergency Room or watching a major surgical procedure. I didn’t really mind. This was part of the author’s world, the gone world, part of an immediate sense of urgency and drama: the human race is about to go extinct! Because of the world I live in, I was a little disappointed that flashing into the future of today (from 1997) never included much or any mention of global warming, which I think should be a backdrop to any discussion of the future. But I enjoyed this book enough that, listening to the audible, I came back from my run and continued to listen while doing housework. The benefit: a cleaner house.
Out of this world Sci-Fi story telling.. !