Thomas Sweterlitsch

This is a lushly worded, mind bending story about time, reality, and death. It is equal parts X-files thrill and Ligotti-esque nihilistic dread, and I loved it.

The issuing was spot on, and the characters were fully realized in a way not many popular works achieve. The ending turned the mind-f#@k up a little high, perhaps, but the journey there was truly unforgettable.

If there is one book that I feel inadequate to review, it's The Gone World, because it's so mind-blowing fascinating and sometimes a bit too much for my little brain to take it, but at least I think I grasped most of what was going on in the book. Still, it's hard to review that left you with a feeling of exhausting, wonder and dread.

Within two months of her arrival in Virginia Beach, she had time-traveled to the Terminus of humanity and sailed the farthest reaches of the Andromeda Galaxy,

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bathed in starlight that wouldn’t touch Earth for another two and a half million years.

The book is gorgeously written, and at first, there is a tiny feeling of hope in the story, despite, the gruesome murder, as we learn more about time travel, and all the wonders with it. Then, we learn about Terminus, the end of humanity, an end that is closing in faster and faster, from being a threat generations away to a threat that seems to move faster towards each day and you start to feel that humanity may be doomed that there will be no way to stop Terminus from happening.

The Gone World is a fabulous science fiction book and I felt a craving for more books like this after finishing it. I've always loved time travel, and I loved the idea of going forward to an "if" future to see back to how for instance a case would be solved, and then go back. It's not a new thought, but adding the Terminus, gives the book a sense of doom, a sense that nothing will, in the end, stop the end of humanity. There is hope, but will Shannon Moss, be able to figure out a way to stop Terminus? Or is she just fighting windmills?

I feel that part of me is still processing this book, despite that, I finished the book a couple of days ago. It's such an extraordinary book. I also loved how the author quoted August Strindberg, from the book The Ghost Sonata, as intro quotes for new parts in the book. Love details like that. And, I need to find time to read or listen to Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Tom Sweterlitsch!

Read it, or listen to the audiobook. I have a tendency to do both when I have the chance, reading at home listening at work. Btw that's a great way to get some reading done when you don't have time. Combine listening with reading. *A tip from a Bookaholic Swede*

And some people had left their bodies entirely, had become immortal, living as waves of light - but once they could no longer die, the immortals begged for death, because life without passage of time becomes meaningless. It used to be thought that hell was a lack of God, but hell is a lack of death.

I want to thank G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review! show less

Hard Sci-Fi time travel and NCIS combine to create a brilliant hybrid.
This is not the NCIS of Gibbs an Co, although he is name checked in this novel.

The Prologue will set you up for one hell of as ride.
Time travel has been conquered, but what they found was more than weird aliens, it was the end of the world - Terminus.
The Terminus and been observed and subsequent voyages noted that is was being observed closer and closer in date to the present day.

“The Terminus is a shadow that falls show more across the future of our species,” said her instructor. “Every timeline we’ve visited ends in the Terminus. And it’s moving closer. We first dated the event to 2666—but the next travelers to witness the Terminus found that it had moved closer, to 2456. And the Terminus has moved closer still, to 2121. You see, the Terminus is like the blade of a guillotine slicing toward us.

Shannon Moss is Special Investigator for the NCIS and is called in for an especially brutal mass murder of the family of a Navy Seal. He is missing and is the presumed suspect. This investigation and the on coming Terminus become entwined in one of the most enthralling Sci-Fi crime novels I have come across. The characters are believable and the science is hard but accessible.

Time travel explained, Shannon talking to her FBI liaison:

"Think of it like a whisk." I said
"Think of what?" ...
"A whisk." I said returning to our table. "This is how my instructor taught me".
I held the whisk sideways. Pointed to the tip of the handle. “Beginning of time,” I said. I ran my finger along the handle. “All of history—the observed past.”
At the top of the handle, I said, “The present.”
“And then you hit the wall of doors,” he said.
I touched each of the wires of the whisk. “Possible futures, possible timelines—infinitely possible,” I said. “Imagine this whisk with an infinite number of wires.”
“What’s up here?” Brock asked, pointing to the tip of the whisk, where all the wires bent, looped toward one another, joined.
“Terminus,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“The end of the world.” show less

My God, Tom Sweterlitsch, where have you been all my life?

So this is the second novel I've read, after completely falling in love with The Gone World.

Sweterlitsch challenges you as a reader. His stories, at their base, are murder mysteries. But they are so much more than that. They are intelligent science fiction, they are heartbreaking character studies, and in this case, it's also a reflection on the madness and beauty of memory, and whether holding on makes you stronger or weaker.

I won't show more give anything away, as this is a full story that needs to be experienced. But it's absolutely incredible. show less