British Summertime

This was a random - and I do mean random - selection from the sci-fi shelves in the library. I'm still not entirely sure what it's about - time travel, angels, apocalypse, communism ...

Alison Parmeter lives in Bath. She's young, has an on-off wealthy boyfriend, and a best friend called Fran. She also has a gift, a sort of 'second sight' that helps her to read people and situations clearly, and find chip shops in strange streets. Troubled with dreams about Judas Iscariot, Alison is convinced that the world is going to end soon.

So when she meets Squadron Leader Douglas Leyton, who is from the year 2129 and recognises Alison as a superstar and a cultural leader from his time, she is strangely reassured that there is indeed a future on show more earth. But comparing stories from the Bible , Alison and Leyton realise that they are from parallel universes - her time is not his past, and his history was not formed from the events she knows. Add to that a covert and corrupt government agency and four 'Golden Men', angels from time itself, and Alison realises that there are worse things than the world ending.

I enjoy British sci-fi, which is always an entertaining blend of popular references and fascinating speculation, but this went a little over my head. And although I understood the religious content, the story would have been more to my taste without it, especially the chapters with Judas. Likewise with the heavy-handed vision of a communist utopia. But still a very witty, thoughtful and well written novel - Alison is a brave and (extra)ordinary heroine, and Douglas is a dashing hero who travels through time for/because of her. I also love the descriptions of Bath (the crap end and the posh end) and the nod to 'League of Gentlemen' ('You're my wife now'), which managed to ground the incredible twists and turns of the plot in a familiar time and place! show less

A dense, thoughtful, idiosyncratic recursive time travel story that spans several histories of the world. Improbably, the author pulls it off. The writing is slightly more opaque than I usually like, but the sheer level of imagination and inventiveness, not to mention the writerly balls it took to even write this thing, are most impressive. Good characters, too. Only one moment that stuck out as implausible, no mean feat considering all the fantastic goings-on. Definitely recommended.

Many fine qualities; a classic time travel novel that kinda hopped between the many worlds theory and the one time-line theory.

Alison Parmeter works for a betting shop setting the ratios because she can read anything; body language; expressions; where to find chip shops. She doesn't have the easiest life as the avalanche of information frequently forces her to withdraw and hide from the world. When she starts lowering the odds on "End of the World" it's time to get serious.