I have only read some of the epic, galaxy spanning space opera novels by Reynolds, so when I was looking for an audio book for a road trip, this author was not what I was expecting. However, coming in at about 4.5 hours, it was perfect for my weekend getaway road trip. This climate fiction work was published in 2019 and is about 175 pages. Reading the description, I knew that it was climate and time travel, and so I thought I would give it a listen.
The story follows an elderly Russian math teacher named Valentina, who in 2080 is recruited to a higher calling. The world has been destroyed by the Scourge, Humanity’s name for the ecosystem collapse that has led to the extinction of all plant and animal life on earth. The only survivors are humans, living out the last remaining years on food stores that cannot be replenished. Their only hope is to go back in time and identify some non-commercially-interesting GMO crops that can be planted in the future. The story starts with the main POV character already embedded in the year 2028, close to the end of the mission, but it is clear in the first chapter that the mission parameters have changed out from under her.
I enjoyed Reynolds’ take on time travel, with paradoxes built in to the theory (some paradoxes are “grey,” and don’t do much, others self correct in the cool description of time as a 3-dimensional crystal lattice. The chemist in me liked that description a lot. The story bounced between 2080 and 2028, bringing the two threads of the story closer to each other in Valentina’s experience of the events, and ends in a climactic twist that was 100% predicted and explained and demonstrated earlier in the book; no Deus ex machina here.
It is hard to compare an audio book to a printed book. I didn’t really have an opportunity (or desire) to put this down, as I was in a moving car. I struggled a bit with the thickly accented narration, at first, but my brain eventually made it so that I could follow; I only had to rewind 3 or 4 times to catch something that I had missed. This book deftly brought together a number of important modern concerns, such as ecosystem collapse, climate change, and even AI “life forms.” I felt strong emotional ties to the main character and the past version of her, and was a bit choked up at the bittersweet ending.