Version Control
A Novel
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3.9 • 59 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
An NPR, GQ, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year
One of The Washington Post’s best science fiction and fantasy books of the year
The acclaimed author of The Dream of Perpetual Motion returns with a compelling novel about the effects of science and technology on our friendships, our love lives, and our sense of self.
Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: she constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the President seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet. Meanwhile, her husband's decade-long dedication to his invention, the causality violation device (which he would greatly prefer you not call a “time machine”) has effectively stalled his career and made him a laughingstock in the physics community. But he may be closer to success than either of them knows or can possibly imagine.
Version Control is about a possible near future, but it’s also about the way we live now. It’s about smart phones and self-driving cars and what we believe about the people we meet on the Internet. It’s about a couple, Rebecca and Philip, who have experienced a tragedy, and about how they help—and fail to help—each other through it. Emotionally powerful and stunningly visionary, Version Control will alter the way you see your future and your present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Palmer's lengthy, complex, highly challenging second novel is more brilliant than his debut, The Dream of Perpetual Motion. Philip Steiner is working to develop a causality-violation device a machine that will make it possible to visit and interact with the past. Meanwhile, Philip's wife, Rebecca Wright, an employee at an online dating company, must cope with past tragedy. Far more than a standard-model time travel saga, this science thriller deals with love, politics, history, loss, tragedy, bonding, craft beers, jogging, Internet dating, alcoholism, temptation, sin, redemption, rock 'n' roll, jazz, Rudolph Fisher, and gourmet cooking. It takes place in the very near future, or perhaps in a slightly variant universe where reality can vary from one moment to the next. Is that really Ronald Reagan's face on a $20 bill, or the face of another president (definitely not Andrew Jackson)? Humorous set pieces include an utterly hilarious cocktail party set in a luxurious high-rise condo overlooking New York's Central Park. Palmer earned his doctorate from Princeton with a thesis on the works of James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, and William Gaddis. This book stands with the masterpieces of those authors.
Customer Reviews
Ingenious but ver-r-ry slow!
The foreshadowing was masterful, as was the repetition of events as they happened the same way but to different participants.
The one thing I'll say is that it never quite gives the large emotional payout I like in a book, but that IS true to the scientific demeanor and theme. He does at least tie it up with a good conjecture in part III to explain why things turned out as they did.
I would've appreciated being able to follow what actually happened to people who entered the CVD, even though I know that wouldn't be consistent with the limitations of his POV and the scientific problem that states we never can really know because that's just how things work. All things considered: it was a book hard to put down!
Outstanding
Great read!