All Our Wrong Todays

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

 

   Well.  If you ever wanted to travel through time, either forward or back, this story is going to change your mind!   If you’re my age you remember the science fiction writers’ ideas of what life would be like now, right now.  You’d remember how you laughed at The Jetsons, even considering life like theirs.  Science fiction writers, after all, make up worlds that don’t exist.   Except that they do.  But they aren’t the past or the future, they’re alternate to us now.Maybe those writers know more than we think they do.

     I had a bit of a time of it (no pun intended) figuring out the techno language at first, but as I continued to read I realized even though it was very interesting, it didn’t matter, the techno language, it was Tom that mattered. 

     Tom Barren, in his 2016, lives in a world we wouldn’t recognize outside of those science fiction novels. It is utopian because there is no strife, no cost, no wars, no stress.  Except within his own family.  To his father, Tom is a failure.  Tom's father has invented time travel but Tom hasn’t done much of anything, he is what we would probably call a life drifter, someone just going through the motions.  Tom becomes an alternate on the time travel team (think astronaut training) and falls in love with Penelope, the person he is the alternate for, but when there is a terrific accident Tom finds himself in our 2016 and suddenly his life really begins.  I know.  I’m rambling. 

     I wish I could tell you more but this book is so multi-dimensional, just like time itself, that sorting it out here would just make a mockery of the idea of this story.  We are multi-dimensional, like time, we are evolving, like time.  While this isn’t a simple story, it’s one that is fascinating, thoughtful, thought provoking and when you finish it you just might feel jet lagged but glad for the journey you took.  I hope I haven’t scared you off, this is one fantastic story.