Tuesday, January 17, 2023

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Sphere: A Journey in Time by Michelle McBeth

 

The Sphere is a self-published time travel based science fiction novel written by Michelle McBeth. The novel is a short novel and was part of my group of judges for this year's Self Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC2 - my reviews of these books can be found here) - and in fact made our list of quarterfinalists. As such I was intrigued by this novel, especially as the two other judges who had read it previously both found its setup intriguing although they disagreed as to whether the book's ending and payoff managed to satisfy.


I find my own verdict on the Sphere to be similarly mixed. The book's time travel setup does work well and its prose and lead character Addy - a woman who works for a mysterious organization that sends people back in time to discover lost historical truths like who was the inspiration for one of Shakespeare's sonnets - really carries the book well and makes this short book go by quite quickly. And the book's plot does work somewhat from that character's perspective, as she tries to figure out how to act and what to do when things go wrong with a fellow time traveler's mission and things begin to be revealed about the organization for whom she works. At the same time, the book tries to throw in teases to other mysteries which are not paid off here (and which are then setup for a sequel) which prevents this from being fully satisfying and there isn't quite enough meat on the bone of this story to really impress or make this book stand out too much.

Some more specifics after the jump:


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Adelaide ("Addy") is a "Librarian" - but not in the ordinary sense of the term. She is one of a few individuals in the year 2073 who work for a clandestine private enterprise that has developed time travel technology....a Sphere that can take people back in time. Addy's job is to use one of the organization's two Spheres to go back in time to real historical events where the present date has questions about what has occurred, questions like how a witch survived a burning at the Salem Witch Trials or who was the inspiration behind one of Shakespeare's Sonnets (and whether Shakespeare might have been inspired by a gay lover). Addy is not to interfere with the timeline or make any major changes, but merely is to discover these small truths, which she then helps reintroduce into the present by forging historical documents that can be "discovered" to reveal them. Addy may not understand how the technology works, and may find the enforced isolation of the organization to be a bit lonely, but the rush of settling her curiosity about the past and meeting her historical idols is a thrill she finds well worth it.

But when her friend and fellow Librarian Noah goes back in time on a routine mission, something goes wrong and he comes back without any memories of who he is and after decades and a whole other life spent in the past. The result of this error could be catastrophic in how it might change history, and so Addy is sent back after him in time to figure out what happened and to correct it. Yet when Addy goes back, she finds herself dealing with the effects of changing the timeline that no one has seemingly realized before...and ones that put her in grave danger due to the mysteries of her organization, the Sphere, and everything else. To survive and find a new path, she'll have to figure out what she wants and what she can do, and history may never be the same after she's done....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Sphere takes place, with the exception of one chapter, entirely from Addy's first person perspective. Fortunately, Addy is a really effective lead character to tell our story, because she's very enjoyable and understandable lead character. Addy is a person who has accepted a job that practically isolates her from the modern future world - she's stuck in a dome under observation at all times as part of her job when she's not back in time, and has basically no family or friends on the outside, leaving her somewhat lonely when she's not on a mission. But for her its worth it because of the thrill of going back in time to meet her heroes and to settle her intellectual curiosities about the past - she begins the book pretending to be a maid in the employ of Shakespeare and is just so clearly loving it to be able to talk with him and see his greatness firsthand. She's even so driven that she barely wants to spend time in the present at all, and her boss has to require her to take a two week vacation on a beach island (where she decides to learn to sail) just to cool off and prevent any mental issues. So it's understandable that Addy doesn't ask too many questions about what might be going on outside the parts of the dome she has access to or how the Spheres actually work to change time. And after all, using time travel for corporate potential financial gain to discover small bits of info without causing damage to the timeline is a very plausible idea so it's not hard to understand why Addy doesn't think there could be all too much more going on.

But of course there is more going on, and Addy and the plot gets roped into discovering what that is and how it affects both the timeline and the future of Addy and her job as she knows it. And Addy's character as the above makes this really interesting - whereas other books might feature its protagonist trying desperately to set right what went wrong in the timeline, and to restore things back to how they are, Addy isn't some grand hero and both she and the book aren't super interested in trying to go with a standard "restore the timeline" plot. Instead, Addy finds herself looking to do not just what's right to stop some dark things she discovers, but also to find a way to do what's best for her and those she cares about, most notably her friend and fellow librarian Noah (although there's no romance in this book mind you) and a few other characters who show up alongside her who she gets to know and care about. These other minor good guy characters do not get a ton of depth and development, although the book does some interesting things with how one of them in particular finds his personality and mindset changing due to changes in the timeline, but they work well enough to carry the book alongside Addy.

Unfortunately, the book has a few faults which prevent it from being a real big winner. The book has one major antagonist whose name cryptically shows up at times but who never gets any development before the book seemingly ends him in the finale, and it feels kind of weird for the book to set him up as some kind of evil schemer doing some atrocities and for him to basically just be a placeholder. The book's final chapter also confused the hell out of me a little, with the main bit seemingly being resolved...only to not be and then to wind up being resolved again just a few pages later, and I didn't really follow why this whole thing happened. The result of these things is that some of the interesting ideas and plot setup just doesn't quite feel sastisfyingly resolved in the end. And this isn't helped by hints of other science fictiony/paranormal things going on, like telekinesis/telepathy or other time travelers, who are never followed up on and/or are left for the sequel....even as the book places great importance on these possibilities early on before dropping them.

The result is an interesting book that makes me very curious to see more from this author, but at the same time leaves me not quite fully satisfied. I think I'm in between the two other Judges in my SPSFC group who have read this novel in terms of where I grade it, but I don't think this one will be one of my favorites for the semifinals as is compared to other books I have now read.

Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)