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anjreading's review against another edition
2.0
Well, despite cranking the speed up to get this book over with quicker, I did finish it, so there’s that. This is a mediocre thriller with a sci-fi angle. Olivia is a journalist working in Syria when her new boyfriend is killed after following her into a dangerous situation. It just so happens that she’s in a secret, ancient death chamber with bizarre technology that allows her to link with a machine and change the events that just occurred. However, Olivia’s accidental resurrection of her boyfriend ends up setting off a chain of events that pushes the world to the brink of extinction via biological and nuclear warfare. Every time she tries to make different choices using the Probability Machine, things get worse. In general, I’ve found that women can write good male protagonists (at least from my own female perspective), but it’s a very, very rare male author that writes a good female protagonist. Skillingstead isn’t one of them.
kelseyvsy's review against another edition
1.0
Convoluted plot with boring characters. And really tragic to read about a weaponized biological weapon during the global pandemic we face now (not the authors fault, just terrible timing).
kayswear's review
3.0
Nice exploration of alternate universes, with important constraints. If you could control critical decision points to aim for desirable futures, but every choice is unattractive and all but the most unattractive lead to disastrous futures, what would you do? I liked this book but I had a hard time with some of the actions of the characters. Most of it made sense but there were a few times I couldn't understand why a character made the choices or acted they way they did. It was clearly in service to advancing the action or the plot, and that sort of spoils the immersion in the world of the book. Don't let that scare you off, this is a decent read.
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