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A review by apostrophen
Escape in Time by Robyn Nyx
5.0
Wow.
Okay, give me a few moments to collect my thoughts here.
Let's begin with the concept: imagine Pulsus, an organization in the near-future (the 2070's), gains access to time-travel, but it's expensive, and they're hesitant to make massive changes because of how random the fallout may be to the present day. So they decide, instead, to save individuals here and there that they're sure—after much number crunching—will leave the world in a better position than it currently stands.
One of the people working for Pulsus, Landry, is the best-of-the-best at protecting the target, making sure they survive the events of the past, and then getting her team home. And her first mission was to save her own mother, who was working on a kind of "reverse and reset the biological clock" proceedure that will go hand-in-hand with Pulsus' plans: after all, if you spend years in the past trying to change it, you'll soon be out-of-synch with your actual age upon your return, so de-aging yourself back to where you should be is a huge boon.
Right off, this gives the reader a really solid idea of how tangled a tale Nyx is setting up: for Landry, who grew up without her mother, is still coming to terms with a blurred double-life, for as soon as she saved her mother, she ended up with a new timeline where she can also remember her life where she didn't lose her mother. The psychological strain of knowing each mission can change everything—and could possibly, as a side-effect, erase people you care about—is a huge weight, even if it doesn't matter much against making the world a much better place.
Like, say, by finding a Jewish doctor who was close to understanding and curing cancer during WWII, but who was killed before she could complete her research—research no one else has understood since.
Landry doesn't work alone, and this is key for the unfolding of the many interwoven plots Nyx lays out with precision: there are other agents who go back further in time and lay the groundwork to make it possible for Landry to save the target. But this means sending three people to Ravensbrück, undercover and in positions of power during a time when those positions of power meant evil.
And one of those three people is having a crisis of both conscience and the heart, which might just ruin everything for everyone and get them all killed—or set them up for a much bigger betrayal later on.
The present informs the past, the past creates problems for the potential future, and the characterization is evocative and engaging throughout. The "ticking clock" element of the plot had me twitching, and the horrors of Ravensbrück were neither shied away from nor dealt with anything other than the evil they were.
This is a dark book about hope and change full of dented people struggling to hold on to who they are in the face of world-changing power, and motives are uncertain on all fronts. The psychology feels raw and real, even while the characters are catapulting themselves through time.
I cannot wait to start the next one, and I'm so happy I nabbed them all at once.
Okay, give me a few moments to collect my thoughts here.
Let's begin with the concept: imagine Pulsus, an organization in the near-future (the 2070's), gains access to time-travel, but it's expensive, and they're hesitant to make massive changes because of how random the fallout may be to the present day. So they decide, instead, to save individuals here and there that they're sure—after much number crunching—will leave the world in a better position than it currently stands.
One of the people working for Pulsus, Landry, is the best-of-the-best at protecting the target, making sure they survive the events of the past, and then getting her team home. And her first mission was to save her own mother, who was working on a kind of "reverse and reset the biological clock" proceedure that will go hand-in-hand with Pulsus' plans: after all, if you spend years in the past trying to change it, you'll soon be out-of-synch with your actual age upon your return, so de-aging yourself back to where you should be is a huge boon.
Right off, this gives the reader a really solid idea of how tangled a tale Nyx is setting up: for Landry, who grew up without her mother, is still coming to terms with a blurred double-life, for as soon as she saved her mother, she ended up with a new timeline where she can also remember her life where she didn't lose her mother. The psychological strain of knowing each mission can change everything—and could possibly, as a side-effect, erase people you care about—is a huge weight, even if it doesn't matter much against making the world a much better place.
Like, say, by finding a Jewish doctor who was close to understanding and curing cancer during WWII, but who was killed before she could complete her research—research no one else has understood since.
Landry doesn't work alone, and this is key for the unfolding of the many interwoven plots Nyx lays out with precision: there are other agents who go back further in time and lay the groundwork to make it possible for Landry to save the target. But this means sending three people to Ravensbrück, undercover and in positions of power during a time when those positions of power meant evil.
And one of those three people is having a crisis of both conscience and the heart, which might just ruin everything for everyone and get them all killed—or set them up for a much bigger betrayal later on.
The present informs the past, the past creates problems for the potential future, and the characterization is evocative and engaging throughout. The "ticking clock" element of the plot had me twitching, and the horrors of Ravensbrück were neither shied away from nor dealt with anything other than the evil they were.
This is a dark book about hope and change full of dented people struggling to hold on to who they are in the face of world-changing power, and motives are uncertain on all fronts. The psychology feels raw and real, even while the characters are catapulting themselves through time.
I cannot wait to start the next one, and I'm so happy I nabbed them all at once.