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Echoes: Entanglement Book 1
Who can you trust if you can't trust yourself?
Estrel Beck doesn’t want to be a software salesman. Yet here he is, newly arrived in the city-state of Trinity, for a make-or-break meeting with the local Administration department. Under-prepared, under-motivated and over-sensitive, every little thing about this strange place seems to stress Estrel out. When he discovers a message scrawled on the back of a napkin, in his own handwriting, telling him he’s trapped in a time loop, he knows for sure that he’s in over his head. Then the Administration building explodes.
As Estrel struggles to make sense of his situation and find an escape, he is drawn into Trinity’s bizarre underworld and the struggles for power against Trinity’s corrupt Mayor Chaguartay. Combining science fiction and urban thriller, Echoes is a story about being trapped by your past choices and what it takes to break free.
Estrel Beck doesn’t want to be a software salesman. Yet here he is, newly arrived in the city-state of Trinity, for a make-or-break meeting with the local Administration department. Under-prepared, under-motivated and over-sensitive, every little thing about this strange place seems to stress Estrel out. When he discovers a message scrawled on the back of a napkin, in his own handwriting, telling him he’s trapped in a time loop, he knows for sure that he’s in over his head. Then the Administration building explodes.
As Estrel struggles to make sense of his situation and find an escape, he is drawn into Trinity’s bizarre underworld and the struggles for power against Trinity’s corrupt Mayor Chaguartay. Combining science fiction and urban thriller, Echoes is a story about being trapped by your past choices and what it takes to break free.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 30, 2024
9 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Phil Oddy
8 books6 followersPhil Oddy lives in North Hertfordshire and writes stories about how to cope in a confusing world, cleverly disguised as sci-fi/fantasy adventures. Find his website at https://philoddy.com - everything he's currently up to should be on there.
He is happily married with two sons, and has promised everyone lavish gifts if he ever writes a bestseller, so if you've bought one of his books then they all thank you.
Despite a long and successful career as an IT analyst in both the public and private sectors, writing is something he seems to be unable to prevent himself doing which means that by encouraging him you're either feeding an addiction or providing therapy. You can pick which.
When his fingers are too tired to carry on typing, Phil likes to relax by reading something by David Mitchell (either one is fine) or binge-watching Drag Race.
He is happily married with two sons, and has promised everyone lavish gifts if he ever writes a bestseller, so if you've bought one of his books then they all thank you.
Despite a long and successful career as an IT analyst in both the public and private sectors, writing is something he seems to be unable to prevent himself doing which means that by encouraging him you're either feeding an addiction or providing therapy. You can pick which.
When his fingers are too tired to carry on typing, Phil likes to relax by reading something by David Mitchell (either one is fine) or binge-watching Drag Race.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 21, 2025
This was something totally different for me, but I really enjoyed it. The writing style was really good, and even though some of the plot and concepts were far fetched or confusing (but that’s on me and not being into sci-fi at all!), it didn’t detract from an action packed story. I liked the characters that the main character met along the way, and I liked the way it all wrapped up in the end - just enough to keep you hanging and wanting to dive in to book number two x
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December 3, 2024I am one of the judges of team Space Girls for the SPSFC4 contest. This review is my personal opinion. Officially, it is still in the running for the contest, pending any official team announcements.
Status: Cut
Read: 28%
Estrel's visit to the city of Trinity was supposed to run smoothly. By covering for a coworker due to an unspecified reason, he would show up to a meeting with someone, pitch his product and make a sale. For no apparent reason, he feels apprehensive a robot takes his luggage (or bag? the book seems to change things around a bit).
The city has throngs of impoverished factory workers trudging left & right without anything particularly alluring. Only that Estrel seems rather fidgety and constantly filled with intrusive thoughts people are badmouthing him behind his back.
After being gifted a doughnut smeared with an unassuming napkin, the book turns into a totally different direction...
This book reminds me of one of last year's quarterfinalist books titled New Yesterday where the character is trapped in a situation with repetitive patterns. Only that this book is taking much longer to build up where the story is really heading. On occasion, it gave me some vibes of the strange city featured in Unfortunate by Ayrton Silva where the city inhabitants are under some kind of magic or device that affects their lives. Description takes a secondary focus in this book, so I never had vibes Trinity was sunny, only vague mention the first scene happens around 7 am.
There is a mystery unfolding in this book and I was getting some good thrills as we get peppered hints. The higher tension scenes are arguably the best in the book. Much to my chagrin, slower filler scenes that spend too much time with Estrel's mental inner thoughts take center piece in the first third of the novel. It seemed rather odd the journalist Chay acts like they know Estrel, but at the same time, they don't. It is hard to know early in the story if this was a plothole or Estrel's appearance changes.
While I like it when thrillers have a mixture of slow and faster chapters, this book would have benefitted from tightening and make the plot advance a bit sooner. Furthermore, most sentences tend to begin with pronouns. I am aware 1st person books are much harder to write, because I is such an ubiquitous word of the lived experience. However, by adding a bit more variation, it would have helped me avoid veering off from the story.
This book otherwise has a likeable protagonist, an interesting premise and I am certain plenty of readers will find it to be enjoyable.
Status: Cut
Read: 28%
Estrel's visit to the city of Trinity was supposed to run smoothly. By covering for a coworker due to an unspecified reason, he would show up to a meeting with someone, pitch his product and make a sale. For no apparent reason, he feels apprehensive a robot takes his luggage (or bag? the book seems to change things around a bit).
The city has throngs of impoverished factory workers trudging left & right without anything particularly alluring. Only that Estrel seems rather fidgety and constantly filled with intrusive thoughts people are badmouthing him behind his back.
After being gifted a doughnut smeared with an unassuming napkin, the book turns into a totally different direction...
This book reminds me of one of last year's quarterfinalist books titled New Yesterday where the character is trapped in a situation with repetitive patterns. Only that this book is taking much longer to build up where the story is really heading. On occasion, it gave me some vibes of the strange city featured in Unfortunate by Ayrton Silva where the city inhabitants are under some kind of magic or device that affects their lives. Description takes a secondary focus in this book, so I never had vibes Trinity was sunny, only vague mention the first scene happens around 7 am.
There is a mystery unfolding in this book and I was getting some good thrills as we get peppered hints. The higher tension scenes are arguably the best in the book. Much to my chagrin, slower filler scenes that spend too much time with Estrel's mental inner thoughts take center piece in the first third of the novel. It seemed rather odd the journalist Chay acts like they know Estrel, but at the same time, they don't. It is hard to know early in the story if this was a plothole or Estrel's appearance changes.
While I like it when thrillers have a mixture of slow and faster chapters, this book would have benefitted from tightening and make the plot advance a bit sooner. Furthermore, most sentences tend to begin with pronouns. I am aware 1st person books are much harder to write, because I is such an ubiquitous word of the lived experience. However, by adding a bit more variation, it would have helped me avoid veering off from the story.
This book otherwise has a likeable protagonist, an interesting premise and I am certain plenty of readers will find it to be enjoyable.
February 5, 2025
An interesting premise with an unpredictable storyline.
“Have you poured your water on the ground yet? Or do you still see the sky when you look up?”
In a dystopian city controlled by the rich a rebellion is simmering. Meanwhile, Estrel Beck learns he has relived this day but doesn’t remember it. Following the vaguest clues left in his handwriting he does his best to figure out what’s going on and soon gets entangled with the ongoing conflict in Trinity.
Estrel is not a hero. He actually has no special skills at all and no clue what he’s doing. On one side this is hugely refreshing and incredibly easy to relate to. On the other hand, it is frustrating how often Estrel needs to be told what to do while also trying to convince himself that he is actually making the only right choice. Maybe because of this, I struggled to like Estrel and even other characters through the lens of Estrel didn’t quite hit the mark. I feel the characters are there to perform a function rather than have a personality, so they all blurred together.
The last three chapters make the book worthwhile and I’m glad I persevered. So while I have my misgivings I will be going for the second book after all.
If you like hapless protagonists bumbling their way through a fantastical situation, read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. For the same with a more mysterious vibe, read S (Ship of Theseus) by Doug Dorst and J. J. Abrams.
“Have you poured your water on the ground yet? Or do you still see the sky when you look up?”
In a dystopian city controlled by the rich a rebellion is simmering. Meanwhile, Estrel Beck learns he has relived this day but doesn’t remember it. Following the vaguest clues left in his handwriting he does his best to figure out what’s going on and soon gets entangled with the ongoing conflict in Trinity.
Estrel is not a hero. He actually has no special skills at all and no clue what he’s doing. On one side this is hugely refreshing and incredibly easy to relate to. On the other hand, it is frustrating how often Estrel needs to be told what to do while also trying to convince himself that he is actually making the only right choice. Maybe because of this, I struggled to like Estrel and even other characters through the lens of Estrel didn’t quite hit the mark. I feel the characters are there to perform a function rather than have a personality, so they all blurred together.
The last three chapters make the book worthwhile and I’m glad I persevered. So while I have my misgivings I will be going for the second book after all.
If you like hapless protagonists bumbling their way through a fantastical situation, read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. For the same with a more mysterious vibe, read S (Ship of Theseus) by Doug Dorst and J. J. Abrams.
February 16, 2025
Oh, I don't want to spoil anything, but what a surprise! That was unexpected.
That's what I'm looking for in a book, that surprise and feeling of “Oh, this is something I haven't seen before”. The story is compelling, and I love the premises, and it's easy to have sympathy for Estrel. I mean, who hasn't been stuck on a job you don't like? Who hasn't had pressure to follow a path that is clearly not for you? It's a lot easier to root for the little guys, and Estrel sure is the underdog here. I find it easy to feel sorry for him, he certainly is not a hero-typ of guy, and yet, the surrounding characters expect him to be?
I'm heading to the second book, right away!
That's what I'm looking for in a book, that surprise and feeling of “Oh, this is something I haven't seen before”. The story is compelling, and I love the premises, and it's easy to have sympathy for Estrel. I mean, who hasn't been stuck on a job you don't like? Who hasn't had pressure to follow a path that is clearly not for you? It's a lot easier to root for the little guys, and Estrel sure is the underdog here. I find it easy to feel sorry for him, he certainly is not a hero-typ of guy, and yet, the surrounding characters expect him to be?
I'm heading to the second book, right away!
February 24, 2026
Poor Estrel. He just wants an easy life but what starts out as a standard sales trip soon turns into a mystifying run for his life. What is he meant to be doing? Why is he meant to be doing it? And who exactly can he trust?
This is time loop sci fi used to its full, intriguing potential. A brilliant start to the Entanglement series.
This is time loop sci fi used to its full, intriguing potential. A brilliant start to the Entanglement series.
July 30, 2025
Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction
Description: Estrel Beck steps off a train in the big city to go to an important meeting, and finds his unlovely, humdrum life going haywire. He is reliving the same day over and over, with no memory of any of the iterations. What will happen to him if he can’t break the loop? How did this happen to him, and why? There are people who seem to know him: are they friends or enemies? All he has are questions. And a few jottings on a disintegrating paper napkin.
Author: Phil Oddy is a British author living in North Hertfordshire (which will only be a meaningful nugget for you, dear reader if, like me, you live in the UK). He juggles gainful employment, family and writing with volunteering for things like building websites for literary festivals, so he’s not afraid of much. Echoes is Book 1 of his trilogy ‘Entanglement’. Book 2 (Entrapment) is available and Book 3 (Eclipse) should be available this month (March, 2025). So since sending us Book 1 for review Oddy has finished and published two more books. He is really on a roll. If the ‘Entanglement’ trilogy floats your boat, you can binge all three.
Appraisal: for this first book in the trilogy Oddy has developed a protagonist who is passive, unambitious and incompetent. In the opening chapters of the book he is a grumpy lump of unformed clay, constantly tired, never liking to complain, never wanting to be noticed. This, obviously, has to change as the book goes on. He never becomes 007. But he does discover some self-esteem. Nevertheless, if the book has a weakness it is Estrel Beck, because he is also the narrator, so we learn the whole story through him: he is wimpy, he vacillates, he repeats himself more often than the story can really bear, and he often contradicts himself. I rather wanted to give him a good shaking at points.
It is giving away nothing not in the blurb to tell you that the central quest for Beck is to stop looping. The people whom he meets and who appear to befriend him have other agendas, however. Sometimes Beck’s needs coincide with those of his friends: more often not.
Trinity is a dour city. Its people work hard but live dull, joyless lives. Oligarchs rule. Violence is meted out by these alpha-dogs. There is also in-fighting between them. There is a resistance movement attempting to take down the cynical government. Much of the book is concerned with these various machinations, into which Beck is drawn, spat out, and drawn in again – all the while the plotting cleverly keeps his tatty but oh-so important paper napkin to the fore. This part of the book is pacy stuff. It begins to look as though Beck has a role in the revolution, despite not knowing there was one until he started looping. Will he finally find his niche in life?
One thing irked me from the moment the character appeared. Clar is consistently referred to as ‘they’. This leads to some tortuous prose and occasionally spills over onto other characters in a most confusing way. No reason for this clunky exposition is ever offered. You will have to draw your own conclusions.
In summary, the book has an intriguing premise. It ends in a satisfying way, while still providing a goodly set up for two more volumes to come.
This review originally prepared for Big Al's Books and Pals. Received a complimentary soft copy for the purpose.
Description: Estrel Beck steps off a train in the big city to go to an important meeting, and finds his unlovely, humdrum life going haywire. He is reliving the same day over and over, with no memory of any of the iterations. What will happen to him if he can’t break the loop? How did this happen to him, and why? There are people who seem to know him: are they friends or enemies? All he has are questions. And a few jottings on a disintegrating paper napkin.
Author: Phil Oddy is a British author living in North Hertfordshire (which will only be a meaningful nugget for you, dear reader if, like me, you live in the UK). He juggles gainful employment, family and writing with volunteering for things like building websites for literary festivals, so he’s not afraid of much. Echoes is Book 1 of his trilogy ‘Entanglement’. Book 2 (Entrapment) is available and Book 3 (Eclipse) should be available this month (March, 2025). So since sending us Book 1 for review Oddy has finished and published two more books. He is really on a roll. If the ‘Entanglement’ trilogy floats your boat, you can binge all three.
Appraisal: for this first book in the trilogy Oddy has developed a protagonist who is passive, unambitious and incompetent. In the opening chapters of the book he is a grumpy lump of unformed clay, constantly tired, never liking to complain, never wanting to be noticed. This, obviously, has to change as the book goes on. He never becomes 007. But he does discover some self-esteem. Nevertheless, if the book has a weakness it is Estrel Beck, because he is also the narrator, so we learn the whole story through him: he is wimpy, he vacillates, he repeats himself more often than the story can really bear, and he often contradicts himself. I rather wanted to give him a good shaking at points.
It is giving away nothing not in the blurb to tell you that the central quest for Beck is to stop looping. The people whom he meets and who appear to befriend him have other agendas, however. Sometimes Beck’s needs coincide with those of his friends: more often not.
Trinity is a dour city. Its people work hard but live dull, joyless lives. Oligarchs rule. Violence is meted out by these alpha-dogs. There is also in-fighting between them. There is a resistance movement attempting to take down the cynical government. Much of the book is concerned with these various machinations, into which Beck is drawn, spat out, and drawn in again – all the while the plotting cleverly keeps his tatty but oh-so important paper napkin to the fore. This part of the book is pacy stuff. It begins to look as though Beck has a role in the revolution, despite not knowing there was one until he started looping. Will he finally find his niche in life?
One thing irked me from the moment the character appeared. Clar is consistently referred to as ‘they’. This leads to some tortuous prose and occasionally spills over onto other characters in a most confusing way. No reason for this clunky exposition is ever offered. You will have to draw your own conclusions.
In summary, the book has an intriguing premise. It ends in a satisfying way, while still providing a goodly set up for two more volumes to come.
This review originally prepared for Big Al's Books and Pals. Received a complimentary soft copy for the purpose.
April 24, 2024
Wow, what a ride. This was recommended by a friend, and although not my usual genre, I was intrigued. I'm glad I did. Such a clever story, full of twists and surprises. How on earth the author kept track of it all I have no idea. Ultimately an uplifting tale. I will be looking out for more by Phil Oddy.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews