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Permafrost
Mladá žena podstoupí rutinní vyšetření mozku. Během následujících dní se jí v hlavě začne ozývat cizí hlas. Vetřelec má podle všeho svou vlastní vůli a cíl. A ona teď stojí před jednou prostou volbou: Vzepřít se nebo spolupracovat.
Skupina vědců, inženýrů a lékařů na odlehlé polární základně hraje o budoucnost lidstva a sází na poslední zoufalý pokus o jeho záchranu: nepatrně pozměnit minulost a odvrátit tak celosvětovou katastrofu. Zároveň však chtějí ponechat veškerou zaznamenanou historii nedotčenou a zabránit časovému paradoxu. Aby se experiment podařil, musí zrekrutovat ještě poslední chybějící článek: postarší učitelku, jejíž zesnulá matka byla nejpřednější odbornicí na matematiku paradoxu.
Skupina vědců, inženýrů a lékařů na odlehlé polární základně hraje o budoucnost lidstva a sází na poslední zoufalý pokus o jeho záchranu: nepatrně pozměnit minulost a odvrátit tak celosvětovou katastrofu. Zároveň však chtějí ponechat veškerou zaznamenanou historii nedotčenou a zabránit časovému paradoxu. Aby se experiment podařil, musí zrekrutovat ještě poslední chybějící článek: postarší učitelku, jejíž zesnulá matka byla nejpřednější odbornicí na matematiku paradoxu.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2019
509 people are currently reading
5737 people want to read
About the author
Alastair Reynolds
313 books9,305 followersI'm Al, I used to be a space scientist, and now I'm a writer, although for a time the two careers ran in parallel. I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels. I write about a novel a year and try to write a few short stories as well. Some of my books and stories are set in a consistent future named after Revelation Space, the first novel, but I've done a lot of other things as well and I like to keep things fresh between books.
I was born in Wales, but raised in Cornwall, and then spent time in the north of England and Scotland. I moved to the Netherlands to continue my science career and stayed there for a very long time, before eventually returning to Wales.
In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. I also dabble with paints now and then. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales. We live surrounded by hills, woods and wildlife, and not too much excitement.
I was born in Wales, but raised in Cornwall, and then spent time in the north of England and Scotland. I moved to the Netherlands to continue my science career and stayed there for a very long time, before eventually returning to Wales.
In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. I also dabble with paints now and then. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales. We live surrounded by hills, woods and wildlife, and not too much excitement.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 771 reviews
July 24, 2019
Brilliant post-apocalyptic thriller, Permafrost is a well-written and fast-paced novela which keeps you enthralled from the first sentence. Our hero protagonist has just killed Vikram, whoever that is. We don't find out who Vikram is until much later. We soon find out that the hero/murderer is a 71 year old woman who uses a cane. Try selling that to a movie studio!
Mankind will soon meets its end if viable seeds are not found. A World Health Organization group headed by intrepid Dr. Cho has discovered an ingenious way of going back in time to get the precious seeds. Many things start to go awry as the time travel malfunctions. This book contains all the things I love, unusual characters, time travel, snafus, smart science, lots of action, and a smart, tightly wound denouement. Bravo!☺
Mankind will soon meets its end if viable seeds are not found. A World Health Organization group headed by intrepid Dr. Cho has discovered an ingenious way of going back in time to get the precious seeds. Many things start to go awry as the time travel malfunctions. This book contains all the things I love, unusual characters, time travel, snafus, smart science, lots of action, and a smart, tightly wound denouement. Bravo!☺
June 19, 2021
“After I shot Vikram we put things in the car and drove to the airstrip. Antti was nervous the whole way, knuckles white on the steering wheel, tendons standing out in his neck, eyes searching the road ahead of us.”
From those opening words to the closing lines, this is a fast-paced time travel adventure with a zeitgeisty environmental theme, plus characters you care about (a 71-year old schoolteacher as the heroine!) and who care about others.
Most intriguingly, the method of time travel is fundamentally different from any I’ve encountered before, on page or screen:
Permafrost is the name of a mission to save the world: a “retrocausal experiment”. More specifically, in 2080, life on earth is coming to an end because of the Scouring, “an environmental and biological cascade”. The aim is to go back to 2028, find enough of the most robust and resistant seeds, and make sure they are stored in the safest seedbanks.
Image: Entrance to Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Source)
The story includes espionage, artificial intelligences, chases and escapes, a shooting, an icelocked aircraft carrier, a possible double-agent, mercy killing, Russia, MRI scanners with secret powers, a slightly slapstick knife fight, a deadline, mind control or madness, an artificial larynx, consideration of ends and means, and kidnap.
It even addresses the elephant in the room of any time travel story:
“Paradox is inherent in any time-travelling system. But it is containable… treatable. We have learned that there are classes of paradox, layers of paradox.”
That said, the jumping around and consequent name changing is sometimes tricky to keep track of, but it’s worth it.
Quotes
• “Time wasn’t a river… and it wasn’t a circuit-diagram. Nor was it a tree with multiple branches. It was a block structure, more like a crystal lattice than any of those old dead-end paradigms… There were no alternate histories, no branches where the Roman empire never fell or the dinosaurs were never wiped out. Just that single lattice, a single fixed structure. We were in it, embedded in its matrix. But the lattice wasn’t static. There were flaws in it… Those stresses could give way suddenly or propagate a long way from their initial positions.”
• “Time as a solid, glacial structure, groaning to itself as the defects propagated through its frozen matrix, yet essentially fixed, immutable, persistent, enduring… Time as a self-reinforcing structure.”
• “Where is my consciousness now?”
Image: “Search for Enlightenment” by Simon Gudgeon and photographed by @guillaumelemay (Source)
More
• Alastair Reynolds has a PhD in astrophysics and worked for the European Space Agency before becoming a full time sci-fi author. He’s best known as a master of space opera, especially his Revelation Space series.
• His novels are very cinematographic, but their length may be one reason why none have been filmed yet. However, a couple of his short stories were adapted for the first series of the excellent and very varied Netflix show, Love, Death & Robots, and this could make an excellent feature film.
• This short novel (or is it a long novella?) is very different from the other Reynolds I’ve read, and which I’ve reviewed on GR, HERE.
• If time travel is more your thing, I have reviewed books by various authors on a GR shelf, HERE.
Image: “Great oaks from little acorns grow” was drummed into me as a child (as a literal truth and a metaphor). It fits this story, as does rice growing in dry soil, in the photo. (Source)
From those opening words to the closing lines, this is a fast-paced time travel adventure with a zeitgeisty environmental theme, plus characters you care about (a 71-year old schoolteacher as the heroine!) and who care about others.
Most intriguingly, the method of time travel is fundamentally different from any I’ve encountered before, on page or screen:
Permafrost is the name of a mission to save the world: a “retrocausal experiment”. More specifically, in 2080, life on earth is coming to an end because of the Scouring, “an environmental and biological cascade”. The aim is to go back to 2028, find enough of the most robust and resistant seeds, and make sure they are stored in the safest seedbanks.
Image: Entrance to Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Source)
The story includes espionage, artificial intelligences, chases and escapes, a shooting, an icelocked aircraft carrier, a possible double-agent, mercy killing, Russia, MRI scanners with secret powers, a slightly slapstick knife fight, a deadline, mind control or madness, an artificial larynx, consideration of ends and means, and kidnap.
It even addresses the elephant in the room of any time travel story:
“Paradox is inherent in any time-travelling system. But it is containable… treatable. We have learned that there are classes of paradox, layers of paradox.”
That said, the jumping around and consequent name changing is sometimes tricky to keep track of, but it’s worth it.
Quotes
• “Time wasn’t a river… and it wasn’t a circuit-diagram. Nor was it a tree with multiple branches. It was a block structure, more like a crystal lattice than any of those old dead-end paradigms… There were no alternate histories, no branches where the Roman empire never fell or the dinosaurs were never wiped out. Just that single lattice, a single fixed structure. We were in it, embedded in its matrix. But the lattice wasn’t static. There were flaws in it… Those stresses could give way suddenly or propagate a long way from their initial positions.”
• “Time as a solid, glacial structure, groaning to itself as the defects propagated through its frozen matrix, yet essentially fixed, immutable, persistent, enduring… Time as a self-reinforcing structure.”
• “Where is my consciousness now?”
Image: “Search for Enlightenment” by Simon Gudgeon and photographed by @guillaumelemay (Source)
More
• Alastair Reynolds has a PhD in astrophysics and worked for the European Space Agency before becoming a full time sci-fi author. He’s best known as a master of space opera, especially his Revelation Space series.
• His novels are very cinematographic, but their length may be one reason why none have been filmed yet. However, a couple of his short stories were adapted for the first series of the excellent and very varied Netflix show, Love, Death & Robots, and this could make an excellent feature film.
• This short novel (or is it a long novella?) is very different from the other Reynolds I’ve read, and which I’ve reviewed on GR, HERE.
• If time travel is more your thing, I have reviewed books by various authors on a GR shelf, HERE.
Image: “Great oaks from little acorns grow” was drummed into me as a child (as a literal truth and a metaphor). It fits this story, as does rice growing in dry soil, in the photo. (Source)
March 28, 2023
Even time travel becomes normal when it’s your day job.
There is the beginning of a really good book here. In 2080, humanity is on its last generation after an environmental catastrophe known as the Scouring. But a group of scientists in Russia have developed a method to contact someone in 2028 (I won’t spoil how) who might be able to make a small change in the past that might save humanity from the edge of extinction. The main characters in this book, Valentina Lidova and Tatiana Dinova, have an interesting dynamic. The method of time travel and the focus on paradoxes are fairly unique and have just the right ring of scientific plausibility.
But the story is criminally short. I can accept the author’s decision not to show the reader more about the Scouring (which I think would have been cool), or whether the plan ultimately worked. But not going into more detail about the alleged sabotage that the team faced makes no sense. There was apparently a whole second story going on behind the scenes of the story being told—and that second story was important to the resolution of the book—and we only got hints and short, secondhand discussions about it. A fine story, but ultimately a bit disappointing.
March 23, 2019
Time wasn’t a river, she said, and it wasn’t a circuit-diagram. Nor was it a tree with multiple branches. It was a block structure, more like a crystal lattice than any of those old dead-end paradigms. It was a lattice that spanned the entire existence of the universe, from beginning to end. There were no alternate histories, no branches where the Roman empire never fell or the dinosaurs were never wiped out. Just that single lattice, a single fixed structure. We were in it, embedded in its matrix.
What Alastair Reynolds does in this novel is extrapolating on the retrocausality, closed timelike curve and grandfather paradox. I’m usually not a fan of time travel stories, however, this approach was astounding.
In the year 2080, Earth is sterile; there are no plants, nor animals left except a few specimens in labs, only humans on the brink of extinction. A mean to travel back in time is discovered and all hopes are in it. The facility is located in Russia and a few subjects are willing to travel and help 'bring' into the future some genetically modified seeds which can be planted even in the most infertile soils and therefore making Earth a living planet one more time.
(As a side note, and a marvelous coincidence from my PoV, a team of Russian scientists were able to send a qubit back in time, according to Cosmos Magazine). Well, it is more complex than that and the entire study was published roughly a week ago, on March 13, in Nature’s Scientific Reports. Another view on the matter can be read here)
Back to the novella, it’s one of Al Reynolds’ best. Starts slowly but it builds up strongly. The two main characters, Valentina and Tatiana, are impeccable drawn. Their struggle and emotions left me with a lump in my throat at the end. The faith of Vikram, another time travel subject, filled me with dread and compassion beyond words.
But above all that, I am in awe (again) at Reynolds’ skills and imagination. I longed for another work like this. It doesn’t have that scope we got used to as in Revelation Space series or House of Suns, it’s quite the opposite: this is the first in which he deals with quantum level theories and he does that masterfully.
Do not miss it; it’s beyond amazing.
What Alastair Reynolds does in this novel is extrapolating on the retrocausality, closed timelike curve and grandfather paradox. I’m usually not a fan of time travel stories, however, this approach was astounding.
In the year 2080, Earth is sterile; there are no plants, nor animals left except a few specimens in labs, only humans on the brink of extinction. A mean to travel back in time is discovered and all hopes are in it. The facility is located in Russia and a few subjects are willing to travel and help 'bring' into the future some genetically modified seeds which can be planted even in the most infertile soils and therefore making Earth a living planet one more time.
(As a side note, and a marvelous coincidence from my PoV, a team of Russian scientists were able to send a qubit back in time, according to Cosmos Magazine). Well, it is more complex than that and the entire study was published roughly a week ago, on March 13, in Nature’s Scientific Reports. Another view on the matter can be read here)
Back to the novella, it’s one of Al Reynolds’ best. Starts slowly but it builds up strongly. The two main characters, Valentina and Tatiana, are impeccable drawn. Their struggle and emotions left me with a lump in my throat at the end. The faith of Vikram, another time travel subject, filled me with dread and compassion beyond words.
But above all that, I am in awe (again) at Reynolds’ skills and imagination. I longed for another work like this. It doesn’t have that scope we got used to as in Revelation Space series or House of Suns, it’s quite the opposite: this is the first in which he deals with quantum level theories and he does that masterfully.
Do not miss it; it’s beyond amazing.
June 30, 2020
4.5 stars. This clever SF novella is just my brand of literary crack. Climate change, time travel paradoxes, shifting reality, the past affecting the future and vice versa — it’s all here. A 71 year old Russian widow is the main character, and she’s GREAT. And the plot is intricate but actually makes logical sense through all of it, and I am HERE for that.
Full review to come!
Full review to come!
August 5, 2022
My very first story by this author and I liked it very well.
Time travel is always tricky. Even more so when you're ... well ... out of time. As are Valentina and a group of scientists in the Arctic Circle. You see, an environmental catastrophe known as the Scouring resulted in this (2080) seeing the last human generation. This is the last effort, the only chance to fix the past and thus save the future.
Valentina is supposed to travel back in time. Well, kind of. I shan't spoiler the scientific specifications but I thought it was brilliant. Once travelled, she is supposed to change a small detail that will nevertheless have huge (hopefully positive) consequences.
Naturally, it's not that simple because no plan survives contact (with the enemy).
I seriously loved how the author presented time travel and even managed to address paradoxes (remember, this is a short story)! The back -and-forth between the two realities was making the story all the more gripping. Not least because Reynolds also managed to create two wonderfully fleshed out worlds (2080 as well as 2028) complete with interesting character dynamics. Moreover, it's not every day that the MC of such or any story is a 71-year-old female teacher! And she kicked ass as much as Tadiana, her "contact" in the past.
A very clever, very fast-paced and fascinating novella that I wished had been a full novel.
And the narrator of the audiobook, Natasha Soudek, was wonderful as well (I recently had her narrate a Spooktober book to me already and was pleased to hear her again).
I guess I need to check out other works by this author now.
Time travel is always tricky. Even more so when you're ... well ... out of time. As are Valentina and a group of scientists in the Arctic Circle. You see, an environmental catastrophe known as the Scouring resulted in this (2080) seeing the last human generation. This is the last effort, the only chance to fix the past and thus save the future.
Valentina is supposed to travel back in time. Well, kind of. I shan't spoiler the scientific specifications but I thought it was brilliant. Once travelled, she is supposed to change a small detail that will nevertheless have huge (hopefully positive) consequences.
Naturally, it's not that simple because no plan survives contact (with the enemy).
I seriously loved how the author presented time travel and even managed to address paradoxes (remember, this is a short story)! The back -and-forth between the two realities was making the story all the more gripping. Not least because Reynolds also managed to create two wonderfully fleshed out worlds (2080 as well as 2028) complete with interesting character dynamics. Moreover, it's not every day that the MC of such or any story is a 71-year-old female teacher! And she kicked ass as much as Tadiana, her "contact" in the past.
A very clever, very fast-paced and fascinating novella that I wished had been a full novel.
And the narrator of the audiobook, Natasha Soudek, was wonderful as well (I recently had her narrate a Spooktober book to me already and was pleased to hear her again).
I guess I need to check out other works by this author now.
March 31, 2025
A novella by my most favourite author.
It's a time travel tale revolving around a near future earth wherein the travellers try to unravel the havoc wreaked by humanity on our climate. A fast paced, thought provoking, heart breaking and inspirational read.
Highly recommend.
2022 Read
It's a time travel tale revolving around a near future earth wherein the travellers try to unravel the havoc wreaked by humanity on our climate. A fast paced, thought provoking, heart breaking and inspirational read.
Highly recommend.
2022 Read
March 21, 2021
Second Read - March 2021 (5 stars)
I read this again exactly two years to the day from my first read; it is included in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 5: Volume Five. Neatly laying out complex ideas and providing a tightly woven story with engaging characters, "Permafrost" remains one of my favourite time travel stories.
First Read - March 2019 (5 stars)
A really excellent time travel story that ticked all the boxes for me. Immediately interesting characters populate a neat and precise storyline where consideration is given to both up and downstream effects, and all of it handled masterfully.
[I]n that moment I knew she was a good and decent person, that the past was full of people like her, that it was just as valid to think of history being stitched together out of numerous tiny acts of selflessness and consideration, as it was to view it as a grand, sweeping spectacle of vast impersonal triumphs and tragedies.
I read this again exactly two years to the day from my first read; it is included in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 5: Volume Five. Neatly laying out complex ideas and providing a tightly woven story with engaging characters, "Permafrost" remains one of my favourite time travel stories.
First Read - March 2019 (5 stars)
A really excellent time travel story that ticked all the boxes for me. Immediately interesting characters populate a neat and precise storyline where consideration is given to both up and downstream effects, and all of it handled masterfully.
[I]n that moment I knew she was a good and decent person, that the past was full of people like her, that it was just as valid to think of history being stitched together out of numerous tiny acts of selflessness and consideration, as it was to view it as a grand, sweeping spectacle of vast impersonal triumphs and tragedies.
December 6, 2020
I think I must have read at least a hundred time-travel novels (or novellas) in my life but I've never come across one with THIS particular analogy.
No time stream or branching. It's a glacier. *shiver*
I love it.
Oh, and the tale itself is top-notch, full of wonderful characterizations, complicated and believable plot, and stakes that get amazingly high.
In other words, it's pure Alastair Reynolds. :) It should to be a must-read for all you fans. :)
No time stream or branching. It's a glacier. *shiver*
I love it.
Oh, and the tale itself is top-notch, full of wonderful characterizations, complicated and believable plot, and stakes that get amazingly high.
In other words, it's pure Alastair Reynolds. :) It should to be a must-read for all you fans. :)
April 29, 2019
It is Alastair Reynolds we are talking about. Do I need to say anything more ?
Another brilliant work by this very gifted author, who has brought some sorely needed fresh air to the field of contemporary science fiction.
This is a short post-apocalyptic time-travel novel, with some masterly contrived and highly original twists that put new spins to this well-exploited genre.
The only reason why I have not given a 5-star rating to this novel is that I found it a but too short. But make not mistakes, Alastair Reynolds is a brilliant, highly creative author and this book confirms it.
Another brilliant work by this very gifted author, who has brought some sorely needed fresh air to the field of contemporary science fiction.
This is a short post-apocalyptic time-travel novel, with some masterly contrived and highly original twists that put new spins to this well-exploited genre.
The only reason why I have not given a 5-star rating to this novel is that I found it a but too short. But make not mistakes, Alastair Reynolds is a brilliant, highly creative author and this book confirms it.
July 26, 2019
I liked the idea, the characters and the execution a lot. Vikram;s story really impressed me.
But I had a problem with the fly and, unfortunately, it sticked with me: if Valentina is 70yo and this is 2080, and the scouring started happening at about 2050, how come she has never seen a fly in the first ~40 years of her life?
But I had a problem with the fly and, unfortunately, it sticked with me: if Valentina is 70yo and this is 2080, and the scouring started happening at about 2050, how come she has never seen a fly in the first ~40 years of her life?
"It’s a fucking fly, Valentina.
I know. I’ve seen flies. But only in photographs. To hold one . . . to see it alive . . . this is astonishing.
You really weren’t kidding, were you?
I wish I was. Like I said, they’ve gone. All of them. No insects, nothing."
October 11, 2020
An exquisite, small masterpiece. Brilliant and poignant. Wonderful.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
At first in this gem, the skipping around in time can be confusing. Stick with it. Your mind will expand as the book proceeds, absorbing the paradoxes, filling your mind with the superposition of Valentina and Tatiana, binding your heart to theirs. Wonderful and amazing. Perfect in every way.
It's so nice to be back into Reynolds' confident prose. What a truly fine writer. What a joy is this book!
-
Notes and quotes:
10%
Director Cho explains the dire situation of the world.
"The national and international seed vaults were supposed to be our hedge against global catastrophe, but one by one they failed, or were destroyed, or pillaged. Those that survived did not contain the particular seeds we require. Now we are down to a few impoverished gene stocks. Nothing will take, nothing will grow—not in the new conditions. Hence, we’re digging into stored rations, which will soon be depleted.”
Actual breach of permafrost seed bank 2017
Denali Aircraft
Full size image here
The "Brothers" -
The Brothers were artificial intelligences, each the most powerful and flexible such machine that could be provided by four of the main partners in the Permafrost enterprise. ..... ... the machines had been shrouded in these anonymising casings and given new designations. They were Dmitri, Ivan, Alexei and Pavel, after The Brothers Karamazov.
41% "Causal Lag" -
A truly delicious exposition of causality breakage by Reynolds here. Yum! It's Shrodinger as god, both nonsense and truth at the same time 😉 Brilliant!
I let out a breath. “Crap!”
“Generally the first reaction,” Antti said, with a faint approving smile, as if I’d crossed some unspoken threshold of acceptance. “Gets easier, though. Less strange. These are only small paradoxes, after all. You just buckle up and ride the turbulence. Be glad we never go near anything big.”
I’d regained enough composure to pay attention to what she was saying. “And if we did?”
“Oh, we can’t—luckily,” Margaret said. “The noise swamps us long before we ever get close to doing anything really stupid.”
A causes B causes A article
https://phys.org/news/2012-10-quantum...
Wonderful! Thank you, Alastair.
Full size image here
.
As usual with my reviews, please first read the publisher’s blurb/summary of the book. Thank you.
At first in this gem, the skipping around in time can be confusing. Stick with it. Your mind will expand as the book proceeds, absorbing the paradoxes, filling your mind with the superposition of Valentina and Tatiana, binding your heart to theirs. Wonderful and amazing. Perfect in every way.
It's so nice to be back into Reynolds' confident prose. What a truly fine writer. What a joy is this book!
-
Notes and quotes:
10%
Director Cho explains the dire situation of the world.
"The national and international seed vaults were supposed to be our hedge against global catastrophe, but one by one they failed, or were destroyed, or pillaged. Those that survived did not contain the particular seeds we require. Now we are down to a few impoverished gene stocks. Nothing will take, nothing will grow—not in the new conditions. Hence, we’re digging into stored rations, which will soon be depleted.”
Actual breach of permafrost seed bank 2017
Denali Aircraft
Full size image here
The "Brothers" -
The Brothers were artificial intelligences, each the most powerful and flexible such machine that could be provided by four of the main partners in the Permafrost enterprise. ..... ... the machines had been shrouded in these anonymising casings and given new designations. They were Dmitri, Ivan, Alexei and Pavel, after The Brothers Karamazov.
41% "Causal Lag" -
A truly delicious exposition of causality breakage by Reynolds here. Yum! It's Shrodinger as god, both nonsense and truth at the same time 😉 Brilliant!
I let out a breath. “Crap!”
“Generally the first reaction,” Antti said, with a faint approving smile, as if I’d crossed some unspoken threshold of acceptance. “Gets easier, though. Less strange. These are only small paradoxes, after all. You just buckle up and ride the turbulence. Be glad we never go near anything big.”
I’d regained enough composure to pay attention to what she was saying. “And if we did?”
“Oh, we can’t—luckily,” Margaret said. “The noise swamps us long before we ever get close to doing anything really stupid.”
A causes B causes A article
https://phys.org/news/2012-10-quantum...
Wonderful! Thank you, Alastair.
Full size image here
.
March 12, 2019
4.5 Stars~
"It had taken one shot. The sound of it had echoed back off the buildings. Crows had lifted from a copse of trees nearby, wheeling and cawing in the sky before settling back down, as if killing was only a minor disturbance in their daily routine."
Permafrost is my introduction to Alastair Reynolds, even though I may or may not own entirely too many of his books without ever having actually read anything by him (I do).
Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of literary time travel. It's been done a billion times and the constant WHAT IF that constantly gets hammered into my brain while reading a time travel story is like a mental bludgeoning. Time travel is a fucking powerful tool when done right.. but it's difficult. So often, it's a tell don't show concept. Which.. most of us readers at least have a general idea of what time travel entails. Please, PLEASE JUST SHOW US ALREADY!! We don't need hundreds of pages explaining it. It's been explored adequately already. Bring something new to the poor tired trope!
Something that I love hard are environmental movies and books, especially of the disaster variety! Permafrost is described as a time traveling climate science fiction adventure, which is exactly what I AM HERE FOR!!
It is set in 2080 and is about a secret project that is underway. One that involves past-directed time travel. The Permafrost Retrocausal Experiment consists of a makeshift community within a bunch of ships that are interconnected, where 1200 people are stationed. Valentina Lidova is a 71 year old teacher in Kogalym, Russia. She is approached by the Director of World Health with a job offer to become one of a few that would be irreplaceable in this project. Their mission? To go back in time to 2028 before the Scouring, which was an environmental catastrophe. They must locate genetically modified seed samples, so that they can then clone and distribute them. Otherwise, they risk running out of the small stock they have left since the climate collapse. These seeds may help in preventing the end of humanity.
Reynolds sidesteps a lot of the time travel issues. Much of it feels unfamiliar, yet it still certainly uses a typical formula within telling a time travel tale, such as changing the future by going back in the past. However, the method of how these people travel through time is a new one, at least to me. They are time-embedded through something the size of a grain of pollen that is injected into the subjects head during an MRI and grows into the brain, which allows the traveler to take over the subject for a short time. Talk about fucking bonkers! Also? How awesome that I read this shortly before I go in for an MRI. Goddamn. That's all I'll be thinking about while in there. Cheers for that!
This was twisty and smart and gut-punchy as hell, especially Vikram's story. Vikram was, well.. he was implanted into a dog. Yes, some asshole put a dog into an MRI machine! Think about that for a minute. The human mind mashed into that of a dog. Unable to communicate, left alone, having to survive entirely on his own.. fucking hell. If that doesn't make you feel something, I don't know what will. HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME FEEL MY OWN FEELINGS?!?
Permafrost delivers brilliant storytelling of cinematic destruction that, at just under 200 pages, doesn't overstay its welcome.
Highly recommended!
(Much thanks to Tor.com Publishing for sending me a copy!)
**The quotes above were taken from an ARC & are subject to change upon publication**
"It had taken one shot. The sound of it had echoed back off the buildings. Crows had lifted from a copse of trees nearby, wheeling and cawing in the sky before settling back down, as if killing was only a minor disturbance in their daily routine."
Permafrost is my introduction to Alastair Reynolds, even though I may or may not own entirely too many of his books without ever having actually read anything by him (I do).
Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of literary time travel. It's been done a billion times and the constant WHAT IF that constantly gets hammered into my brain while reading a time travel story is like a mental bludgeoning. Time travel is a fucking powerful tool when done right.. but it's difficult. So often, it's a tell don't show concept. Which.. most of us readers at least have a general idea of what time travel entails. Please, PLEASE JUST SHOW US ALREADY!! We don't need hundreds of pages explaining it. It's been explored adequately already. Bring something new to the poor tired trope!
Something that I love hard are environmental movies and books, especially of the disaster variety! Permafrost is described as a time traveling climate science fiction adventure, which is exactly what I AM HERE FOR!!
It is set in 2080 and is about a secret project that is underway. One that involves past-directed time travel. The Permafrost Retrocausal Experiment consists of a makeshift community within a bunch of ships that are interconnected, where 1200 people are stationed. Valentina Lidova is a 71 year old teacher in Kogalym, Russia. She is approached by the Director of World Health with a job offer to become one of a few that would be irreplaceable in this project. Their mission? To go back in time to 2028 before the Scouring, which was an environmental catastrophe. They must locate genetically modified seed samples, so that they can then clone and distribute them. Otherwise, they risk running out of the small stock they have left since the climate collapse. These seeds may help in preventing the end of humanity.
Reynolds sidesteps a lot of the time travel issues. Much of it feels unfamiliar, yet it still certainly uses a typical formula within telling a time travel tale, such as changing the future by going back in the past. However, the method of how these people travel through time is a new one, at least to me. They are time-embedded through something the size of a grain of pollen that is injected into the subjects head during an MRI and grows into the brain, which allows the traveler to take over the subject for a short time. Talk about fucking bonkers! Also? How awesome that I read this shortly before I go in for an MRI. Goddamn. That's all I'll be thinking about while in there. Cheers for that!
This was twisty and smart and gut-punchy as hell, especially Vikram's story. Vikram was, well.. he was implanted into a dog. Yes, some asshole put a dog into an MRI machine! Think about that for a minute. The human mind mashed into that of a dog. Unable to communicate, left alone, having to survive entirely on his own.. fucking hell. If that doesn't make you feel something, I don't know what will. HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME FEEL MY OWN FEELINGS?!?
Permafrost delivers brilliant storytelling of cinematic destruction that, at just under 200 pages, doesn't overstay its welcome.
Highly recommended!
(Much thanks to Tor.com Publishing for sending me a copy!)
**The quotes above were taken from an ARC & are subject to change upon publication**
March 22, 2024
4.5 stars.
This was a cleverly written novella.
The year is 2080 and the humanity as we know is suffering from a world extinction event. To survive this, a group of scientists/people band together to alter the past. Through this we get a loopy time travel action story that keeps the pages turning.
Even though I found the science initially wacky, I liked how it helped make this compelling narrative.
This was a cleverly written novella.
The year is 2080 and the humanity as we know is suffering from a world extinction event. To survive this, a group of scientists/people band together to alter the past. Through this we get a loopy time travel action story that keeps the pages turning.
Even though I found the science initially wacky, I liked how it helped make this compelling narrative.
July 27, 2020
A really impressive time travel sci-fi, despite not a very long one. But in this case, it is more of a pro, than a con.
Also, the story is very well written - it id fun and easy to read, and quite easy to follow, which is a no small feat when speaking about hard sci fi and time traveling paradoxes, etc. Yet, there are a couple of mistakes in the timetable that breaks the magic of the story.
Though I usually don't like when authors manipulate their readers, in this case I liked how Reynolds played me. It hadn't really been a manipulation - I just assumed a lot, and then there were moments when I went like "but I thought...", and then an image of a smiling Alastair pops up, and he says "Yeah. YOU thought. I never said that". And it was fun, really.
To sum up - a really great story, that probably could impress and be enjoyed even by people who normally don't do sci-fi. A very solid 4*.
Also, the story is very well written - it id fun and easy to read, and quite easy to follow, which is a no small feat when speaking about hard sci fi and time traveling paradoxes, etc. Yet, there are a couple of mistakes in the timetable that breaks the magic of the story.
Though I usually don't like when authors manipulate their readers, in this case I liked how Reynolds played me. It hadn't really been a manipulation - I just assumed a lot, and then there were moments when I went like "but I thought...", and then an image of a smiling Alastair pops up, and he says "Yeah. YOU thought. I never said that". And it was fun, really.
To sum up - a really great story, that probably could impress and be enjoyed even by people who normally don't do sci-fi. A very solid 4*.
March 7, 2023
Yes, this book has an interesting premise. But it is a truth universally acknowledged that one should not formulate time travel rules and theories throughout one's story only to break them all at the end of the book just to fit one's narrative. No, one should not. Also, those evil spoiler spoiler spoiler thrown in at the last minute? How clichéd can you get? 🙄
But hey, it's not all bad: the MC is a 71-year-old woman and that is quite refreshingly scrumptious, if you ask me.
P.S. One might consider taking a Self-Correcting Paradoxes 101 class from Connie Willis, methinks.
But hey, it's not all bad: the MC is a 71-year-old woman and that is quite refreshingly scrumptious, if you ask me.
P.S. One might consider taking a Self-Correcting Paradoxes 101 class from Connie Willis, methinks.
October 2, 2019
This is outstanding science fiction. A short, and fully powerful masterpiece. The time warped order form reflected the plot perfectly as well.
It's not for all readers. Not only does it demand minutia attention to the max, but scientific/ physics knowledge helps to fully conceptualize the whole. Yet you will also need imagination for personality and self-identity. And concepts of selflessness demanded.
The posit and evidence of mind melds in this scenario was as good as any I've ever read. The prose rhythm of responses perfect to refrains within. THAT is no easy task.
Kudos to Alastair Reynolds.
It's not for all readers. Not only does it demand minutia attention to the max, but scientific/ physics knowledge helps to fully conceptualize the whole. Yet you will also need imagination for personality and self-identity. And concepts of selflessness demanded.
The posit and evidence of mind melds in this scenario was as good as any I've ever read. The prose rhythm of responses perfect to refrains within. THAT is no easy task.
Kudos to Alastair Reynolds.
August 2, 2019
A short book that could have been longer. I would have liked to know more about the characters. And some parts of the story didn't quite....flesh out. It was too short. But it was engaging and has some heartfelt moments. I liked that it took place in Russia. This was my first book by this author.
November 22, 2019
I love novellas. When done right, they’re the perfect form of fiction. No unnecessary ramblings. No swollen midsections. The demands of the format require clarity and intensity. Easier said than done, but Reynolds nailed things down - Permafrost is almost perfect.
Set in 2080, it shows humanity on the verge of extinction because of the environmental disaster. Famine and severe food insecurity are rampant.
A group of scientists and engineers tries to save our species through time-travel. Instead of turning the past upside down, they want to make the tiniest changes necessary to give us a chance of survival. One of their recruits, Valentina Lidova, is an aging schoolteacher and the daughter of the brilliant mathematician whose work on the mathematics of paradox made the time-travel possible.
I loved the mechanics of time-travel - the injection of the consciousness of a “pilot” into the body of someone from the past sounds new to me. Reynolds uses a single but malleable timeline. Even small alterations cause paradoxes that create “noise”. Too much noise reduces the chances of successful and timely intervention. It can also cause tragic mistakes, such as injecting the consciousness of a human being into a lesser life form.
Despite solid preparation and dedication to the cause, our heroes soon find themselves swimming in some deep paradox. Valentina Lidova is an interesting protagonist, not only because of her advanced age (she’s a septuagenarian), but because she thinks fast, and has a great dynamics with Tatiana, the woman whose body she inhabits in the past. Their banter and relationship are superb. Valentina’s experiences, wisdom, courage, and resilience are admirable.
Tense, clever and intellectually stimulating, Permafrost is a memorable work of fiction. It has it all - big ideas, action, thrilling reveals and heart-breaking moments.
Set in 2080, it shows humanity on the verge of extinction because of the environmental disaster. Famine and severe food insecurity are rampant.
Something bad happens around 2050. At first, we almost don’t notice it. There’s a steepening in the rate at which insect species are going extinct, but even then it just seems to be part of a pattern of something that’s been going on for a long time, and to begin with only a few scientists are really worried. But it gets worse, and really quickly. No one understands what’s happening.
A group of scientists and engineers tries to save our species through time-travel. Instead of turning the past upside down, they want to make the tiniest changes necessary to give us a chance of survival. One of their recruits, Valentina Lidova, is an aging schoolteacher and the daughter of the brilliant mathematician whose work on the mathematics of paradox made the time-travel possible.
I loved the mechanics of time-travel - the injection of the consciousness of a “pilot” into the body of someone from the past sounds new to me. Reynolds uses a single but malleable timeline. Even small alterations cause paradoxes that create “noise”. Too much noise reduces the chances of successful and timely intervention. It can also cause tragic mistakes, such as injecting the consciousness of a human being into a lesser life form.
Despite solid preparation and dedication to the cause, our heroes soon find themselves swimming in some deep paradox. Valentina Lidova is an interesting protagonist, not only because of her advanced age (she’s a septuagenarian), but because she thinks fast, and has a great dynamics with Tatiana, the woman whose body she inhabits in the past. Their banter and relationship are superb. Valentina’s experiences, wisdom, courage, and resilience are admirable.
Tense, clever and intellectually stimulating, Permafrost is a memorable work of fiction. It has it all - big ideas, action, thrilling reveals and heart-breaking moments.
June 8, 2020
This was really good! The author makes an unusual and terrific choice in his main character, a 71-year old schoolteacher, who’s chosen to assist in a critical and delicate project to travel back in time to make a small change, thereby allowing humanity to have a future.
This story is a terrific exploration of time travel as a tool to repair a worldwide climate catastrophe that really considers the effects of the characters’ actions both in the present, past and future. And, not only are the main and other characters interesting, there are these moments of pathos and connection between the characters that made this story resonate really well for me.
This story is a terrific exploration of time travel as a tool to repair a worldwide climate catastrophe that really considers the effects of the characters’ actions both in the present, past and future. And, not only are the main and other characters interesting, there are these moments of pathos and connection between the characters that made this story resonate really well for me.
December 27, 2022
2.5 stars
I love cold weather and time travel stories so I was disappointed that this one didn't work for me. I found the characters and plot so flat and disinteresting. For a time travel story,it was awfully dull.
I love cold weather and time travel stories so I was disappointed that this one didn't work for me. I found the characters and plot so flat and disinteresting. For a time travel story,it was awfully dull.
April 2, 2019
Very good time travel thriller. Reynolds puts a new spin on some old themes, with some inventive time travel science, mind bending paradoxes, and a future facing impending doom from total environmental collapse. I'm generally not a huge fan of time travel stories, as they tend to make my brain hurt too much, but Reynolds does an excellent job walking the reader through what could be some bewildering scenarios.
September 21, 2023
‘Permafrost’, a novella by Alastair Reynolds, is superior science fiction. Reynolds gives us an interesting new spin on time travel!
I have copied the book blurb below:
”Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.
2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an aging schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.
2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.
Does she resist... or become a collaborator?”
I do not want to reveal more than what the blurb says because I really really liked Reynold’s originality while using the common science fiction concept of time travel as a plot device. My only complaint is that Reynolds began his story too cryptically for me initially, choosing the action from the middle of the story to open with before explaining what is going on. He is very miserly with explanations generally in ‘Permafrost’, choosing to reveal why things are happening only as stuff occurs. Reynolds is not doing any spoonfeeding of his plot points. Readers must keep up!
I have copied the book blurb below:
”Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.
2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an aging schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.
2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.
Does she resist... or become a collaborator?”
I do not want to reveal more than what the blurb says because I really really liked Reynold’s originality while using the common science fiction concept of time travel as a plot device. My only complaint is that Reynolds began his story too cryptically for me initially, choosing the action from the middle of the story to open with before explaining what is going on. He is very miserly with explanations generally in ‘Permafrost’, choosing to reveal why things are happening only as stuff occurs. Reynolds is not doing any spoonfeeding of his plot points. Readers must keep up!
April 10, 2019
I love a good time travel story that figures out how to deal with its paradoxes -- whether it's through cleverness or hand wavy-ness. This one definitely finds a way to deal with them. The reason I loved this novella, though, was Valentina and Tatiana. There wasn't a lot of time to establish characters, but Reynolds did it and I was rooting for them so hard. If there is anything to criticize, it's just that I wished this were a little bit longer. Obviously it was still effective, for me, with its current length.
June 7, 2021
Head-spinning time-travel (in all the right ways) with enough hard sci-fi to make it believable but not so much that it becomes a jargon filled mess. Add to that a great post-apocalyptic premise and you’ve got yourself one compelling novella.
November 9, 2019
Ladies and gentlemen, this is how to write an awesome time travel story.
October 17, 2022
It’s the year 2080 and life on earth is all but gone, the soils sterile, the oceans empty. First to go were the insects, then green plants, marine life, all life; only a final dwindling generation of humans are left, half-starved and living on the last of the stored foods. So a project has taken shape, a single desperate attempt to save the day: the idea of Permafrost is to reach back through time more than half a century and retrieve the contents of one of the many seed-banks which still existed back in the 2020s, underground vaults dotted around the globe where the planet’s plant life, in effect, was being preserved. Something else that no longer exists by 2080 is countries (ahhh, if only… Much as I’d love a real-life time machine, “no countries” might actually do us a lot more good) and the only large-scale organisation left is World Health. They it is who are running the time-project from a base on the frozen rim of the Arctic Ocean where the great Siberian river Yenisei runs out into the sea.
Permafrost is tricky to follow early on; there are scenes involving the same characters and locations, but in different decades, before it’s really clear where (or when) any of them belong, and I read the thing through twice over. Also, the kind of time travel involved is unusual—no simple Time Machines or Time Tunnels here, but (full marks to the author) something more ingenious and less direct. It’s well worth the effort though as this is a very good read, particularly if, like me, you have a soft spot for time-travel stories anyway.
Admittedly there are (or may be…perhaps) a couple of inconsistencies in the structure: that fly for instance, for anyone who’s read it already, and those crows. Like many time-travel novels though, this one involves circles in time with events looping back around to alter themselves, and here time almost seems to have a mind of its own, gently shifting and settling to its simplest possible state to smooth away such paradoxes—even your memory of them. Which left me sitting here after my reread wondering if it had been exactly the same book second time around, or had altered in the meantime. I’ll never know.
Permafrost is tricky to follow early on; there are scenes involving the same characters and locations, but in different decades, before it’s really clear where (or when) any of them belong, and I read the thing through twice over. Also, the kind of time travel involved is unusual—no simple Time Machines or Time Tunnels here, but (full marks to the author) something more ingenious and less direct. It’s well worth the effort though as this is a very good read, particularly if, like me, you have a soft spot for time-travel stories anyway.
Admittedly there are (or may be…perhaps) a couple of inconsistencies in the structure: that fly for instance, for anyone who’s read it already, and those crows. Like many time-travel novels though, this one involves circles in time with events looping back around to alter themselves, and here time almost seems to have a mind of its own, gently shifting and settling to its simplest possible state to smooth away such paradoxes—even your memory of them. Which left me sitting here after my reread wondering if it had been exactly the same book second time around, or had altered in the meantime. I’ll never know.
June 16, 2020
The title picture declares "Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future." covering the essence of this 130 pages long time travel / clifi novella.
This is a novella, and risks being deleted by some GR admin. My review is accessible on my blog.
This is a novella, and risks being deleted by some GR admin. My review is accessible on my blog.
November 19, 2019
Every single review panning this story for not making sense is entirely deserved. Time travel stories are difficult to write and, even when written well, difficult to parse and read. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine.
But Permafrost is so very much my thing.
In structure, it reminds me of Palimpsest , by Charles Stross. Both are novellas with a single protagonist recently initiated in time travel. Both are fairly convoluted in terms of how the author implements the logical principles of time travel, particularly when it comes to causality. Palimpsest remains my fave, I think, although I should re-read it again. But I love me more time travel stories.
In other ways I’m reminded of Travelers, a TV show I got into during its final season (boo) on Netflix and which had a great use of time travel. Both stories involve last-ditch attempts to save the human species through time travel, with coordination by AIs and the displacement of people’s consciousnesses in the past rather than physical time travel. And, of course, in both cases, things go horribly awry!
As usual, Alastair Reynolds’ ideas are big but he manages to apply them satisfactorily to a smaller scale when it comes to the individual characters. Valentina and her vehicle, Tatiana, have an interesting rapport that drives the climax of the novella. This is a story about accomplishing a desperate objective despite the tremendous personal cost, not necessarily out of any sense of self-sacrifice or heroism but perhaps only because … what else is one to do?
I understand why some people don’t like the constant jumping back and forth between past and present, or how the novella opens with events that we don't return to until much later in the story. At first it threw me off—but of course, that’s the point. Time travel is confusing by its very nature, and there is no way to tell it in a straightforward, linear way, because once you introduce causality violations, your plot by its nature is no longer a straight line of cause and effect. The jarring transitions from past to present mirror Valentina’s own transitions and how it must affect her perceptions.
If this were a full novel, I might be less charitable in my praise of such a structure, but novellas are a sweet spot. Longer than short stories, they provide a freedom in terms of page length to develop characters and ideas. Yet shorter than novels, they don’t have the same burden of sustaining a plot for as long. I don’t read a lot of novellas, but I’m starting to think they’re a great length for more experimental time travel fiction like this.
But Permafrost is so very much my thing.
In structure, it reminds me of Palimpsest , by Charles Stross. Both are novellas with a single protagonist recently initiated in time travel. Both are fairly convoluted in terms of how the author implements the logical principles of time travel, particularly when it comes to causality. Palimpsest remains my fave, I think, although I should re-read it again. But I love me more time travel stories.
In other ways I’m reminded of Travelers, a TV show I got into during its final season (boo) on Netflix and which had a great use of time travel. Both stories involve last-ditch attempts to save the human species through time travel, with coordination by AIs and the displacement of people’s consciousnesses in the past rather than physical time travel. And, of course, in both cases, things go horribly awry!
As usual, Alastair Reynolds’ ideas are big but he manages to apply them satisfactorily to a smaller scale when it comes to the individual characters. Valentina and her vehicle, Tatiana, have an interesting rapport that drives the climax of the novella. This is a story about accomplishing a desperate objective despite the tremendous personal cost, not necessarily out of any sense of self-sacrifice or heroism but perhaps only because … what else is one to do?
I understand why some people don’t like the constant jumping back and forth between past and present, or how the novella opens with events that we don't return to until much later in the story. At first it threw me off—but of course, that’s the point. Time travel is confusing by its very nature, and there is no way to tell it in a straightforward, linear way, because once you introduce causality violations, your plot by its nature is no longer a straight line of cause and effect. The jarring transitions from past to present mirror Valentina’s own transitions and how it must affect her perceptions.
If this were a full novel, I might be less charitable in my praise of such a structure, but novellas are a sweet spot. Longer than short stories, they provide a freedom in terms of page length to develop characters and ideas. Yet shorter than novels, they don’t have the same burden of sustaining a plot for as long. I don’t read a lot of novellas, but I’m starting to think they’re a great length for more experimental time travel fiction like this.
April 24, 2019
4.5 Stars
Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds is a time travel novella that is tailor made to my likes. I am a biased reviewer as Reynolds might just be my favorite author today and hard science fiction is my genre of choice.
What a fabulous read,
Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds is a time travel novella that is tailor made to my likes. I am a biased reviewer as Reynolds might just be my favorite author today and hard science fiction is my genre of choice.
What a fabulous read,
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