Apathy

by Baltar Xinzo

The year is 2075 and Jamal is a mechanic, but not one of the kind you may be thinking of, he is a hitman by profession in the most crude variation of his trade. Often he is hired for jobs of retrieval of evidence. On occasions, he has to engineer certain situations to happen according to the precise terms of his contracts. This time, Jamal was hired to ruin the career of an incipient actor and comedian named Joe Jenkins. There is a catch, though. Joe lived seventy-three years ago. The name of this game is reverse causality enforcement, and it may imply more than Jamal was hired for.

100 pages, Paperback

Published February 19, 2025

About the author

Baltar Xinzo is the pen name of an Argentine-Canadian author based in Ottawa. A scientist and engineer by training, Xinzo writes reflective tales that often have a dark undertone typical of the noir genre but also have a sense of hope and optimism atypical of that subgenre. While Xinzo has defined his style as 'analytical fiction,' he frequently dives into existentialism, repurposing literary elements from genres such as cyberpunk, hard science fiction, transhumanism, and transrealism.

Reviews

[Yellow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most interesting time travel I have read in years. The author makes the characters and the settings are so credible that I believed that this story actually happened, and perhaps that was the case. I recommend reading this novel before the events described in it happen, and if they do not happen, well, you might be in a different multiverse. This is a page-turning book for those who like a contemporary take on the time travel paradoxes.