Reversal

by Bob Blink

I was old. Actually I was very old. You'd look at me, laugh, and say, "Forty is not so old, son. It's the rough life. It makes you feel older than you really are. I'm the one who's old," you'd say. You'd be wrong, of course. You are only sixty or a bit more. I was much older. I'd feel a moment of vanity. Forty! I should only look about thirty, maybe thirty-five at most. I was actually almost three hundred years old. Three bloody centuries I'd lived. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You'd be sure my mind was going. So far I'd taken the drug three times. I wasn't going to take it the last time. The world had become too depressing. But this life in an old man's body is harsh, and I had given in; a couple of years early actually. Now I had only a single dose remaining, but if I didn't lose it, and if I didn't get killed along the way somehow, I was good for another hundred and seventy years or there about. I'd been to the moon. It was easy a hundred years ago when we knew how. The shuttles left weekly. It wasn't cheap, and other than the novelty of light gravity, a bit boring. The lack of an atmosphere limited the opportunities. I thought about going to Mars, but the trip was long, and they had the air problem there too. The technowizzes said they would have it fixed in a hundred years. I'd been willing to wait, but then everything went to hell. . . . . . . . . .

Genres: Time Travel

416 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 2012

Reviews

[Mark Zodda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the stories of Bob Blink. I also enjoyed The Second Compound, which first introduced the main character of Reversal. I found that the author took Reversal into a new and interesting direction that I had not anticipated after completing his earlier book. That said, Reversal is over long and needs desperately editing. The first half of Reversal was interesting and well-written. If that had been a stand alone book, I would have given it a solid 4 stars. The only sour note was an interlude part way into the story when the author gave a history of how the world of the future had come about. By that time I was already invested in that world and the interlude only complicated things and made explicit things which his storytelling had made real enough not to need explanation. In fact without the explanation, the story would be tighter and more interesting. The second half of the book dragged on and halfway through this portion it seemed like even the author had lost interest; I know that I certainly had. Potential interesting story lines received cursory treatment and the main character who I had followed for page after page after page suddenly changed his personality and methods of operating to get to a deus ex machina ending. By that time I was just glad that any ending was about to be reached. With some judicious editing and the carving of this book into two or three smaller volumes, this could be a very good story. As it stands right now, it was just okay and I'm not sure that I will open a new volume if one is published.

[Mike Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read. I hope he writes a follow-on novel.