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Pinhole
The number one best selling high tech science fiction novel in the Kindle store. An Amazon best seller for over a year.
Humanity began as primitive lungfishes, crawling out from the depths of the sea to escape predators. Humanity will end as sparkles of light, streaming across the empty voids of the universe searching for meaning.
Pinhole is about the time travelers who live between what we once were and might someday become.
Cassandra knows the future brings her doom but is helpless to stop it. Lionel executes murderers before they can kill but wonders who the real victims are. Dolores is ensnared in a cult that uses a machine to link their minds and bodies. Joseph strives to escape an eight-year loop he's been trapped in his whole life. Daphne searches for a murderer who kills by giving his victims cancer, but she may be the next target.
Moving through time and space, their lives are intertwined, unwittingly tethered together by the same technology they use to change the world.
Humanity began as primitive lungfishes, crawling out from the depths of the sea to escape predators. Humanity will end as sparkles of light, streaming across the empty voids of the universe searching for meaning.
Pinhole is about the time travelers who live between what we once were and might someday become.
Cassandra knows the future brings her doom but is helpless to stop it. Lionel executes murderers before they can kill but wonders who the real victims are. Dolores is ensnared in a cult that uses a machine to link their minds and bodies. Joseph strives to escape an eight-year loop he's been trapped in his whole life. Daphne searches for a murderer who kills by giving his victims cancer, but she may be the next target.
Moving through time and space, their lives are intertwined, unwittingly tethered together by the same technology they use to change the world.
345 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 16, 2013
17 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 6, 2013
Matthew Kagle’s novel Pinhole is more than a decent story with more than interesting characters. It’s a well-thought out look at how time travel might be discovered and its impact on those individuals closely involved. Other writers have used time travel to change the future. Kagle takes the opposite view. What would happen if time travel were possible, but the future couldn’t be changed? How would that affect the people involved––especially if they knew the future needed changing?
That said, the problem with smart people who self-publish is sometimes they’re too smart for their own good. Pinhole is an inventive, complex story that forced me to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the characters and the story flow. That wasn’t so bad, but I was constantly having to re-read sections of dialogue because of his habit of failing to specify who is speaking. I made note of dozens of places where it often required three read-throughs to be able to identify each speaker. That writing flaw suggests that Mr. Kagle skimped on hiring a professional editor. I saw no credits suggesting otherwise. I can levy that charge because I’ve made the same mistake, which has forced me to re-release my novels after readers pointed out typos.
Nevertheless, if you’re a hard scifi, time travel reader, I recommend you give this one a try, but don’t worry, you don’t have to be a physics major or have caused a linear accelerator to detonate—you’ll have to read the “about the author” section at the end to get that reference--to follow the science in this creative and hopefully soon to be re-released novel.
That said, the problem with smart people who self-publish is sometimes they’re too smart for their own good. Pinhole is an inventive, complex story that forced me to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the characters and the story flow. That wasn’t so bad, but I was constantly having to re-read sections of dialogue because of his habit of failing to specify who is speaking. I made note of dozens of places where it often required three read-throughs to be able to identify each speaker. That writing flaw suggests that Mr. Kagle skimped on hiring a professional editor. I saw no credits suggesting otherwise. I can levy that charge because I’ve made the same mistake, which has forced me to re-release my novels after readers pointed out typos.
Nevertheless, if you’re a hard scifi, time travel reader, I recommend you give this one a try, but don’t worry, you don’t have to be a physics major or have caused a linear accelerator to detonate—you’ll have to read the “about the author” section at the end to get that reference--to follow the science in this creative and hopefully soon to be re-released novel.
June 5, 2013
For a book I'd never heard of until it popped among other Kindle Deals, this was a fine piece of work - especially in the tricky genre of time-travel.
The end wraps up a bit too "neatly" for my taste, but for a first novel (I believe it's a first novel) that I paid a buck for - I'd easily recommend to lovers of time-travel stories. Many clever ideas tossed in - any of which would make a wonderful next book.
The end wraps up a bit too "neatly" for my taste, but for a first novel (I believe it's a first novel) that I paid a buck for - I'd easily recommend to lovers of time-travel stories. Many clever ideas tossed in - any of which would make a wonderful next book.
August 3, 2013
I have seldom encountered so many inventive ideas amassed into a single novel.
Reading this book was like traversing a giant Moebius strip at light speed. Or maybe a twisty wormhole.
Well done, Mr. Kagle.
Reading this book was like traversing a giant Moebius strip at light speed. Or maybe a twisty wormhole.
Well done, Mr. Kagle.
September 21, 2018
A thoroughly absorbing, enthralling and sometimes complicated story, but so worth reading.
I have read this book more than a dozen times since first downloading it and each time I'm re-amazed at how cleverly the author has interwoven all the time travelling characters and their activities. Impressive that he managed to keep track of what all the characters were up to at any given time, or time loop or, get the picture.
It's a time travel tale with substance and provokes some thought into the dreaded paradox avoidance, or not.
It's a cleverly woven story and it helps if one's brain is alert to notice when the threads meet in an apparently innocuous sentence.
Highly recommended.
Rather embarrassing that it's taken me so long to review it. My apologies Mr. Kagle!
I have read this book more than a dozen times since first downloading it and each time I'm re-amazed at how cleverly the author has interwoven all the time travelling characters and their activities. Impressive that he managed to keep track of what all the characters were up to at any given time, or time loop or, get the picture.
It's a time travel tale with substance and provokes some thought into the dreaded paradox avoidance, or not.
It's a cleverly woven story and it helps if one's brain is alert to notice when the threads meet in an apparently innocuous sentence.
Highly recommended.
Rather embarrassing that it's taken me so long to review it. My apologies Mr. Kagle!
March 13, 2021
Very inventive. Best time traveling book I've ever read. For the most part, it reads like a collection of interwoven short stories.
July 29, 2015
Magnificent sci-fi, full of heart and intelligence!
January 16, 2022
I have reviewed the author's work previously, so when he offered a review copy for this book I was happy to accept!
This book vacillates between introducing incredibly clever sci-fi ideas and struggling to develop those ideas adequately. A man sending his 50 something year old man back into his 8 year old body and living through his youth with the memories of what happened. A time traveler writing a massive series of books about the future that unintentionally creates a secret organization. A cult using wormholes to tether it's followers together for the benefit of the leader. Governments using images from the past in it's court trials and trapping human minds in technology to power AIs. They're all incredibly interesting ideas... but there's just too many of them for any one to have space to breathe. As a result, they're introduced quickly... and then the plot moves on.
The linear-yet-not format of the plot also has an effect on the book's coherency. The idea is an interesting one in itself. Go through the timeline of the world in literal chronological order, from the pre-historic to the far future, with time travelers popping in and out. It is linear on the large scale and non-linear on the personal. But combined with a gigantic cast of characters and increasingly complex technology that requires deep explanation, it creates an incredibly confusing series of events. The most obvious sign that the narrative struggles to explain itself is the fact that there's an appendix at the end just to lay out each character's arc clearly.
Like the many story ideas, the character themes also had incredible promise... and there were also too many for any one of them to have real space to breathe. I would have loved a deeper look at Mitchell trying to avoid the marriage that ended in divorce, but falling in love with his wife again anyway. Or Willy facing the full terror of knowing his children would go through the horrors of history he knew were coming and the cult that grew because of him. Or Cassandra's growing desperation as she tries to change the past, but never can. Or the many characters whose moral compass' grow twisted as their time-based inventions gain them money and fame. Or the whole host of characters who exist only for a couple segments before the subplot they're in ends. All incredible character ideas, all given only minimal space to make room for the rest. As a result, there are several gigantic emotional beats, but the reader isn't given the space to actually feel them deeply.
The best way I found to read this book is to view it less as a novel and more as a short story collection. While I would have preferred a more in-depth focus on fewer ideas, it's still worth the read for the creative sci-fi concepts alone.
This book vacillates between introducing incredibly clever sci-fi ideas and struggling to develop those ideas adequately. A man sending his 50 something year old man back into his 8 year old body and living through his youth with the memories of what happened. A time traveler writing a massive series of books about the future that unintentionally creates a secret organization. A cult using wormholes to tether it's followers together for the benefit of the leader. Governments using images from the past in it's court trials and trapping human minds in technology to power AIs. They're all incredibly interesting ideas... but there's just too many of them for any one to have space to breathe. As a result, they're introduced quickly... and then the plot moves on.
The linear-yet-not format of the plot also has an effect on the book's coherency. The idea is an interesting one in itself. Go through the timeline of the world in literal chronological order, from the pre-historic to the far future, with time travelers popping in and out. It is linear on the large scale and non-linear on the personal. But combined with a gigantic cast of characters and increasingly complex technology that requires deep explanation, it creates an incredibly confusing series of events. The most obvious sign that the narrative struggles to explain itself is the fact that there's an appendix at the end just to lay out each character's arc clearly.
Like the many story ideas, the character themes also had incredible promise... and there were also too many for any one of them to have real space to breathe. I would have loved a deeper look at Mitchell trying to avoid the marriage that ended in divorce, but falling in love with his wife again anyway. Or Willy facing the full terror of knowing his children would go through the horrors of history he knew were coming and the cult that grew because of him. Or Cassandra's growing desperation as she tries to change the past, but never can. Or the many characters whose moral compass' grow twisted as their time-based inventions gain them money and fame. Or the whole host of characters who exist only for a couple segments before the subplot they're in ends. All incredible character ideas, all given only minimal space to make room for the rest. As a result, there are several gigantic emotional beats, but the reader isn't given the space to actually feel them deeply.
The best way I found to read this book is to view it less as a novel and more as a short story collection. While I would have preferred a more in-depth focus on fewer ideas, it's still worth the read for the creative sci-fi concepts alone.
February 14, 2022
What I Did Like:
-The audiobook works! The author himself, when asking me to review, wasn’t entirely sure a concept like this would work well in audio format. Rest assured, it does! I believe the varying narrators helped to keep track of things.
-Big messages. This one is loaded with huge concepts that link back to the central theme of time travel: What would you change? What rules would govern mass time travel? How would it change society? The list goes on and on. It’s really a complex unpacking of the issues that would arise and that’s awesome.
-The index makes it pretty clear this story could be told in a different format. As written, this one tells a linear story using time as the guide. You could also read the story following each character (because time travel makes that different than linear). While I didn’t go back and do that (YET) I love the idea that the author gave you a suggestion for enjoying the story again in a different manner. Excellent bit of creativity and ownership for the reader!
Who Should Read This One:
-Science fiction fans, specifically fans of time travel, who would be interested in seeing many sides of the time travel issues. This one explores a multitude of people who have interacted with it in one form or another and it’s fascinating in its complexity.
My Rating: 3 Stars.
This one is well done and recommended to time travel fans!
For Full Review: https://tabathashipleybooks.com/2022/...
-The audiobook works! The author himself, when asking me to review, wasn’t entirely sure a concept like this would work well in audio format. Rest assured, it does! I believe the varying narrators helped to keep track of things.
-Big messages. This one is loaded with huge concepts that link back to the central theme of time travel: What would you change? What rules would govern mass time travel? How would it change society? The list goes on and on. It’s really a complex unpacking of the issues that would arise and that’s awesome.
-The index makes it pretty clear this story could be told in a different format. As written, this one tells a linear story using time as the guide. You could also read the story following each character (because time travel makes that different than linear). While I didn’t go back and do that (YET) I love the idea that the author gave you a suggestion for enjoying the story again in a different manner. Excellent bit of creativity and ownership for the reader!
Who Should Read This One:
-Science fiction fans, specifically fans of time travel, who would be interested in seeing many sides of the time travel issues. This one explores a multitude of people who have interacted with it in one form or another and it’s fascinating in its complexity.
My Rating: 3 Stars.
This one is well done and recommended to time travel fans!
For Full Review: https://tabathashipleybooks.com/2022/...
September 8, 2017
Really bizarre and hard to keep track of all the characters. Definitely suspenseful but also very confusing.
March 31, 2014
I did finish this book, by starting over once I'd gotten about half-way. I wouldn't have bothered to try to straighten out this vastly over-complicated book except that each of the disjointed story lines is well-written and interesting in itself. I eventually found that Kagle has included an appendix at the end that explains all of the tangles, but that's NOT a good thing. Kagle is a talented writer and I'd be interested in seeing a more-straightforward book from him, but this one just has too many slightly-connected parts to be good to read. (Slightly spoilerish: I also don't believe in a technology that provides time travel, mind control, remote download of a personality and is also a weapon. My suspension-of-disbelief only stretches so far.)
April 7, 2014
My Review: This is probably one of the most disjointed books I have read in a long time. It started out OK I always like time travel. However the author tried to deal with too much it seems and it turned into a muddle, even after I read the index. There was just too much crammed in. I think it would have been much better if there were fewer scenarios and those that were there were fleshed out more. The reader really never connects with anyone in the book. The whole traffic signal thing was just dumb. I give this 2 stars.
May 24, 2014
Cool thoughtful time travel story
This is a very complex multi-threaded story that is succinct and clever. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. stick with the complexity;-) is worth it.
This is a very complex multi-threaded story that is succinct and clever. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it. stick with the complexity;-) is worth it.
August 19, 2014
Pretty good story. I really liked it until the whole traffic signal thing. That was weird. Overall a great story that kept me reading.
August 4, 2015
Well written sci-fi fatalism with good characters and a complex plot. Or plots, really.
July 25, 2014
One of the best Time Travel genre books I've read in a very long time.
Read
February 22, 2018Really interesting. A little hard to follow at times, given that time travel skews timelines - obviously. Definitely read the book first, and make sure to read the epilogue to determine who showed up when and why.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews