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"There's no such thing as the life you're "supposed" to have... You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed. because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and--maybe, just maybe--his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom's search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future--our future--is supposed to be. All Our Wrong Todays is about the versions of ourselves that we shed and grow into over time. It is a story of friendship and family, of unexpected journeys and alternate paths, and of love in its multitude of forms. Filled with humor and heart, and saturated with insight and intelligence and a mind-bending talent for invention, this novel signals the arrival of a major talent"--… (more)
User reviews
Elan Mastai has conjured up something exciting and fun, a mashup of alternative history, time travel, and dystopian genres, with a healthy dose of romance mixed in. Though he does run off the rails—or maybe falls out of the time slip—a couple of times, readers will
Tom Barren lives in the world of 2016, but it is not our 2016. It’s the 2016 we dream of, that our sci-fi writers for decades have imagined, a sleek world without want, with every need catered to, with an ecologically healthy planet, and with cities of swirling curves and technology dreamed of and captured on film from the days of the opening scenes of Metropolis. However, Tom is something of a failure, a botcher of most things, a young man of thirty-two with a difficult relationship with his brilliant physicist father, who lost his mother years before in a tragic accident (they still occur in the near perfect future, because, as Tom points out several times, every invention comes with an accident built in).
The Goettreider Engine, first turned on by Lionel Goettreider on July 11, 1965, has made Tom’s utopian world possible. As you might expect, the world honors and worships the memory of Goettreider. Tom’s father, Victor, wants to do more; he wants to make visiting the very moment that changed the world forever the introduction of his new invention, a time machine, for maximum impact, visiting on the fiftieth anniversary date. Since Tom can’t do much of anything on his own, Victor puts him on the backup team of chrononauts shadowing a picture of perfection named Penny Weschler. Oh well, in every plan, no matter how brilliant and meticulously conceived, potential disaster lurks. So it is here, when Tom makes two mistakes and propels himself to the fateful day, and back again to the world we know as 2016. In this world, he finds the meaning of his life, his true self, and something he never had, true and abiding love.
Elan presents the story as Tom’s own account of how we ended up with the world we have, but different, too, because after saving the world, and as he likes to say, reality, Tom and his family gives us something we hope for but have no certainty of gaining: a bright future approaching the utopia he once lived in.
The first three quarters of the book is great. The story moves quickly, the science more or less makes sense, it's funny and engaging. Then, the last quarter of the book completely bombs. It gets confusing and convoluted, and the narrator has several moments where he suddenly understands another character and changes his whole perspective for reasons that aren't clear to the reader, and then it gets sappy.
I listened to the audiobook, which is read by the author. Sometimes authors make terrible narrators, but Mastai is great.
This is a difficult book. As the narrator points out, it's not a time travel romp. He spends a great deal of time chewing a technological cud about how the time machines (and, even less interestingly, the aforementioned machine which made them possible) work and the philosophy of what it might mean to meddle with history. He attacks these questions, especially the former, with a maximum of jargon, and I became quite weary of having to consult a dictionary frequently, especially since the words are mostly not in the collegiate dictionary, and I began to wonder whether they were real physics terms, or he was playing with us, Douglas Adams style, with mock-scientific mumbo-jumbo. The book's plot, once it got past considerable backstory, was interesting enough, but our self-deprecating narrator reminded us so frequently what an unlikable dunce he was that I finally just took him at his word, and since none of the other characters were at all likable, I didn't much care what happened to them either. This gets some points for originality (despite the resemblances to Adams' much superior work) but I was glad when it ended--just as the narrator predicted I would be.
Now, I’m not going to say it was mind-bending, but it definitely wasn’t a sermon. It also wasn’t the time travel romp I was expecting; while not particularly deep, it was more focused on the human element, i.e. the impact of screwing up utopia for the whole world, but getting something that’s personally a little better. I was honestly split between liking the utopian world and liking the people we meet in the dystopia (a.k.a. our world). At the start, the future he described was so awesome that I didn’t want to keep reading–since I knew he was just going to screw it up.
The narrator (Tom) is self-deprecating, but mostly he stays on the side of humor and honesty rather than low self-esteem and naval-gazing. It's a hard science world through the lens of someone who… didn’t really pay attention in science class. So you get dumbed-down explanations (great for readers who don’t do scifi) but there’s a solid science backbone to the world.
The chapters were insanely short–a trend I’ve started noticing recently. It’s not a dense read, and although it could get a little slow, it was never plodding. It’s one of those books that’s ripe for a 2-hour movie adaptation.
But I disagree that ALL OUR WRONG TODAYS
You could say the first third of the book is downright boring. It is at least putdownable. The second third, however, is much better. So I had high expectations of the last third. But it is "eh"—except for the narrator, Tom. I loved him.
Tom claims that ALL OUR WRONG TODAYS is not a novel but a memoir of his experience traveling to an alternate 2016. He claims that the 2016 he comes from is the right one and the alternate, our 2016, is wrong.
So Tom attempts to convince us of this by, first, describing the right 2016. It doesn’t sound that great to me except the part about no war. But he never adequately explains why a machine that generates lots of energy leads to peace all over the world. This is one of several questions I have about this book that are not adequately explained.
Could it be that Tom thinks his first 2016 is the superior one because it is the first one? The first anything seen as the best is one of the many subjects he ponders.
But the alternate 2016, the one we live in, is the 2016 that Tom is happiest in even though he sees it as the wrong 2016, full of corruption, wars, dirty politics, etc. So another quandary: is it fair, he wonders, that the world is stuck with the wrong 2016 when he has the power to switch back to the right 2016?
This isn’t a bad book. But its putdownable beginning and the unanswered questions I have about the story downgrade its rating from five to three stars.
I won this book through bookclubcookbook.com
I loved the tone and voice of Tom, the predominant narrator, loved the style, the telling, the twists and turns. Goddamn it's enough to make a fellow time travel writer jealous. This is an excellent book with some fun wrinkles in the time travel genre, a lovable bumbler of a main character, and is just a great read.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title.
Tom decides to go on the mission himself. He goes back to 1965. He then returns back to 2015 and discovers, you guessed it. He messed it up. There are no longer flying cars, robots, fingertouch accesses, buttons you push and the food is delivered, etc. Nope 2015 is pretty much how we see it. There is no Jetson era anymore.
Tom is on a mission to get his world back.
This was an very entertaining read. It definitely held my interest. There were a few times when they would talk this science gobbly goop and my eyes would bleed, but fortunately that was rare and short. There were definitely a few laughs. On the whole, entertaining, enjoyable and definitely recommendable.
Huge thanks to Penguin Group Dutton for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a clever twist on the time-travel theme. Once Tom returns to the present, he needs to adjust to a lot of changes. The timeline had diverged with some subtle changes and some quite drastic. There is some science and techo stuff, but this is also a story about relationships – Tom’s family, his girlfriend, his career.
The story is told mostly in the first person and had the feel of a memoir. The book does switch to the third person a few times and we get a summary or recap of what has happened to Tom. The beginning was a little slow but picks up once we get past the initial world building. Most of the book takes place in our timeline, but we need to know about Tom’s world in order to understand him.
I found the story lighthearted, entertaining, and at times humorous. While this is definitely scifi, it’s not confusing or difficult to follow, and there is enough story about relationships and even a few romances to keep other genre readers entertained.
Audio production
I read the eGalley and also listened to the audio. The narration was performed by the author. While it very listenable and pleasant, and he gave the character Tom a lot of feeling, at times the pacing was uneven.
I am not usually a fan of author’s reading their own books unless they are a professional speaker or actor. I listen to a lot of audio so I notice the difference right away. However, despite the uneven pacing, this was good, and I would recommend giving the audiobook a try for those who enjoy the format.
I don't read a huge amount of science fiction, but every now and then a book jumps out and grabs me. That's what happened with this one: I read a review, the library ebook was available, and I read it over the course of a couple days. Tom's a great character, flawed but likable, and the world building is great. If you have any interest in this kind of story, you should read this book. I've already recommended it to two non-Internet friends. It's early days yet, but I can easily see this book holding a spot in my top five of the year.
I'm not sure how to describe this book! -- but it is a time travel book beginning in the future of 2016. But although it is our Now, it is a different Now than ours. And all the changes started in a time travel accident that happened in
This book is a spectacular combination of literary fiction and science fiction. The combination of humor, strong and unexpected plot twists, and excellent writing made this a wonderful read. Loved it!
Next - to those who say this is a 'relationship' book, not a time travel
On the issue of time travel... in my opinion, the key to a good time travel story, is that the author has to be clear on what the rules are, and then follow those rules. Mastai does all of that, and throws a twist - albeit a completely logical twist - into the usual rules.
I loved the beginning, and I very much like the end. In the middle, there were parts that flowed well, and parts that dragged.. which is why this is 4 stars not 5. But definitely worth putting on your to-read list.
Tom Barren, 32, lives in 2016 but in a relatively advanced alternate universe, made possible by the invention of a machine that harnesses the motion of the earth for free unlimited energy. Tom’s father invents a time travel machine to
Tom, now as John, looks for the woman he loved in the other timeline, Penelope Weschler, and finds her as Penny Wechsler. He tells her he comes from a different time line, and she is enchanged by him. They fall in love.
But Tom feels guilty at having “killed off” all the billions in the other timeline by causing history to change. He sets out to find Goettreider to see if he can remedy what he has done, even if it means losing the good things about this new timeline.
Discussion: There are several interesting ideas presented in this book, but in some ways that makes it seem a bit all over the place. It could have used better editing. Also, why was Tom more concerned about killing off everyone from the first timeline than from the infinitely preferable second timeline? It didn’t make sense to me.
I see that the book has been optioned for a movie. I’m hoping the movie version will edit down all the excess….
This is a fun, exciting romp across virtual realities using a time-travel machine, similar to Back to the Future. The story was a bit simplistic with stereotypical good vs. evil characters, but overall, it was entertaining. I particularly loved the narrative style with Tom talking to the reader directly.
Time travel stories are not normally a favorite of mine. Some, like Doctor Who, are fun and campy, but the concept seldom seems to work without some extreme silliness going on. All Our Wrong Todays is different. It's probably the most original take on time travel I've seen in a while, and although it's far from plausible, it's not silly. It's actually quite enjoyable.
This is a time travel novel with a twist. Tom Barren travels from 2017 to the early 1960's to witness a seminal event--the testing (successful) of a perpetual energy machine. The invention of this machine leads to all sorts of
Unfortunately, when he arrives back at the test of the perpetual energy machine, he inadvertently (and quite minimally) interferes with disastrous results--the perpetual energy machine is not successful and it is abandoned. Tom is able to return back to 2017, but it is a greatly changed 2017. To him it looks dystopian; to us, it is very like the 2017 in which we live. Tom finds his mother still alive, he has a sister, and his father is no longer overbearing. When he falls in love with a girl, he begins to question his plan to return to the past to ensure that the perpetual energy machine is successfully tested, and that the ideal 2017 prevails.
I enjoyed this one--it's original, but not quite as good as The Time Traveler's Wife.
Recommended.
3 stars
This was one of the best adult science fiction novels I have read this year. It actually reads a bit like YA but definitely has adult content. The sci-fi elements were incredibly well done and thought provoking (how do we know which alternate reality is the "right" one- if such a concept could exist? How could time travel change our own existence?). The writing style is also really unique and really drew me in- it's as if Tom is talking to his best friend (the reader) about this crazy story that happened and it's impossible to stop listening to his insane tale (which still carries a certain amount of sense to it). For some realities, we are already living in a dystopian fiction. This thought- that our current reality could actually be a dystopian reality- was also really intriguing (because for Tom, that is how our 2016 appears).
This is one of the most reasonable books about time travel I have ever read. There was a certain amount of sense and possibility about it. The way the tale was woven absolutely seamlessly was beyond fantastic. Tom is a character that was easy to like and understand- in his reality, all of his genius (if you can call it that) was random. He was meandering through his life with little purpose. Over 30 years old, he is still trying to find his way, and learning the trick that actually, no one has it all figured out- we're all faking our way through life as best as we can. He finds some purpose and changes the very fabric of his (and everyone's) existence.
This is definitely an adult book with mentions of sexual relationships and conception/abortion (although nothing is described in detail). As a note/warning, there are mentions of sexual contact that are hazy in terms of consent. The women involved do not seem to view it as a nonconsensual, but it was definitely outside of their comfort zones/really seemed to belong to the sexual assault category. It is not described in detail but is still worth mentioning for readers who might prefer to stay away from this.
Overall, this was a fascinating sci-fi story which takes the reader on a journey through time, possibilities, and love (a constant thread of life) and forcing them to consider endless alternate realities. This is a book I won't easily forget. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.
The story was creative and intriguing. The beginning of the book starts out with very detailed explanations of how time travel and alternate realities work. It can be a bit confusing, but it was not necessary to understand it fully to enjoy the book.
There were times in the book that the main character Tom seemed to ramble on for pages and pages about his feelings and thoughts. I actually had to skim over those pages and lost nothing to the detail of the plot.
I received a complimentary e-book from the publisher in exchange for a review.
The novel is told in first person by that one chrononaut, and his voice is funny and self-deprecating, much like that of the astronaut in Andy Weir's "The Martian". This book has the same breezy, fast-paced plotting, although it's longer and more complicated. But the science is easy, and as a lay person who wouldn't know what is and isn't really possible, I found this an amusing and fast read with some suspense and a variety of likeable and not-so-likeable characters, as well as some discussion about how much guilt someone should feel for changing the future and what the hell the nature of reality is, anyway.
Very enjoyable.
Eventually this book is about time travel, but I didn't get that far. I read the first 125 pages, which are about all of the women the main character has slept with, and his mother. His mother gave her whole life to a genius husband who barely registered her existence, and eventually
The author/book seem to be somewhat aware of the problems presented - aside from the aforementioned self-depreciation, the narrator points out his mother's unfair sacrifices, and makes a point of providing the first and last name of every woman he mentions sleeping with so that they are not just conquests. But that only makes them conquests with names. While acknowledging that the problems in this story exist is important, the author still wrote a story with all these problems in it. Before I even got to the time travel part, I hated the main character so much that I could not stand to be in his first-person head for a minute longer.
It could be argued that this book is more about world-building than the main character. The beginning of the book takes place in the present day in an alternate timeline created when an unlimited source of energy was invented in 1975. But like the main character's life, the world doesn't hold up to much scrutiny either. The world alternates between valuing science-for-the-sake-of-science and not valuing science, and between requiring funding/profits/money and not requiring funding/profits/money, about every 20 pages. There's a reason very few people write utopias, and that's because it's hard. This is not a successful one.
While I suppose it is possible that the rest of the plot involves the main character learning how to actually do a tiny amount of work, and that women are human beings with agency, I was born knowing that so I won't be sticking around to find out.