The Gone World is an excellent crime / science fiction hybrid. In 1997, a West Virginia family is brutally murdered, with the father and oldest daughter missing. Because the father is a Naval officer assigned to a top-secret time traveling program, Agent Shannon Moss is assigned to investigate. As she digs in, it starts to seem likely that the case is somehow related to Terminus, the end-of-the-world scenario that time travelers report as an increasingly likely future.
The first part of the book reads like a crime novel with science fiction flourishes; the balance shifts in a decidedly sci-fi direction as it continues. Sweterlitsch manages to keep the story grounded and realistic even while venturing into multiple timelines and apocalyptic prophecies. There's a quote on the hardcover edition from Blake Crouch, the author of Wayward Pines and Dark Matter, but thankfully The Gone World lacks the outlandish quality of Crouch's work. Characters act in a recognizable human manner, and the story combines exciting action sequences with well-embodied ideas about time, fate, and the nature of the self.
The first part of the book reads like a crime novel with science fiction flourishes; the balance shifts in a decidedly sci-fi direction as it continues. Sweterlitsch manages to keep the story grounded and realistic even while venturing into multiple timelines and apocalyptic prophecies. There's a quote on the hardcover edition from Blake Crouch, the author of Wayward Pines and Dark Matter, but thankfully The Gone World lacks the outlandish quality of Crouch's work. Characters act in a recognizable human manner, and the story combines exciting action sequences with well-embodied ideas about time, fate, and the nature of the self.
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