Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction
Review: Kate Mascarenhas has found an interesting approach to writing a time travel novel. As the title indicates, she's exploring what happens to a time traveler's brain and to their personality when they move through time. In her world, the answer is: nothing good. Among other mental infirmities that can develop, frequent time travel can cause people to become desensitized to and crass about death. This can be a major problem, and how to tackle that problem and make time travel psychologically safe is an interesting entre into the genre.
Unfortunately, Mascarenhas has bitten off a bit more than she can chew, in what is clearly a debut novel. She's wrapped this question in a mystery and layered it with an enormous bureaucracy that governs everything related to time travel, travelers (sometimes the same person) coming from both directions, and a full cast of non-time travelers. The mystery gets sort of forgotton for a while in the middle while we deal with the characters, and by the time we get back to it, I don't really care about the who's or why's of it. And I couldn't even keep track of the characters, and all their various timely incarnations, let alone care much about any of them.
Still, there are hints of Mascarenhas's strengths as a writer. Some of the characters are quite well-written, and parts of the action really hum along. If she chooses to write another book, perhaps she'll be able to mellow out a little and let her talents shine through.
FTC Disclaimer: I recieved this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
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