Time Travel discussion

Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell

(306 pages, 2013)

Awards Nominations: Anthony Award Nominee for Best Audio Book 2014

Say you're a time traveler and you've already toured the entirety of human history. After a while, the outside world might lose a little of its luster. That's why this time traveler celebrates his birthday partying with himself. Every year, he travels to an abandoned hotel in New York City in 2071, the hundredth anniversary of his birth, and drinks twelve-year-old Scotch (lots of it) with all the other versions of who he has been and who he will be. Sure, the party is the same year after year, but at least it's one party where he can really, well, be himself.

The year he turns 39, though, the party takes a stressful turn for the worse. Before he even makes it into the grand ballroom for a drink he encounters the body of his forty-year-old self, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. As the older versions of himself at the party point out, the onus is on him to figure out what went wrong--he has one year to stop himself from being murdered, or they're all goners.

As he follows clues that he may or may not have willingly left for himself, he discovers rampant paranoia and suspicion among his younger selves, and a frightening conspiracy among the Elders. Most complicated of all is a haunting woman possibly named Lily who turns up at the party this year, the first person besides himself he's ever seen at the party. For the first time, he has something to lose. Here's hoping he can save some version of his own life.

Reading Timeline
January and February 2017

Where to Find
$9.99 Kindle version
$9.63 paperback version
$16.95 Audible Version
Free from your local library

My library has this. I will get at the beginning of January.

Yes, I noticed my library has it, too. Unfortunately, if I want to read it on Kindle, I'll have to purchase it. Still, it does look good.

This looks like fun. I'm in. I can't believe I haven't heard of it until now.

Just received a used copy for 6 dollars in great condition!!!

It is available on Hoopla if people want a free audio version.

I blitz out on this audio book while doing my cooking and cleaning over the holidays. I am looking forward to an interesting discussion about paradoxes and tethering. IT was a little tough to keep track of it all on audio, but really interesting, fast paced story

I requested a library copy. Hopefully it comes quickly.

I will be joining in. Ordered from the library and it came in today! :)

From Amazon teaser:

CONVENTION RULES
1. Elders know best .
2. No guests.
3- If it broke before, let itb reak again.
4- Don't demand more information than an Elder is willing to give.
5-Nothing comes from nowhere: Don't expect something if you don't rernember giving it.
6. No one is younger than the Inventor.
7- Stay below the third floor.
8. Try not to ruin the fun for the Youngsters.
9-Gambling makes no sense in the past tense.
10 . Don't park in the same place twice.
11. Never reveal the future.
12 . Act like you've been here before.
13_ Don't expect anyone to be impressed.
14_ Keep your promises.
15_ Don't come back until you've aged a full year.

I`m just a few pages in and I can`t wait to see how copies of himself are all there at the same time. I am missing something but then again I am not the fastest car on the road!!!

I am a little less than halfway through. Fun but very confusing. I am sure I will have to read this one twice! :)

I just finished the first chapter. Loving it so far. I think I'll stick to reading it rather than listening to it since you "Elders" say it gets confusing.

Yes Amy, we should know. ;)

NYC is abandoned and has been abandoned for a while, but there's electricity and ice cubes. Do we ever get an explanation?

I'm about 100 pages in, and I'm starting to think that this guy deserves whatever he does to himself. This is a horrible party. Yet he goes back year after year. After this time around, I'd just stop going. He can get drunk with himself anywhere, any time without having to watch himself in multiplicity.

They keep coming back year after year so they can figure out (view spoiler)[which self killed himself. (hide spoiler)] But if they just stopped coming to the party at all, the problem would solve itself. Is he really that stupid?

Amy wrote: "They keep coming back year after year so they can figure out [spoilers removed] But if they just stopped coming to the party at all, the problem would solve itself. Is he really that stupid?"

That was not how I read it Amy. I will put spoilers around this in case anyone has not read enough to know what the main event is all about. (view spoiler)[He came to the party year after year, and it was the same party every years, except one year the 39 year old finds the 40 year old version murdered, so he needs to solve the mystery of who killed him before he turns 40 and is murdered at the following year's party.

Your point does speak to the point that if 40 year old self decided not to go to the party, would the murder have been avoided. (hide spoiler)]

But isn't it a much older--not just slightly older,a 70-something--version of himself (view spoiler)[that dies (hide spoiler)]? He sees depressed version of himself in a rattier version of the suit that he's wearing that would be next year's self.

This is from the book blurb on Goodreads:

The year he turns 39, though, the party takes a stressful turn for the worse. Before he even makes it into the grand ballroom for a drink he encounters the body of his forty-year-old self, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. As the older versions of himself at the party point out, the onus is on him to figure out what went wrong--he has one year to stop himself from being murdered, or they're all goners.

Amy wrote: "NYC is abandoned and has been abandoned for a while, but there's electricity and ice cubes. Do we ever get an explanation?"

I think we get an explanation. (view spoiler)[The city isn't actually abandoned. (hide spoiler)] I put that in spoilers because it's so early in the month.

My library had it as an ebook. Yes.

I just started it. Looks interesting, although any book that opens with the POV character proclaiming himself a genius sends up some warning flags for me.

Does anyone get the feeling that the author took Stephen Hawking's time travel party as the inspiration for the story?

Glynn wrote: "Amy wrote: "NYC is abandoned and has been abandoned for a while, but there's electricity and ice cubes. Do we ever get an explanation?"

I think we get an explanation. [spoilers removed] I put that..."

Weird. I assumed he was an elder Elder from just reading. But re-reading the book, it says that the guy who (view spoiler)[dies (hide spoiler)] is "slightly older". Now I'm even more confused if this guy was just one year older. And now it really makes no sense. I thought that the nose incident was (view spoiler)[the first anomaly. Even 39 says that the nose incident was the first anomaly, not the first anomaly is that that 40 dies while 41-70 are still alive. The only way this would work to be if someone age 41-70 killed 40 without causing 41-70 to blink out of existence. And if they're not going to blink out of existence, then why do they care if they solve the mystery or not? At that rate, they can start killing Younger selves willy nilly with no effect on their own personal existence. (hide spoiler)]

Andy wrote: "Does anyone get the feeling that the author took Stephen Hawking's time travel party as the inspiration for the story? ..."

Imagine an entire party just of Stephen Hawkings ...

I found this interview with Sean Ferrell (beware, there may be spoilers)

Glynn wrote: "I found this interview with Sean Ferrell (beware, there may be spoilers)"

Nice. I'll wait to read that after I finish. :-)

I though the inspiration was David Gerrold's "The Man Who Folded Himself", but talking to the author on Twitter, he said that he haven't even read Gerrold's book...

@Amy-I got quite confused with the whole notion of "tethering" that older version existed with different memories. I listened to it as audio, and really wished I could go back a re-read some portions, I may try an pick it up from the library to try to sort some of this out.

Oh gosh, an hour after supper, I've only just now realized that I have this book to blame for my determination to make biriyani. Luckily, no noses were broken in the process. And, just in case you need an amazing biriyani recipe because The Man in the Empty Suit has driven you to it, look no farther than the amazing cookbook My Two Souths: Blending the Flavors of India into a Southern Kitchen. Your mouth and everyone else's will thank you for it.

Next craving: meatballs.

Finished! I overachieved on this one, I never get to finish the books before this book club discusses them but this time I'm well prepared and looking forward to the readership insights -this one requires some brute force navigation aids.
Hey that's funny you made that rice dish, it's what I ate for dinner last night but purely by coincidence because I forgot about the literary trip hazard.
I would avoid the meatballs though, you may already know why - wink.

I finished also. Can't say I liked it very much. I was hoping for something better. Open for discussion :)

You know, I am having a hard time getting started with this novel. I may be strange, but I like novels that smack me between the eyes and say "there, take that," and then present a hook that pulls me in.

I dunno, there are so many good books, I hate to waste my time on something I have to force myself to read.

@Fred what would be an example of one that did this for you recently?

My library copy still hasn't come in, but with the meh reviews here that might be just fine!

Ditto for Shannan's question.

I really enjoyed the mind play of a generous first half ...till he leaves the party anyway. It is unique from what I've read of the genre. The protagonist is bit of a jerk ...except of savior and even then you can still say selfish... and I think that is probably one of the juiciest topics for discussion, how do we measure his selfishness? Sorry I'm pretty sure these are not spoilers.

I'm about 70% through, trying not to read comments yet.

The story is interesting in that it's so small on one scale (his focus on a particular time and task) and so large (the potential!). In a way that's what I'm liking about it, although of course whenever you focus on one thing, you lose a bit of the other.

Time travel books are usually confusing (that's part of the fun for some) but right now I'm feeling ready to stop feeling confused - expecting some explanations towards the end that will help. Almost there!

I just started yesterday and I am almost at 40%. I had a hard time putting the book down last night.

Amy wrote: "They keep coming back year after year so they can figure out [spoilers removed] But if they just stopped coming to the party at all, the problem would solve itself. Is he really that stupid?"

I am on page 174 and he isn't going back year after year. There is only one party. It's the same party. He decided we he turned twenty to have this party (in the future 100 yrs after his birth). He brought all the food and ice that first year. If any of his futures selves decided not to go to the party, then they would never have been at the party ever. It feels like he keeps going back but really all versions of himself at every age only went to the party one time as there was only one party.

So I need to finish this so I can figure out how versions of himself exist after age forty if he gets killed at the party...

Nancy wrote: "Amy wrote: "They keep coming back year after year so they can figure out [spoilers removed] But if they just stopped coming to the party at all, the problem would solve itself. Is he really that st..."

You are correct Nancy. Only one party, but as he ages in straight chronological time, he visits the party on his birthday. He "keeps coming back" to that place on that date whereever and whenever he is on his birthday, so he meets himself at the party "year after year." It gets way confusing on his 39th birthday....What I was most confused about (view spoiler)[ and there was never an explanation, was how all the younger selves got there (selves younger than even before he invented the time machine! (hide spoiler)]

Have you finished the book? I can't put it down. I am wonder the same thing about the youngers.

I don't see him coming back each time. Everything that happens at the party always happened. He just didn't know he was killed in the elevator on his 40th birthday. The elders all know because they have memories of the event. Rule number 11 says to never reveal the future so he doesn't know until he sees it at his 39th party.

Although if you know you are going to die stepping into that elevator, why would you?

Let me start by saying I didn't hate this book.

I finished this last night and I have to say, if I could only use one word to describe this book, it would be:

CONFUSING

Time travel fiction is often hard to sort out, but when it's done well (ok, the way I like it) it's still reasonably possible at the end to understand the order (so to speak) of events.

This book made me feel like:
a) I am not able to focus well enough to make sense of it, or
b) it wasn't written in a way that makes it possible to understand, or
c) a little bit of both.

I'm going with C. You'd need to be a genius just to parse all of this information out and make sense of it. In addition to all the information that is included (and unmanageable) there is a lot of information that is not included.

I loved the concept of "tethered/untethered" because it opens up interesting possibilities. However, tracking all of the changes and relationships is such an arduous task that at some point it all falls apart, leaving me unable to fully appreciate whatever potential is actually realized from this concept.

I don't think there ever was an answer about where the food and ice and sporadic electricity etc. comes from in 2071. I think there also wasn't an explanation of what happened to bring the city to that state in the first place, was there?

Amy's opinion early on that the traveler deserves whatever he gets... I can't say I disagree. Well, not that he deserves it per se, but that he asked for it, in the sense of making so many bad decisions. Doesn't the book start by saying he's a genius? Could've fooled me!

Where does all of the self-loathing come from? By the end of the book I wasn't such a fan either. Remember the scene where there is a 6 year old child crying in a corner? What does he do? Nothing. Basic lack of empathy. There are moments when he seems to care about others, vaguely. He does seem to care about (view spoiler)[Jessica, but I'm not sure why. Aside from caring for Phil, she isn't exactly impressive. Plus, her caring for Phil gave her benefits, and when he was dying, she completely abandoned him.

It was interesting that she kept calling the traveler selfish. Her decision to abandon him (she's good at this apparently) to be with a version of him that doesn't know her is a powerful example of selfishness. It's also cruel. (hide spoiler)]

I know this makes it sound like I got nothing good out of the book. I didn't., it's just easier to talk about the negatives. I'll give it 3 stars. I enjoyed the little glimpses of various things... the future, untethering, a slow period in 2071. The writing craft was good.

I'm glad I read it, but my brain is glad to be finished. Next book... something easy! :-)

Gertie wrote: "I think there also wasn't an explanation of what happened to bring the city to that state in the first place, was there?
..."

Many good points Gertie, and no, we never got an explanation. In fact, on page 13, the protagonist says "Was I really too lazy to make more trips through the recent past to see what had caused New York's abandonment?"

He did say how the ice and food got to the party. He brought it himself when he was 20. He planned a whole year on how much food and ice etc to bring.

Gertie, did you read it or was this an audio book? I can't imagine listening to this.

The only thing that bothers me is this: if The Drunk (who was really The Suit) was shot and his body was the one found in the elevator....then what happened to the one who went up to the penthouse with The Suit?

I listened to it on audio, which is why I can't intelligently contribute to tis discussion. I enjoyed the basic story, but without the ability to flip back and forth, I soon lost track of who and how and when the different versions of himself were interacting.

Not recommended for audio.

One of the things I like about this book is it is a looping kind of time travel story.

He has a lot of instances in the story of the loop. Even at the beginning of the story when he talks about going to the hospital when his mother is in labor and the doctor trips over the bed pan.

Just gotten started. Very intriguing description and atmosphere.

I think the bones of the story you can get on audio but you are following but you have to let go anyway as the same event (the party) is corrupted- see pre inventor invites.

I'm not too far in, but I like the looping too.

His saying he is a genius in the beginning seems like a telling character trait; not that he is truly a genius, but a narcissist (or just sarcastic?). After all, he *is* continuously throwing and attending a party with just himself.

I was hoping 1) we'd learn what happened to NYC, and 2) he'd be navel-gazing enough to learn to be a better person. From your comments my hopes seem futile, lol!

He invents a time machine. Maybe he is a genius. But the book is not littered with physics Feynman style so he doesn't emote or trope like a genius- still the novel is only a cross section of everything to focus on the drama.

Part of the story is his own self awareness of his self absorption "Was I really too lazy to make more trips through the recent past to see what had caused New York’s abandonment? " @4.8%