Play Book Tag discussion

Version Control by Dexter Palmer - 4.5* - My Review

As the story opens, protagonist Rebecca is a customer service representative for an online dating company. Her husband, Phillip, is a physicist who is leading a team in the development of a controversial Causation Violation Device, a machine designed to tamper with causality that may or may not actually work. Phillip specifies (repeatedly) that he does not consider it a “time machine.” It is character-driven, and each character’s backstory is filled out in detail (Phillip, the key members of the lab team, Rebecca, their son, and her close friends).

The title’s nod to software “version control” is apt, though the way it is employed in the physics lab would cause alarm to most software professionals! The book is filled with the language of science, so an interest in reading scientific terminology and explanations is necessary. There is also an emotional component revolving around a family tragedy and its aftermath. The pacing and structure incorporate the novel’s central motif of revision (especially different versions of reality). Events are repeated and reinterpreted, or reframed by new information, so the reader experiences memory and history in layers (or “versions”) rather than a single chronology. This is difficult to pull off, but Palmer handles it cleverly and skillfully.

The book explores philosophical and ethical questions, such as how we assign responsibilities; how both institutions and people in relationships both rely on and obscure facts; and how technology reshapes what we view as stable (memory, identity, trust). It also takes on late-stage capitalism and the exploitation of personally identifiable information. It asks a question often examined in time travel narratives – if we could go back and change ONE thing we know did not work out well, would we? Would we have an ethical duty to do so if we knew we could? It is an intentionally restrained novel which may frustrate readers who expect dramatic time-travel fireworks, but it certainly delivers for those who enjoy stories that are thoughtful, quietly unnerving, or morally curious.

4.5

Sounds interesting, another to add to my TBR

My daughter had a theory (humorously) that when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, it was so odd that it caused us to enter a parallel world, so that the next election, the pandemic, etc. were from the "wrong" track.

Love that theory, haha! And it was only a year off from the Cubs' series win imagined in Back to the Future 2!