Hollow World

This was a book that I really didn't know what to expect going into it. Sure, I thought I knew by the synopsis that it was going to be similar to The Time Machine but the time travel aspect is really all it had in common. (Thankfully, as I hated The Time Machine so much I didn't even finish it.)

This is a departure for the author - whose fantasy books I love and that's the main reason I decided to read this book. And, honestly, I loved it. The story is one that certainly not everyone will like, but I found it a lot of fun to read about a future earth that WASN'T a dystopia. Also I like the message I got out of the book - not sure everyone will get the same one.

(Silly me, I thought this would be a nice book that I could work on slowly to make up for the crazy fast way I'd been reading other books. You know, something to slowly read a few dozen pages of a day. Less than 24 hours later, I was done with it, so that plan kind of backfired, but it a wonderful way.)


Review from my blog: https://athousandworldssite.wordpress.com/
‘Maybe if Pax were a woman he might have offered a hug or something, but Pax wasn't a woman. The best a man could do for another man was pretend not to see. Only Pax wasn't a man either.
Ellis was lost.'

(Truthfully, Ellis is often lost.)

Ellis Rogers, just diagnosed with a terminal illness and told he has, at best, a year to live, does what any normal, sane, married man in his fifties would: he hops into the time machine he's been building in his garage. Even knowing it's going be a one-way trip, he's hoping for a cure for his illness and sets the device for two hundred years in the future.

When he steps out of the milk-crate-and-minivan-cannibalized time machine, he's surprised (and a little disappointed) to find himself not in a bustling metropolis of flying cars and gravity defying buildings, but an old-growth forest. Where Detroit used to be. Let's just say that nothing about the future is quite what Ellis expected.

And the book isn't quite what I expected. Even knowing the author's other (fantasy) work, I still half expected a book that was dry and ponderous and, well, privileged. I can't help it, I am ashamed to say that I expected Ellis to be ‘privileged cis white man 1.0' – pretty much like the one from the original time machine story. And like Warren. shudder Oh, so much like Warren.

Ellis, actually, handles the whole thing – drastically changed earth, massively changed human culture – rather well. He's a curious sort. He wanted to be an astronaut when he was younger and I can't help but think that prepared him at least a little. He's likable because he doesn't dismiss the world. He doesn't understand it, he misses his world, but he's not going to say his world was better. He faces everything with a healthy dose of curiosity and – even if I was yelling at him for one awful decision he made – I liked him because of all that.

The other characters were a mix. Pax is absolutely wonderful, without a doubt my favorite in the book and definitely one of my favorite this year. The others weren't so likable to me, but there was only one character I truly hated. (The evil, creepy villain, because yes, this story does have a villain that I wanted to kill in the worst way possible.)

I don't really want to get into the world building because I don't want to give out spoilers. Let's just say that it was interesting and very believably handled. I could see the things happen that did, and I could see humanity reacting the way they did. Also, I have to add that the populace still speaks English. It's a little changed, but I was so thrilled that there wasn't a translation phase where we were left at sea.

This book takes a look at gender, love and individuality (and religion to an extent) and how much they matter – or don't – in the grand scheme of being human. I'd tell you more, but, really, this is a book that it's best to just go along with the ride and not know where it'll end up.