Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

A 2019 Locus Award finalist A USA Today Bestseller Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost. 2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox. 2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one. Does she resist ... or become a collaborator? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Slightly different take on time travel that for this reader refreshes what can be a tired trope. Like the main protagonist even though given how short this novella is, we barely get to know her.

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The ironic thing about the novella, Permafrost, is that in Permafrost, nothing is permanent. The name belies the content. The future, the past, and the present are all malleable constructs.

I haven't read any Alastair Reynolds books previously, although I am very familiar with his books. I have wanted to read Redemption Ark forever. If you are looking for sincere and hard science fiction, he is your man from what I hear. In Permafrost, Reynolds utilizes the much-overused time-travel trope. It would take an excellent writer with a fresh perspective to bring anything new to the time travel type novel. He does it here. Instead of being hackneyed, this story comes off fresh and exciting. I liked how he explained time as a stream; someone who travels the flow goes backward and forwards like swimming in a river. Where you are in a stream is always relative to other points. It is an excellent way to explain a difficult concept without a Deus ex Machina explanation.

In some ways, the story is a scary premise. The future, 2080, has been destroyed by a malignant virus type thing that systematically destroys all the insectile species on the planet. Insects are a keystone, so soon, other animal and plant systems start to collapse, and finally, the whole pyramid, with humans at the top, crumbles like Jenga. The WHO(World Health Organization) is the only government type organization still in existence. They have a shot of saving the future by going into the past. Now, this is a shortish story. There is not a lot of time for explanation. So it is bare-bones, and much of the time, Reynolds only gives the reader the barest glimpse of the history and backstory. Sometimes it is like trying to see things through a blizzard. It is just enough to provide a springboard for the imagination of the reader to take hold. Valentina Lidova, the main protagonist of the story, is a 71yr old daughter of the inventor of the science of time travel. It is her consciousness, along with a few others, which are sent back through the past to save the future. Protecting the future is not what you think it will be. It is a twisty story that grabs your heart, intelligence, and emotions and ties them in knots. Although that doesn't sound fun, it is.

This is an incredibly exciting novel and worth the time it takes to deep dive into this brilliant environmental dying Earth story.

This is a time travel story with a lot of imagination. I liked the explanations AR gave to the theories on it, and that he did not mess a lot with them. The seeds, the role of the AI, time-embedding, the noise in time and the interjection between minds are a few of the themes in the book and quite a different approach from other stories of this kind. I would have prefered the book to be a bit longer as the last 3rd of the book felt rushed. Also, I did not like the ending , it was not interesting at all. Or maybe it's just that I wasn't expecting to end too fast and took me by surprise (in a bad way).

A great tale of scientists trying to rectify the mistakes which led to the collapse of the Earth's ecosystem...by traveling into the past. As is typical of the author, the science is conceptually intriguing, and the tensions and dangers are pervasive, with very well-developed characters at the core, driving the story forward.