My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another Kindle Owners’ Lending Library selection, and possibly my favorite so far, Rewinder is a new time-travel adventure by thriller author Brett Battles. I haven’t read any of the author’s previous works, but that is sure to change as I absolutely loved Rewinder.
The story is set in an alternate version of the present time in which the British Empire has lost none of its potency and continued to expand further across the globe. The American colonies are just that – colonies. The American Revolution never occurred in any meaningful way and our protagonist Denny Younger lives in the Shallows, a lower-class area in the western part of New Cardiff (our Los Angeles). The class system is hugely important at this time in history, enough so that Parliament has replaced traditional titles such as labor class or gentry with a numbering system. Denny is on the lower end, an Eight, and likely to remain so for the rest of his life.
But when he takes the Operational Placement Examination he is not placed in the power plant alongside his father as expected but instead flagged as a promising candidate for the Upjohn Institute. Within a day he has been elevated to a higher class and whisked off to the institute where he will learn to be a Rewinder – a time travelling researcher. Rewinders verify family lineage – firsthand. Their mission: “to observe and record. It’s not just what we do. It’s all we do”. They observe events and never interfere. At least those are the rules…
Rewinder is a fascinating and exciting book. The plot is tight and the story written by a clearly skilled hand. It moves along at a quick pace and is easy to follow. I’m sure that if I spent more time picking apart the intricacies of the time travel elements I’d find some problems – there nearly always are in stories that feature such foundations, but the novel is so enjoyable that I didn’t bother myself with looking for problems.
The dialogue is good, the characters better. It has the unique distinction of making both the original and altered histories interesting. If the author had written a tale in either timeline that didn’t involve time travel it still would have made a good setting.
It’s sometimes hard to find great books that aren’t part of a larger series. Rewinder is the sort of book that you appreciate for being a great standalone novel, but would be equally happy to see expanded into a series because the author has done such a fine job of realizing a great setting. Highly recommended.
