The Third Rule of Time Travel
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Average rating3.4
Rule One: Travel can only occur to a point within your lifetime.
Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.
Rule Three: You can only observe.
The rules cannot be broken.
In this riveting science fiction novel from acclaimed author Philip Fracassi, a scientist has unlocked the mysteries of time travel. This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.
Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She's built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time—to any point in the traveler's lifetime—and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it's not the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.
After Beth's husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella—their only daughter—and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.
Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.
As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.
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This book has a 5-star concept. There are echoes of Blake Crouch, the Severance TV show, and even Lost. The character works for a hyper-secretive company named Langan, and the president at the time is Whitmore -- how can I not think of Severance's Lumen and Lost's Charles Widmore?
Although the promise of the time travel conceit meant that I couldn't put it down, the first two-thirds were slow, and everyone and everything outside of the main character felt underdeveloped. The last third significantly picked up the pace and reached a satisfying conclusion, even though it's not exactly how I would have preferred it to end.
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Thank you to Orbit Books for providing me with an eARC.
The Third Rule of Time Travel is my first book by Fracassi, and WOAH, what a phenomenal read it was. I'm a sucker for all things related to time travel, and this novel didn't disappoint. The Third Rule of Time Travel has a serious hint of horror in it, a creeping sense in the background that something has gone horribly wrong. It's like a discordant humming in your ear – you know something is coming, you know it, you can sense it, but you're not quite sure what it is. Just amazing writing by Fracassi.
The main character, Beth, is a bit flat when it comes to characterization, but it doesn't really matter because the rest of the book is so interesting that you don't care. Gah. This was so well done. I highly recommend this one – especially if you're like me and love time travel stories.
The premise was intriguing, and the narrative started well, but when the protagonist began using vulgar language over a very small incident (even though I know the author was trying to show how much she was upset by the underlying situation) I was done. Too bad. There are better ways than that to show emotional distress.
