Version Control

Maaamma mia. MAAAAMMA MIA. I've got chills! OOOH. OH MAN, I GOT CHILLS. OHHH MANNNN.

So I had super low expectations for this book - I assumed it was going to be another disappointing mainstream sf book like American War or Underground Airlines or Dark Matter. BUT NO. About 25% of the way in, I was like, “huh. this this pretty good, these characters are really well drawn, and that's so funny and true about OKCupid”. At 40%, I was like, “hm, maybe this is pretty good, but is there any sf in this?” At 50%, I was SUDDENLY IN TEARS and getting chills from one of the most horrifying, chilling descriptions of a tragedy I've ever read. The second half of the book, when I realized the Science Fiction had occurred and WAS OCCURRING, I was riveted. And the ending! THE ENDING! MAMMA MIA. MAAAAMMA MIA.

Basically Dexter Palmer has done something that is soooooo difficult, and he did it - MWAH - with pizzazz! I doff my hat to him. I bow down. WOW. He's (1) world-built an amazingly precise, biting near future America akin to a good Black Mirror episode, (2) peopled it with tangibly real people, who frustrate you and amuse you and feel like the 3D people from your daily life, and (3) structured his plot like one of those Japanese secret puzzle boxes that shimmy and wiggle to reveal hidden chambers, for a story that (4) makes smart (even new!) philosophical points about that most tired of sf topics: time travel! I was ENTHRALLED. I was AMAZED. I was like, DAMN.

Okay. So I don't want to spoil anything, because I SO admired the deftness with which Palmer told his story: it was elliptical, it was smart, and he would deliver certain scenes (that 50% tragedy, ho shittt) with such great force just by virtue of how he hints and elides them earlier. But the main story is about a couple - Rebecca and Phillip - who met on an online dating site (basically OKCupid) and got married. Rebecca is a bit shipwrecked by the Great Recession, while Phillip is a passionate, remote physicist with lots of potential. In fact, he works on a TIME TRAVEL BOX. When we meet them, they've been married for a few years, it's not a great marriage, and there was some tragedy in their past - they had a son, Shaun, and it's apparent that he died.

AND THAT IS ALL I WILL SAY ABOUT THAT.

Guh. So time travel stories always have the usual concerns about paradoxes and regret and fate. And this book certainly has that in spades. There are fun, well-cited discussions between Rebecca's Unitarian minister dad and Philip regarding this. (And omg I just realized now it's a LITERAL Schrödinger's box!! Also I am amazed at Palmer as the superset of all these characters' knowledge - yoooo SO VAST!) But, in addition to that, this book ALSO makes keen, precise observations of social media and an Internet society - he writes about the performative aspect of social media, the pervasiveness of surveillance (and the accompanying security nihilism), the churning of human beings and human relations into Big Data-fueled machine learning algorithms. Everything he says is ON POINT and very true. Again, it's akin to the best of Black Mirror. There's the President, for example, who can appear - at any moment - on all screens, where he individually greets us and delivers a tailored bit of news or propaganda or pep. (This only works, of course, if everyone is always facing a screen, which... well, we are.)

But in addition to these “big topics” of the multiverse and big data eroding our lives and the replacement of eye contact and in-person chat with text mediated by screens - ON TOP OF ALL THAT - Palmer ALSO makes precise points about the sociology of academia and the scientific community (YO THIS FELT SO REAL), and the subtle pervasiveness of racism and sexism, and alcoholism! He does this all effortlessly, it feels like, and it feels natural and human and vulnerable. This is a long-ish book (~500 pages), and I alternatingly felt annoyed by or protective of each of these characters - I'd feel frustrated with Rebecca's alcoholism, only to then feel incredible heart-crushing sympathy a few scenes later, only to then feel annoyed again, and then suddenly awed by her. And the same with the other characters: Philip, Alicia and Carson, Kate, everyone. You're charmed by their vulnerability, you're annoyed by their (very believable) foibles. They felt like PEOPLE. Also, this was one of those books that had me both laugh out loud AND cry, which is like bing bing bing we have a winner.

Oh yes, and one more aspect of delight: I don't think Dexter Palmer codes, but he clearly knows all about the basic ideas, even if the jargon is a bit “off”. In particular, the titular “version control” (which prior to reading, I was like, oh haha does he mean git) - well, YES, he DID MEAN GIT. And when the physicists talked about commenting their code and writing “spaghetti” code, I was like, haha is it python, and YES IT IS PYTHON. This delighted me to no end. ESPECIALLY SINCE THE FATE OF THE MULTIVERSE HANGS ON A SPAGHETTI OF GIT COMMIT HISTORY. HAHAHAHAH That was so wonderful. So gratifying. Here is my favorite tweet about such spaghettis. I already feel panic when my CODE looks like that, if my WORLDLINES looked like that, well.

OH YES, this book is also a bit like Primer (one of the best time travel movies evaaaa) and a bit like The Lathe of Heaven. SO GOOD. MUCH RECOMMEND>>>>