Myriad by Joshua David Bellin
Jul. 2nd, 2023 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Miriam Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency that uses short-term time travel to prevent crimes from happening.
Though a seasoned time traveller, she is continually haunted by the death of her twin brother, whose murder remains unsolved years later.
When a routine assignment ends in a tragedy by Miriam’s hand, she finds herself mixed up in a conspiracy involving the highest levels of LifeTime. Forced to flee into the past with her partner Vax, Miriam races to unravel the truth before it’s too late.
But the past is filled with horrors Miriam would rather forget … including her brother’s killer.
It is 31 August 2017.
6-year-old Miriam Randle and her twin brother Jeremy have just started a new school in Pittsburgh, USA. Their mother, Dr Deborah Sayre, is a famous psychologist who has just taken a research role at Carnegie Mellon University and the family has moved state to be with her. Miriam is already nervous enough on her first day because it’s the first time she and Jeremy have been put in different classes and she misses him so when the school is targeted by a shooter, she knows she needs to be with her twin, only to see him gunned down in front of her by a strange man who then disappears in a flash of yellow light.
It is 31 August 2037.
Still traumatised by her brother’s murder, Miriam “Myriad” Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency whose agents are able to use time travel to go back in time for up to a week to stop crimes before they happen. Each agent is fitted with a transponder that debits an equivalent period of time from their life span to prevent them from going back further.
Randle’s partner - both professional and sexual - is Martin “Vax” Vaccaro and today’s assignment is to go to the Sleep Rite Motel and stop the co-owner from murdering his wife (who has been sleeping with his younger business owner) before committing suicide. It should be a straightforward job but something goes wrong and as a result, not only does the man still murder his wife, but Miriam is forced to kill him in turn.
Suspended from duty by LifeTime’s owner, Dr Cassidy, things go from bad to worse when Vax is shot and seriously wounded in his own apartment. As the only witness, Miriam knows that the attacker was a time traveller, but everyone else things that she’s responsible, especially when Dr Cassidy is also murdered in a locked room in which she was the only other occupant. This time, though, Miriam recognised the shooter - it’s the same man who murdered her brother 20 years before.
With Vax her only ally, Miriam must jump 7-days into the past to uncover who is trying to frame her and why …
Joshua David Bellin’s time travelling SF novel is a complicated, clever affair that is ultimately about trauma and its continued affects and the paradoxical effects of time travel (specifically the creation of alternate time lines and their ability to knot). At times I did find it difficult to follow and all of the characters here can be unpleasant and selifish, but I always believed in Miriam as a messy woman driven by her own history.
I picked this up because the blurb on the back made this sound a time travelling thriller, which is absolutely up my street. However, although there is a thriller element here with plenty of plot - Miriam is going into the past to uncover who is framing her and why - this is in some respects a more literary novel interested in how time travel works and what the effects of personal trauma are on an individual. That’s not to say that this is bad - I always have time for a book that makes me think while also entertaining me - but here, Bellin’s exploration of the subject does make for difficult reading at times. This is especially the case with how time travel works and the creation of alternate time lines and the knots that can be created, where I had to re-read relevant passages several times to try and understand them (and if I’m being really honest, I’m still not 100% sure that I do). Similarly, the passages where it’s revealed how time travel relates to trauma and PTSD were quite dense and I have to say that I would have liked the explanations to be broken down a little bit more into basic principles in order for me to keep track of everything.
Miriam herself is a complicated character. The key point is that she has never gotten over the murder of her brother and this shapes her relationships and also explains why there are times when she is an utter a-hole to everyone around her. Some of the scenes with Vax are difficult to read because she goes out of her way to be cruel and push him away (and there is a mirror here in later chapters, which are just as difficult). I wanted more of her relationship with her mum (who we only see as someone with early onset Alzheimer’s) to understand some of her drivers and personal history and how that worked with her father (who we learn devolved into alcoholism after the shooting). This is particularly the case with a revelation that comes about mid-way through the book and for which there is no significant foreshadowing and as a result of which feels tacked on.
The time travel elements (density aside) work well and Bellin has clearly thought through how this would operate and what it would be used for. In fact, a revelation here is very cleverly done in the final third of the book, which does make for some mind-bending possibilities. However I found the scenes involving Miriam’s discovery of the shooter to lack the punch they needed. In part this is because we don’t really know who that person was or why they took the action they did (Miriam’s thoughts on this at the end didn’t wholly convince me given what we learn about their other actions) and also because there just wasn’t enough emotion in their scenes with Miriam given what little we do learn about their background.
My gripes aside, I did find this to be an absorbing, thoughtful read about a complicated topic and I would very definitely check out Bellin’s other work on the strength of this.
The Verdict:
Joshua David Bellin’s time travelling SF novel is a complicated, clever affair that is ultimately about trauma and its continued affects and the paradoxical effects of time travel (specifically the creation of alternate time lines and their ability to knot). At times I did find it difficult to follow and all of the characters here can be unpleasant and selifish, but I always believed in Miriam as a messy woman driven by her own history.
MYRIAD was released in the United Kingdom on 23rd May 2023. Thanks to Angry Robot for the review copy of this book.
Miriam Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency that uses short-term time travel to prevent crimes from happening.
Though a seasoned time traveller, she is continually haunted by the death of her twin brother, whose murder remains unsolved years later.
When a routine assignment ends in a tragedy by Miriam’s hand, she finds herself mixed up in a conspiracy involving the highest levels of LifeTime. Forced to flee into the past with her partner Vax, Miriam races to unravel the truth before it’s too late.
But the past is filled with horrors Miriam would rather forget … including her brother’s killer.
It is 31 August 2017.
6-year-old Miriam Randle and her twin brother Jeremy have just started a new school in Pittsburgh, USA. Their mother, Dr Deborah Sayre, is a famous psychologist who has just taken a research role at Carnegie Mellon University and the family has moved state to be with her. Miriam is already nervous enough on her first day because it’s the first time she and Jeremy have been put in different classes and she misses him so when the school is targeted by a shooter, she knows she needs to be with her twin, only to see him gunned down in front of her by a strange man who then disappears in a flash of yellow light.
It is 31 August 2037.
Still traumatised by her brother’s murder, Miriam “Myriad” Randle works for LifeTime, a private law enforcement agency whose agents are able to use time travel to go back in time for up to a week to stop crimes before they happen. Each agent is fitted with a transponder that debits an equivalent period of time from their life span to prevent them from going back further.
Randle’s partner - both professional and sexual - is Martin “Vax” Vaccaro and today’s assignment is to go to the Sleep Rite Motel and stop the co-owner from murdering his wife (who has been sleeping with his younger business owner) before committing suicide. It should be a straightforward job but something goes wrong and as a result, not only does the man still murder his wife, but Miriam is forced to kill him in turn.
Suspended from duty by LifeTime’s owner, Dr Cassidy, things go from bad to worse when Vax is shot and seriously wounded in his own apartment. As the only witness, Miriam knows that the attacker was a time traveller, but everyone else things that she’s responsible, especially when Dr Cassidy is also murdered in a locked room in which she was the only other occupant. This time, though, Miriam recognised the shooter - it’s the same man who murdered her brother 20 years before.
With Vax her only ally, Miriam must jump 7-days into the past to uncover who is trying to frame her and why …
Joshua David Bellin’s time travelling SF novel is a complicated, clever affair that is ultimately about trauma and its continued affects and the paradoxical effects of time travel (specifically the creation of alternate time lines and their ability to knot). At times I did find it difficult to follow and all of the characters here can be unpleasant and selifish, but I always believed in Miriam as a messy woman driven by her own history.
I picked this up because the blurb on the back made this sound a time travelling thriller, which is absolutely up my street. However, although there is a thriller element here with plenty of plot - Miriam is going into the past to uncover who is framing her and why - this is in some respects a more literary novel interested in how time travel works and what the effects of personal trauma are on an individual. That’s not to say that this is bad - I always have time for a book that makes me think while also entertaining me - but here, Bellin’s exploration of the subject does make for difficult reading at times. This is especially the case with how time travel works and the creation of alternate time lines and the knots that can be created, where I had to re-read relevant passages several times to try and understand them (and if I’m being really honest, I’m still not 100% sure that I do). Similarly, the passages where it’s revealed how time travel relates to trauma and PTSD were quite dense and I have to say that I would have liked the explanations to be broken down a little bit more into basic principles in order for me to keep track of everything.
Miriam herself is a complicated character. The key point is that she has never gotten over the murder of her brother and this shapes her relationships and also explains why there are times when she is an utter a-hole to everyone around her. Some of the scenes with Vax are difficult to read because she goes out of her way to be cruel and push him away (and there is a mirror here in later chapters, which are just as difficult). I wanted more of her relationship with her mum (who we only see as someone with early onset Alzheimer’s) to understand some of her drivers and personal history and how that worked with her father (who we learn devolved into alcoholism after the shooting). This is particularly the case with a revelation that comes about mid-way through the book and for which there is no significant foreshadowing and as a result of which feels tacked on.
The time travel elements (density aside) work well and Bellin has clearly thought through how this would operate and what it would be used for. In fact, a revelation here is very cleverly done in the final third of the book, which does make for some mind-bending possibilities. However I found the scenes involving Miriam’s discovery of the shooter to lack the punch they needed. In part this is because we don’t really know who that person was or why they took the action they did (Miriam’s thoughts on this at the end didn’t wholly convince me given what we learn about their other actions) and also because there just wasn’t enough emotion in their scenes with Miriam given what little we do learn about their background.
My gripes aside, I did find this to be an absorbing, thoughtful read about a complicated topic and I would very definitely check out Bellin’s other work on the strength of this.
The Verdict:
Joshua David Bellin’s time travelling SF novel is a complicated, clever affair that is ultimately about trauma and its continued affects and the paradoxical effects of time travel (specifically the creation of alternate time lines and their ability to knot). At times I did find it difficult to follow and all of the characters here can be unpleasant and selifish, but I always believed in Miriam as a messy woman driven by her own history.
MYRIAD was released in the United Kingdom on 23rd May 2023. Thanks to Angry Robot for the review copy of this book.
