Please Recommend Some More Time-Glitch Novels Like These!
August 1, 2024 6:20 AM Subscribe
In Replay, the protagonist repeatedly dies and wakes up again as a teenager, in Neverworld Wake they get stuck repeating time, in The Fermata they can pause time, in The Time Traveller's Wife, they move back and forth in time, in Annie LeBlanc Is Not Dead Yet they get resurrected for 30 days. What are other time-glitch novels like these? (I think the Every Day novels count too, experiencing each day as a different person).
In the 7-1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, the narrator repeats the same series of events but each time inhabiting the body of a different person.
posted by vacapinta at 6:53 AM on August 1 [6 favorites]
posted by vacapinta at 6:53 AM on August 1 [6 favorites]
Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis takes an idea from one paragraph of Slaughterhouse Five and spins it out to book length.
Also: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
posted by rd45 at 6:54 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Also: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
posted by rd45 at 6:54 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. A woman is born over and over again. In each new life she is sometimes able to apply lessons learned in the previous life. Ignore the BBC series.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 6:54 AM on August 1 [13 favorites]
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 6:54 AM on August 1 [13 favorites]
Just coming in to say Life After Life as well.
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 6:55 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Martha My Dear Prudence at 6:55 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
If you’d like a TV version of this, Russian Doll (Netflix) is really great.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 6:56 AM on August 1 [10 favorites]
posted by Sweetie Darling at 6:56 AM on August 1 [10 favorites]
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. The protagonist lives his life during the same time period over and over.
posted by Maeve at 7:00 AM on August 1 [7 favorites]
posted by Maeve at 7:00 AM on August 1 [7 favorites]
Not sure if it is quite a fit but The Other Valley's premise is that people can travel forward and backward and time by traversing space from one valley to the next. There is an infrastructure set up that allows people to occasionally visit other times under certain circumstances, and to enforce the rules around that. I loved it.
posted by synecdoche at 7:00 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by synecdoche at 7:00 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
In Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, the protagonist repeats her life over and over. Sometimes it's a long life; sometimes... not so long.
In The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, the protagonist resets to childhood every time he dies.
In Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale, the protagonist can rewind time, just a little. Early on, you will be thinking you know where this story is going. You will probably be wrong.
In Growing Up Again by Catriona McCloud, the middle-aged protagonist finds herself 15 again. I read this one a long time ago, but it's stuck with me as something I enjoyed.
Adjacent concept: in My Real Children by Jo Walton, the protagonist is an elderly woman remembering her life... and also her other life. Two incompatible sets of memories of the same lifetime.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:01 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
In The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, the protagonist resets to childhood every time he dies.
In Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale, the protagonist can rewind time, just a little. Early on, you will be thinking you know where this story is going. You will probably be wrong.
In Growing Up Again by Catriona McCloud, the middle-aged protagonist finds herself 15 again. I read this one a long time ago, but it's stuck with me as something I enjoyed.
Adjacent concept: in My Real Children by Jo Walton, the protagonist is an elderly woman remembering her life... and also her other life. Two incompatible sets of memories of the same lifetime.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:01 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
I recently re-read The Man Who Folded Himself. Apparently the author meant to use a different f-word in the title.
As per TV Tropes:
As per TV Tropes:
The story follows Daniel, a college student, whose uncle increases his allowance (to help with living expenses) if he promises to keep a journal. After his uncle dies, Daniel inherits a "Timebelt" that allows him to travel in time so he goes into the future, meets his future self and makes a large winning on the horse races. Soon after he realises he has to accompany his younger self to the previous day at the horse races and make the same results.posted by tripsix at 7:03 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Singularity is a YA novel I enjoyed as a youth. It revolves around a time glitch and a set of twins. Basically they discover a mysterious place where time flows differently than the rest of the world.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:10 AM on August 1 [4 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:10 AM on August 1 [4 favorites]
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel has time travel and is great.
posted by saladin at 7:19 AM on August 1 [5 favorites]
posted by saladin at 7:19 AM on August 1 [5 favorites]
Nth on Life After Life and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. I love books like this and am eagerly following this post.
Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
"Reincarnation Blues is the story of a man who has been reincarnated nearly 10,000 times, in search of the secret to immortality so that he can be with his beloved, the incarnation of Death."
Matt Haig:
How To Stop Time
"Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life."
The Midnight Library
"When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.
The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger."
posted by indexy at 7:20 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore
"Reincarnation Blues is the story of a man who has been reincarnated nearly 10,000 times, in search of the secret to immortality so that he can be with his beloved, the incarnation of Death."
Matt Haig:
How To Stop Time
"Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life."
The Midnight Library
"When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.
The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger."
posted by indexy at 7:20 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Ted Chiang's novella Story of your Life plays with time and our perception of it.
Not sure how to describe it without spoiling it though.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:21 AM on August 1 [7 favorites]
Not sure how to describe it without spoiling it though.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 7:21 AM on August 1 [7 favorites]
The short story ”Now Wait For This Week,” does this in a way that seems sort of trite at first and then really isn’t.
posted by mai at 7:25 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
posted by mai at 7:25 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Lynn Abbey's Out of Time series. Review of the first one here. The time travel gets more glitchy as the series goes on.
Lots of British children's books - Charlotte Sometimes, Tom's Midnight Garden, A Tale of Time City. Alan Garner's Red Shift, which is YA or adult.
posted by paduasoy at 8:08 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Lots of British children's books - Charlotte Sometimes, Tom's Midnight Garden, A Tale of Time City. Alan Garner's Red Shift, which is YA or adult.
posted by paduasoy at 8:08 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
I thought of a couple more...
Do you read manga? All You Need Is Kill by Ryōsuke Takeuchi and Takeshi Obata is a science fiction story, complete at two volumes (the edition I've linked is an omnibus). The protagonist dies in battle against aliens every day, only to wake again the next morning. I gather there's a film based on it (Edge of Tomorrow).
In Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, the protagonist watches in horror as her son kills a stranger... then wakes the next morning to find that it's actually the previous morning, and carries on moving backwards a day at a time until [read it and find out!].
I would swear I'd read something else in the last decade where a female protagonist dies over and over, possibly in more of a lives-of-Christopher-Chant sort of a way than a go-back-and-start-over one, but I can't catch hold of title or author, and the web is sure I mean Life after Life. So I may be making it up. I'll come back if I figure it out.
Speaking of lives-of-Christopher-Chant, you might find it fruitful to explore the works of Diana Wynne Jones. Quite a few deal with time in one way or another, some in ways that might scratch the itch... but unfortunately, if I tell you which ones, I'll be spoiling some excellent plot twists. Fortunately though, she's a brilliant author, so reading through the lot won't be wasted time.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:12 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Do you read manga? All You Need Is Kill by Ryōsuke Takeuchi and Takeshi Obata is a science fiction story, complete at two volumes (the edition I've linked is an omnibus). The protagonist dies in battle against aliens every day, only to wake again the next morning. I gather there's a film based on it (Edge of Tomorrow).
In Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, the protagonist watches in horror as her son kills a stranger... then wakes the next morning to find that it's actually the previous morning, and carries on moving backwards a day at a time until [read it and find out!].
I would swear I'd read something else in the last decade where a female protagonist dies over and over, possibly in more of a lives-of-Christopher-Chant sort of a way than a go-back-and-start-over one, but I can't catch hold of title or author, and the web is sure I mean Life after Life. So I may be making it up. I'll come back if I figure it out.
Speaking of lives-of-Christopher-Chant, you might find it fruitful to explore the works of Diana Wynne Jones. Quite a few deal with time in one way or another, some in ways that might scratch the itch... but unfortunately, if I tell you which ones, I'll be spoiling some excellent plot twists. Fortunately though, she's a brilliant author, so reading through the lot won't be wasted time.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:12 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
You might like the Chronicles of St Mary's series by Jodi Taylor. Some of it is straight time travel, they are historians going back to observe famous events in real time. But there is plenty of glitches and things don't always go as planned. There is a spin off series called The Time Police.
posted by soelo at 8:22 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
You might like the Chronicles of St Mary's series by Jodi Taylor. Some of it is straight time travel, they are historians going back to observe famous events in real time. But there is plenty of glitches and things don't always go as planned. There is a spin off series called The Time Police.
posted by soelo at 8:22 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
"As agents Red and Blue travel back and forth through time, altering the history of multiple universes on behalf of their warring empires, they leave each other secret messages—at first taunting, but gradually developing into flirtation then love. "
posted by indexy at 8:23 AM on August 1 [8 favorites]
"As agents Red and Blue travel back and forth through time, altering the history of multiple universes on behalf of their warring empires, they leave each other secret messages—at first taunting, but gradually developing into flirtation then love. "
posted by indexy at 8:23 AM on August 1 [8 favorites]
Connie Willis! My favorites are: Doomsday Book is the first in the Oxford Time Travel series, Blackout is the first in the All Clear series. These are series of 2.
11/22/63 by Stephen King!
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is ultimately a time traveler story.
posted by RoadScholar at 8:31 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
11/22/63 by Stephen King!
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is ultimately a time traveler story.
posted by RoadScholar at 8:31 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
I would swear I'd read something else in the last decade where a female protagonist dies over and over
Got it! The First Time Lauren Pailing Died, by Alyson Rudd.
Quoting from the blurb:
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:38 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Got it! The First Time Lauren Pailing Died, by Alyson Rudd.
Quoting from the blurb:
Lauren Pailing is born in the sixties, and a child of the seventies. She is thirteen years old the first time she dies.I read it very early in 2020, which I guess explains why it feels like a decade has happened since.
Lauren Pailing is a teenager in the eighties, becomes a Londoner in the nineties. And each time she dies, new lives begin for the people who loved her – while Lauren enters a brand new life, too.
But in each of Lauren’s lives, a man called Peter Stanning disappears. And, in each of her lives, Lauren sets out to find him.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:38 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. Thursday has a pet Dodo and a very interesting job that involves travelling through books. The first volume is The Eyre Affair.
posted by Enid Lareg at 8:57 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Enid Lareg at 8:57 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
I though the OP was specifically requesting time-glitch novels, in contrast to the far-more-common time travel novels. Not sure which qualify as "glitch" but
in The Time Traveller's Wife, they move back and forth in time
No, he moves back and forth, uncontrollably, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. But given that example, sounds like any time-travel story is fair game, okay! But some more examples based on the OP's question:
in The Fermata they can pause time
If this idea intrigues there's a couple of Twilight Zones you should know about: in the original series, A Kind of a Stop-watch and in the 1980s series, A Little Peace and Quiet.
posted by Rash at 9:39 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
in The Time Traveller's Wife, they move back and forth in time
No, he moves back and forth, uncontrollably, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five. But given that example, sounds like any time-travel story is fair game, okay! But some more examples based on the OP's question:
in The Fermata they can pause time
If this idea intrigues there's a couple of Twilight Zones you should know about: in the original series, A Kind of a Stop-watch and in the 1980s series, A Little Peace and Quiet.
posted by Rash at 9:39 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore
Recursion by Blake Crouch
posted by willnot at 10:09 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Recursion by Blake Crouch
posted by willnot at 10:09 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
and carries on moving backwards a day at a time until
The backwards-time story I like is Divine Madness by Roger Zelazny.
posted by Rash at 10:23 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
The backwards-time story I like is Divine Madness by Roger Zelazny.
posted by Rash at 10:23 AM on August 1 [1 favorite]
In All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, a complex time travelling scheme (even accounting for the different position of the Earth as orbits the Sun!) deposits a man from a peaceful, productive version of our world into the world as we know it... which he regards as a shitty, dystopian wasteland.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:27 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:27 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Sounds like Philip K. Dick's Time Out Of Joint but that one's really more 'Truman Show' than time travel.
posted by Rash at 10:35 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
posted by Rash at 10:35 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister - she wakes up each day on a different day in her past - she knows it, no one else does. Super interesting way to tell the story.
posted by dpx.mfx at 10:46 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
posted by dpx.mfx at 10:46 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel has time travel and is great.
I would also like to recommend Sea of Tranquility which has time travel and is great.
posted by phunniemee at 11:29 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
I would also like to recommend Sea of Tranquility which has time travel and is great.
posted by phunniemee at 11:29 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Not sure it's a perfect fit but Octavia Butler's Kindred is centered around a time glitch of sorts, with the protagonist repeatedly pulled back in time to the plantation where her ancestors were enslaved in the 1800s.
Also, as far as Ted Chiang stories go, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is more directly about time travel than "Story of Your Life", although it explores some of the same themes -- and I wouldn't call it "glitching" per se since the travel is deliberately undertaken by the characters.
posted by egregious theorem at 12:06 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Also, as far as Ted Chiang stories go, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is more directly about time travel than "Story of Your Life", although it explores some of the same themes -- and I wouldn't call it "glitching" per se since the travel is deliberately undertaken by the characters.
posted by egregious theorem at 12:06 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Connie Willis is absolutely who you want. She has lots of time travel / time glitching books and multiple stories in the same universe; they're all pretty great. The four main novels are To Say Nothing of the Dog, lighthearted fun with lots of time travel glitching, Doomsday Book, dark and haunting. Lights Out and All Clear, a duology focused on WWII.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:08 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:08 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Oh, also, Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:09 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:09 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
I also like this kind of book. One book I've read that scratches the itch but in a different way is Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It is about a cafe in Tokyo where you can go back in time — once — and you can only stay in the previous time until your coffee gets cold.
posted by rednikki at 12:12 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by rednikki at 12:12 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Do you like comic books? Because central to the plot of House of X and Powers of X -- two X-Men miniseries both written by Jonathan Hickman and released in 2019 -- is a character with a previously undisclosed power of resurrective immortality. Without giving too much plot away, this person works towards mutant/human peace, previously failed and was killed, and discovered that the timeline resets to the moment of their birth, retaining memories.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 12:54 PM on August 1
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 12:54 PM on August 1
As "The Pluto Gangsta" mentioned comic books first, let me suggest "Paradox Girl". She has the ability to travel anywhere and anywhen. She's messed with her own timeline so much she no longer has an origin story. She has no sense of punctuality, because she can't be late. And her future selves keep stealing the last box of her favorite banana flavored waffles.
(Collected into a six issue mega-omnibus)
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 1:21 PM on August 1
(Collected into a six issue mega-omnibus)
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 1:21 PM on August 1
The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August by Claire North is the book you are looking for.
It is a very unique take on the time travel novel about a man forced to relive his life over and over again (ala Groundhogs Day).
I totally expected to hate it but it is the only book, in about 20 years, that I have read in one sitting. I simply could not put it down.
Highly recommended.
posted by hoodrich at 5:08 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
It is a very unique take on the time travel novel about a man forced to relive his life over and over again (ala Groundhogs Day).
I totally expected to hate it but it is the only book, in about 20 years, that I have read in one sitting. I simply could not put it down.
Highly recommended.
posted by hoodrich at 5:08 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Middlegame was the first book that came to mind.
Also seconding the recommendation for The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August!
posted by inexorably_forward at 5:40 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Also seconding the recommendation for The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August!
posted by inexorably_forward at 5:40 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka is the light novel, non-Manga telling of the story mentioned by ManyLeggedCreature above, which is indeed the source of the Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt movie Edge Of Tomorrow (a surprisingly decent adaptation, in my opinion).
posted by lhauser at 6:00 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by lhauser at 6:00 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Seconding Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale.
I think The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry might fit your criteria.
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley.
I love Connie Willis, but her time travel stories that I can think of are deliberate time travel, not glitches.
posted by Kriesa at 6:15 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
I think The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry might fit your criteria.
The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley.
I love Connie Willis, but her time travel stories that I can think of are deliberate time travel, not glitches.
posted by Kriesa at 6:15 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Come Again by Robert Webb is a clippy comedy/thriller second-chance time-travel novel, best experienced as an audiobook narrated by OLIVIA COLMAN.
May be available through a public library near you.
posted by jyorraku at 7:31 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
May be available through a public library near you.
posted by jyorraku at 7:31 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days is wonderful!
posted by paper scissors sock at 7:41 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by paper scissors sock at 7:41 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Wow: I did *not* expect so many responses - thank you, all!
(I remembered another one too: in The Age of Miracles, the rotation of the earth slows and days gradually get looonger.)
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 3:38 AM on August 2
(I remembered another one too: in The Age of Miracles, the rotation of the earth slows and days gradually get looonger.)
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 3:38 AM on August 2
Philip K. Dick's Counter-Clock World, and Martian Time Slip are both probably in this genre. The latter is the more developed novel.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:00 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:00 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
Mod note: [Every morning we wake up, turn off the alarm clock, and add this post to the sidebar and Best Of blog.]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:49 AM on August 3 [6 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:49 AM on August 3 [6 favorites]
Another strong vote for Alice Sola Kim's "Now Wait for This Week." Like many other readers have reported, I initially didn't know what to do with the ending, and so my first reaction was "Great, weird story, except for the end." A few re-reads later and the baffling ending seems crucial to the story's skewed dream-logic: I don't know what to do with it, but damn it's good.
For some reason, it reminds me of Joy Harjo's amazing and very brief "The Flood," which isn't quite time-glitching but a sense of mythic return.
And Kim's story is anthologized in the terrific 2019 collection A People's Future of the United States (co-edited by Victor LaValle), which also has stories by Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, N. K. Jemisin, and Omar El Akkad, among others.
posted by vitia at 12:45 PM on August 3
For some reason, it reminds me of Joy Harjo's amazing and very brief "The Flood," which isn't quite time-glitching but a sense of mythic return.
And Kim's story is anthologized in the terrific 2019 collection A People's Future of the United States (co-edited by Victor LaValle), which also has stories by Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, N. K. Jemisin, and Omar El Akkad, among others.
posted by vitia at 12:45 PM on August 3
One could stretch the argument, perhaps, that "time-glitch" novels center around twinned thematics of memory and determinism, in which case the list of available candidates might open up to include, say, Beloved, Finnegan's Wake, Invisible Man, Lolita, Remembrance of Things Past, The Sound and the Fury, Midnight's Children, et cetera. . .
posted by vitia at 1:02 PM on August 3
posted by vitia at 1:02 PM on August 3
Recursion by Blake Crouch might fit.
posted by tkappleton at 12:22 PM on August 4
posted by tkappleton at 12:22 PM on August 4
A lot of good recommendations in here, particularly Evelyn Hardcastle and Harry August.
Another that springs to mind is Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell. The lead character can travel through time for reasons that are never explained, but he spends every birthday in a particular abandoned hotel in New York on the same day in 2071, surrounded by his other selves from other years.
The year he turns 39, he finds the body of his 40-year-old self, killed by a gunshot wound to the head. The "glitch" part comes from the fact that there are versions of him in the hotel who are older than 40. So he has less than a year to prevent his own murder and prevent his future selves from being wiped out.
It doesn't entirely hold together, but it's a great concept and a clever book that is worth reading.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:17 AM on August 6
Another that springs to mind is Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell. The lead character can travel through time for reasons that are never explained, but he spends every birthday in a particular abandoned hotel in New York on the same day in 2071, surrounded by his other selves from other years.
The year he turns 39, he finds the body of his 40-year-old self, killed by a gunshot wound to the head. The "glitch" part comes from the fact that there are versions of him in the hotel who are older than 40. So he has less than a year to prevent his own murder and prevent his future selves from being wiped out.
It doesn't entirely hold together, but it's a great concept and a clever book that is worth reading.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:17 AM on August 6
timestorm by gordon dickson, though that's a glitch affecting everyone, not just one person
children of the light by susan weston, though i found it awfully grim.
posted by Clowder of bats at 8:29 PM on August 6
children of the light by susan weston, though i found it awfully grim.
posted by Clowder of bats at 8:29 PM on August 6
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posted by eirias at 6:26 AM on August 1 [6 favorites]