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a_beautiful_soup's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
jeanieag's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
jenpaul13's review against another edition
3.0
Some crimes are so bizarre that they defy logic and reason, taking years to understand and solve. But in The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch it's possible for special members of NCIS to travel through Deep Time to possible futures to get the leads needed to solve a case now.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
Shannon Moss is an NCIS investigator, seasoned in navigating Deep Space and Deep Time, but the case she's assigned to in 1997 of a slain family of a Navy SEAL, who was presumed MIA while on the disappeared Deep Time ship the U.S.S. Libra, and his missing daughter is wreaking havoc on both her personal life, with her connections to the location where the murders took place, and the future of the world, with the impending doom of Terminus moving closer and closer. In trying to find the missing girl, solve the case, and help prevent the end of the world, Shannon collaborates with standard law enforcement, but also travels to possible futures to gain clues to aid the current investigation.
Though reliant on science fiction elements to achieve time and space travel, as well as discuss a multiverse-esque possible futures scenario, the rest of the novel wasn't too sci-fi heavy and instead focused more on aspects of a crime procedural. I found it an intriguing concept to essentially work toward reverse engineering a point of divergence, where you know the future and you try to make the necessary modifications to the past to alter the events of the future to a more desirable outcome (although let's not say that the epilogue is a narratively desirable outcome)- ultimately it makes you question what reality is and how you're related to it. Various acronyms were used for quite a long time in the text before they were explained to the reader, which is something that I always find irksome, particularly in a novel where there are many acronyms or field-specific jargon in use.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
Shannon Moss is an NCIS investigator, seasoned in navigating Deep Space and Deep Time, but the case she's assigned to in 1997 of a slain family of a Navy SEAL, who was presumed MIA while on the disappeared Deep Time ship the U.S.S. Libra, and his missing daughter is wreaking havoc on both her personal life, with her connections to the location where the murders took place, and the future of the world, with the impending doom of Terminus moving closer and closer. In trying to find the missing girl, solve the case, and help prevent the end of the world, Shannon collaborates with standard law enforcement, but also travels to possible futures to gain clues to aid the current investigation.
Though reliant on science fiction elements to achieve time and space travel, as well as discuss a multiverse-esque possible futures scenario, the rest of the novel wasn't too sci-fi heavy and instead focused more on aspects of a crime procedural. I found it an intriguing concept to essentially work toward reverse engineering a point of divergence, where you know the future and you try to make the necessary modifications to the past to alter the events of the future to a more desirable outcome (although let's not say that the epilogue is a narratively desirable outcome)- ultimately it makes you question what reality is and how you're related to it. Various acronyms were used for quite a long time in the text before they were explained to the reader, which is something that I always find irksome, particularly in a novel where there are many acronyms or field-specific jargon in use.
marsius's review against another edition
5.0
One review called it something like True Detective meets Inception. I buy that, except 1) there’s a creeping sense of dread that pervades so much of the book, and 2) this is perhaps the only book I’ve read involving time manipulation that actually managed to maintain its own internal logic and resolve its own paradoxes.
hazzatronica's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.75
I stopped reading this book about halfway through, no fault of the book, and it was quite difficult to pick it back up again. It's a dope, gorey time travel book, but I found it kinda difficult to follow what was happening in the last 40 pages or so. Some very spooky, striking imagery.
djorgenson112358's review against another edition
5.0
Wow, so that was a ride. Weird, sci-fi, horror, murder mystery, time travel, alternate realities. Sounds like there was a lot going on. But it was really compact. Just spiraling in and out adding a layer here, changing out a layer there.
Also, it's really dark. Like end of the world, murders, blood and violence kind of dark.
Also, it's really dark. Like end of the world, murders, blood and violence kind of dark.
anteus7's review against another edition
5.0
I inhaled this book and then let it sit in my headspace for a bit before trying to review it. I don't think I'm going to do it justice.
The Gone World does several things that scratch itches I sometimes forget need scratching. The book starts right off squarely in cosmic horror territory, which is one of the itches.
The opening is bleak, cold, lonely, and all the other words one might come up with to describe the sucking sense of loss at the burnt-out end of the universe. We have an agent of some kind there trying to figure something out and failing horribly, and I had no idea what was going on. I find that this is one of my favorite reading states: a state of information deficiency. Scratch two.
Scratch three comes in the form the agent herself and her job. I guess I like mystery-adjacent things very much and should read more stories with an NCIS agent (or other governmental/military-type law enforcement agent).
There are more, but structuring a review according to itches scratched is getting silly.
I love that the book started off with the horror and then moved on into some pretty advanced sci-fi stuff, which often has the result of diffusing the horror. In this case, no amount of advanced technology was going to head off the Big Bad, which became more and more clear as the story progressed (or did it?).
I had a lot of fun picking up pieces and figuring out where they fit. This is a book I will have to revisit. I'm going to go and look for all of Sweterlitsch's books now, thanks.
The Gone World does several things that scratch itches I sometimes forget need scratching. The book starts right off squarely in cosmic horror territory, which is one of the itches.
The opening is bleak, cold, lonely, and all the other words one might come up with to describe the sucking sense of loss at the burnt-out end of the universe. We have an agent of some kind there trying to figure something out and failing horribly, and I had no idea what was going on. I find that this is one of my favorite reading states: a state of information deficiency. Scratch two.
Scratch three comes in the form the agent herself and her job. I guess I like mystery-adjacent things very much and should read more stories with an NCIS agent (or other governmental/military-type law enforcement agent).
There are more, but structuring a review according to itches scratched is getting silly.
I love that the book started off with the horror and then moved on into some pretty advanced sci-fi stuff, which often has the result of diffusing the horror. In this case, no amount of advanced technology was going to head off the Big Bad, which became more and more clear as the story progressed (or did it?).
I had a lot of fun picking up pieces and figuring out where they fit. This is a book I will have to revisit. I'm going to go and look for all of Sweterlitsch's books now, thanks.
stefano_cs's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0