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rachelmanija Jun. 14th, 2021 08:15 am)
rachelmanija Jun. 14th, 2021 08:15 am)Shawn Inmon's Middle Falls Time Travel series is a set of interconnected but basically standalone Peggy Sue Got Married/Groundhog Day type of time travel books: a person dies, then is reset into their younger self. If they die before they've done what they need to do (some kind of self-improvement/self-knowledge) they reset to the same time.
The books I've read so far are all interestingly different despite the same basic premise, the same setting, and all being clearly written by a very earnest middle-aged straight white guy with more kindness than sophistication. The kindness is a big draw. His characters do things like volunteer at animal shelters and go on the road to give talks on safe sex and work on their relationship with their brothers, and this is all just as important as stopping a serial killer or saving John Lennon.
Characters doing clever things with time travel is rather hilariously not Inmon's strong suit. They vary in terms of how good they are at making use of future knowledge, but I have so far read three of these and in terms of them doing things that are entertainingly clever to the reader, there is very little of that. Even when they use their knowledge smartly, they use it in obvious ways: investing in Microsoft, driving a boy home so he won't die in a drunk driving accident, using their future knowledge to convince people that they know the future so they'll believe a warning. At one point, a character reveals that she has been plotting for ages to put away a criminal. When her cunning plan is finally revealed, it's to... report him to the police.
But the series isn't about doing neat things with time travel. It's about the choices people make, and how hard it can be to do better, and that there's many paths to becoming better and leading a better life.
(The frame is a generally terrible but thankfully minimal cliche bureaucratic afterlife. One book has an angel named Semolina.)
I've been reading the series out of order, which was a good idea for me as I finally got around to the first book and found that he improved a lot as a writer as he went along. I don't think I'd have continued if I'd started there.
His first book actually is a more conventional time travel story, and it's the worst one I've read so far. At age fifteen, Thomas Weaver tries to drive his drunk older brother home from a party; since he doesn't really know how to drive, they get in a crash and his brother is killed. (Note how Inmon doesn't go for the more usual "brother drove himself home" - his characters tend to try to help out, even if they do it badly.)
Everything goes wrong from there, until he's a fifty-year-old unemployed alcoholic living with his mother and commits suicide, only to wake up fifteen again...
This book has a lot of problems, including a rushed ending (Inmon later does very long endings that are slow but satisfying), a way-too-graphic serial killer plot, and Weaver making a million inexplicable, unmotivated choices because Inmon doesn't know how to plot yet.
He already knows that one of his classmates grows up to be a serial killer, so he follows him into the woods and finds his lair of animal torture. Thomas's older brother spots him and says that he always thought that guy was creepy, why was Thomas following him? For literally no stated reason, Thomas lies about everything rather than telling his brother. He could have thought that maybe his brother is fated to die and is afraid that getting him involved in a serial killer plot might cause that, but he doesn't. Later, he sees the serial killer kidnap his dog, but covers up the whole thing plus the dog rescue, even lying about it to his mother who definitely would have believed him, again for literally no stated reason. (Actual reason: once the cops get involved, the serial killer is arrested and that plot line ends.)
Spoiler for how he saves his brother. He takes away his keys and drives him home, but much more carefully.
Rebecca Wright is much much better, with a satisfying messiness about the odd turns people's lives take and not everything wrapped up neatly. Rebecca is an emotionally isolated, status and money-driven real estate agent in a loveless marriage, with a nanny actually mothering her kid. Her one genuine and loving emotional relationship is with her younger brother Duncan, and even that doesn't really blossom into intimacy until she finds out that he's gay when he gets AIDS and comes home to die.
She dies of old age, loveless and in poverty. And opens her eyes with her husband screaming that he's leaving her...
Rebecca proceeds to fix up her life, focusing on making tons of money in real estate. Inmon used to be a real estate agent, and you can tell: everything about her job is very plausible and fun. But she still lets the nanny mother her kid, and her attempt to save Duncan fails because he doesn't believe in her warning. She dies again, rich but unhappy. And opens her eyes with her husband screaming that he's leaving her...
This book took a number of turns I didn't expect. While her child is important, the really crucial relationship turns out to be with her brother. A lot of the book is the Rebecca-and-Duncan story, a lot of it a road trip including a lengthy and successful commercial for the Florida Keys, and when it finally does get back the "letting the nanny raise your kid" issue, it goes in an unexpected and delightful direction.
Rebecca's relationship with Maria, the nanny, is just as important as her relationship with her son. They end up becoming platonic life partners and raising their children together, with Duncan and his husband living next door, and that's the happy ending for all of them.
If you're curious about these books, The Changing Life of Joe Hart or The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright are good places to start.
The books I've read so far are all interestingly different despite the same basic premise, the same setting, and all being clearly written by a very earnest middle-aged straight white guy with more kindness than sophistication. The kindness is a big draw. His characters do things like volunteer at animal shelters and go on the road to give talks on safe sex and work on their relationship with their brothers, and this is all just as important as stopping a serial killer or saving John Lennon.
Characters doing clever things with time travel is rather hilariously not Inmon's strong suit. They vary in terms of how good they are at making use of future knowledge, but I have so far read three of these and in terms of them doing things that are entertainingly clever to the reader, there is very little of that. Even when they use their knowledge smartly, they use it in obvious ways: investing in Microsoft, driving a boy home so he won't die in a drunk driving accident, using their future knowledge to convince people that they know the future so they'll believe a warning. At one point, a character reveals that she has been plotting for ages to put away a criminal. When her cunning plan is finally revealed, it's to... report him to the police.
But the series isn't about doing neat things with time travel. It's about the choices people make, and how hard it can be to do better, and that there's many paths to becoming better and leading a better life.
(The frame is a generally terrible but thankfully minimal cliche bureaucratic afterlife. One book has an angel named Semolina.)
I've been reading the series out of order, which was a good idea for me as I finally got around to the first book and found that he improved a lot as a writer as he went along. I don't think I'd have continued if I'd started there.
His first book actually is a more conventional time travel story, and it's the worst one I've read so far. At age fifteen, Thomas Weaver tries to drive his drunk older brother home from a party; since he doesn't really know how to drive, they get in a crash and his brother is killed. (Note how Inmon doesn't go for the more usual "brother drove himself home" - his characters tend to try to help out, even if they do it badly.)
Everything goes wrong from there, until he's a fifty-year-old unemployed alcoholic living with his mother and commits suicide, only to wake up fifteen again...
This book has a lot of problems, including a rushed ending (Inmon later does very long endings that are slow but satisfying), a way-too-graphic serial killer plot, and Weaver making a million inexplicable, unmotivated choices because Inmon doesn't know how to plot yet.
He already knows that one of his classmates grows up to be a serial killer, so he follows him into the woods and finds his lair of animal torture. Thomas's older brother spots him and says that he always thought that guy was creepy, why was Thomas following him? For literally no stated reason, Thomas lies about everything rather than telling his brother. He could have thought that maybe his brother is fated to die and is afraid that getting him involved in a serial killer plot might cause that, but he doesn't. Later, he sees the serial killer kidnap his dog, but covers up the whole thing plus the dog rescue, even lying about it to his mother who definitely would have believed him, again for literally no stated reason. (Actual reason: once the cops get involved, the serial killer is arrested and that plot line ends.)
Spoiler for how he saves his brother. He takes away his keys and drives him home, but much more carefully.
Rebecca Wright is much much better, with a satisfying messiness about the odd turns people's lives take and not everything wrapped up neatly. Rebecca is an emotionally isolated, status and money-driven real estate agent in a loveless marriage, with a nanny actually mothering her kid. Her one genuine and loving emotional relationship is with her younger brother Duncan, and even that doesn't really blossom into intimacy until she finds out that he's gay when he gets AIDS and comes home to die.
She dies of old age, loveless and in poverty. And opens her eyes with her husband screaming that he's leaving her...
Rebecca proceeds to fix up her life, focusing on making tons of money in real estate. Inmon used to be a real estate agent, and you can tell: everything about her job is very plausible and fun. But she still lets the nanny mother her kid, and her attempt to save Duncan fails because he doesn't believe in her warning. She dies again, rich but unhappy. And opens her eyes with her husband screaming that he's leaving her...
This book took a number of turns I didn't expect. While her child is important, the really crucial relationship turns out to be with her brother. A lot of the book is the Rebecca-and-Duncan story, a lot of it a road trip including a lengthy and successful commercial for the Florida Keys, and when it finally does get back the "letting the nanny raise your kid" issue, it goes in an unexpected and delightful direction.
Rebecca's relationship with Maria, the nanny, is just as important as her relationship with her son. They end up becoming platonic life partners and raising their children together, with Duncan and his husband living next door, and that's the happy ending for all of them.
If you're curious about these books, The Changing Life of Joe Hart or The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright are good places to start.
