Sam is a cybersecurity expert in the employ of DARPA, who discovers an envelope marked with a general’s name sitting on his dresser. Spooked by the idea of someone invading his home, Sam delivers the envelope to his higher-up and — within the week — finds himself sitting in a conference room. He’s being invited to join a top secret project…or leave DARPA altogether. With no real choice in the matter, and very curious as to what was in that envelope — Sam agrees. He soon learns that DARPA has been investigating the prospects of time travel, and the contents of that envelope were greatly helpful in locking in a few missing pieces. Soon a machine is ready for testing. China may be the world’s leading superpower and sole possessor of nuclear weapons, but now Uncle Sam has time on his side. The result is an interesting alt-history SF novel with some weaknesses, but generally enjoyable.

The book has the fun twist of beginning in the middle of things without the characters realizing it: the reader will almost immediately pick up on the fact that this isn’t our reality, and suspect that DC has not quite stolen the time-march on China as it thinks it has. Soon enough, Sam and his coworkers also realize something is off, as they begin investigating a series of murders clustered in the 1940s that derailed the American nuclear program. Is it possible that China has a time machine and has been manipulating events in the past? After an exploratory jaunt to 1942 Chicago, DARPA forms a military contingent to begin investigating possible incursions, but things get increasingly complicated as future-China begins countermeasures. It started to reminded me a bit of the plot-chaos of the Red Alert games, the first of which begins with a time-travel assassination of Hitler, and every succeeding game happening because of time-travel efforts to undermine the effects of the preceding games, ultimately leading to robot bears and George Takei as emperor of Japan.

Story-wise, it was certainly compelling: I began reading at lunch and continued after work, finishing the novel in the same day I began it. The premise alone made things fun, as did — for me — the constant study of his worldbuilding and efforts to understand what was leading to what. This is one of my favorite part of alt-history novels, sussing out the different changes. In this case, I suspect the author was a little negligent, as the world of the novel is our world but with China being the only ones having nuclear arms: this leads to odd things like the Green Zone existing in Afghanistan, which seems at odds with the other worldbuilding. If China is the sole superpower, I can’t imagine it being happy with Americans invading Central Asia — and frankly, if China is the sole superpower, that should have consequences for both Russia and American involvement in say, Afghanistan, and all the sorry fruit it bore, especially bin Laden. The writing was fairly servicable, if tending to tell more than show. I can see trying the other novels in this series, especially as this was a debut novel and the author’s craft may improve with ‘time’. (Ho-ho.)

Achievement Unlocked! Science Fiction Book Bingo Entry, “Strange New Worlds: A Title With Under 1000 Goodreads Ratings”.

Related:
The Accidental Time Machine, Joe Haldeman
Recursion, Blake Crouch