Arcadia

After nearly two months of struggle, this book is at an end. Note to author - if you create software for a book, plan to support it as long as you would support the book, in multiple mediums. Not available for me - though I'm not sure it would have made the reading better.

Author Iain Pears reportedly laid this complex story out on a computer, with various characters interacting others in multiple stories. In short, a future dystopia, a fantasy setting, and a recent historical setting (contemporary with CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien). If you consider each of these as separate stories, the first two are fairly weak. Mixing everything together with interspersed chapters weakens them further, and doesn't strengthen the recent history. In short, reading this book cover to cover was not fun.

The very full cast of characters have their own motivations, and strong females easily surpass the average males here. Unfortunately, the perspective shifts frequently, sometimes mid-chapter. Some are nods or name-alikes for other authors and stories, which fits in the fantasy world but nowhere else.

Perhaps the most interesting part is the theory of time travel demonstrated here. Characters can go back into the past and alter history - with a corresponding alteration of the future. The main character describes this as a balancing act. Not predestination, but a way of time encouraging the universe to fit a standard "pattern" of time. Stephen King's "obdurate" would be an appropriate description.

That said, there are flaws also. I can't go into them closely without spoilers, but some would be right at home on Star Trek, including a transporter malfunction. Unexpected and unwelcome, they leave me with more questions than answers. The thin plots are insufficient to help.

If the app were available (or replaced with a website), I *might* be able to give the stories of a selected character a better rating. The cover-to-cover story barely rates 2 stars, "it was okay" in Goodreads parlance. One thing is for certain - I am glad to be done.