Version Control

"History lives in the gap between information and the truth."

Let me get this out of the way: Version Control - Dexter Palmer's second novel - is BRILLIANT. Recurrent readers know that I don't often slap on such high praise.

It might just be the best 2016 book I've read, and it might just be the best book I've read so far this year. It's either this or Zero K for both questions - I'm having a hard time deciding. It doesn't really matter anyway. Then again, maybe Version Control might have one thing speaking against it that Zero K has less of. More on that later, especially as this one thing doesn't really matter right now.

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The other Big Sci-Fi Thing in Version Control is the Time Machine. This is actually the first time travel novel I have ever read that gets things right: there is nothing of the time travel paradox to be found in so many other stories. Maybe this is because, again, this is not really really a time travel story to begin with. There's none of the cool robots from the future as in Terminator 2, nor does it feature Vikings in a shopping mall as in The Rise And Fall Of D.O.D.O. Version Control is more in line with Groundhog Day and the German movie Lola Rennt, but it is nonetheless its own thing, and very much so.

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For the sake of analysis, let me point out how this novel uses the concept of time travel and something often connected with it: changing events that happened, killing Hitler, trying to change future events.

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Please read the full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It...