Author: Sean
Ferrell
Title: The Man in the Empty Suit
Description: The
narrator—we never learn his name—invented time travel, and to celebrate, he
throws a party on the 100th anniversary of his birth, to which he
travels every time he has aged 365 days. The year he gets to wear The Suit,
he’s excited about visiting the party, but something happens that has never
happened before—one of his selves turns up dead, and it’s a self that’s not too
far in the future from him. If he wants to continue to live, he has to use the
clues he’s left himself to figure out how to prevent the killing. A beautiful
woman shows up at the party as well, and who she is and why she came—and how to
save her life—become other puzzles that the narrator must solve before time
runs out.
Review source: Netgalley
Plot: The first
half of the book had me totally gripped. This kind of self-referential time
travel is fascinating. I thought the book slowed a little once the narrator
left the party.
Characters: The
narrator is the main character—the ONLY character for much of the book, though
he shows up in many incarnations, which he names (the Youngsters, including the
Inventor, and the Elders, including Seventy, Yellow, and the Screwdriver. Not
to mention the Body.) In many ways he is completely self-absorbed and
self-focused—which makes sense, since he is the only person he interacts
with—but when he leaves the party, he suddenly becomes selfless, which strikes
me as a little artificial.
Writing style: The
author keeps things moving briskly for the first half of the book, but then the
action slows way down. I have to admit that by the end I was mighty confused. I
could probably have worked things out with an elaborate diagram of who was
tethered to whom, as I’m sure Ferrell did, but I didn’t want to go to the
bother.
Audience: Science
fiction, time travel, or mystery fans.
Wrap-up: You’ll
probably want to turn to page 1 and read it again, just to figure everything
out. 3.5/5*
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