Expect Me Tomorrow
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Average rating3.5
A petty thief who called himself John Smith was arrested in 1877, for theft through fraudulent behaviour. He was convicted and sent to prison. In 1852, Adler and Adolf Beck's father died on a glacier, and their lives separated. One became a respected climate scientist; the other a globally renowned opera singer, or so he claimed. They remained in touch, to share details of the mysterious voices only they could hear. In 2050, Charles Ramsey also has a twin. Greg is a climate journalist. Charles used to be a police profiler, but his redundancy leads to him being sent home with an experimental chip in his head. His brother urges him to explore a little-known aspect of their family history. All these people are connected, impossibly, inexorably. All their lives will intersect. And the climate of their world will keep on changing.
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This book really played games with me. In an age where science fiction is often either dystopian or hopeful, this book is kind of both and kind of neither. I felt like I never quite knew what the book was leading up to or why the story was moving in the direction it was. But rather than feeling frustrated, I always wanted a little more. It often felt like an “unreliable narrator” story, except that it wasn't a character that was unreliable so much as the plot itself. Every time I thought I had a grip of what was going on, it slipped into something else entirely.
Much of the history is based on real places and events. The bits about the crime read more like a non-fiction story about an interesting trial, complete with photos and examples of evidence. Likewise, the future chapters are well researched, though often painfully bleak. That said, it's bleak for a reason, and is not totally without hope.
This book really hits the mark in the “makes you think” category. The main characters seemed to affect one another's consciousness in ways that left me wondering about the story well after I finished reading it. However, I wasn't a fan of the sparse and often dry writing style, or the story's tendency to leave strange events unexplained. That's not to say it's poorly written; it represents the first-person perspectives of the characters, none of whom had a clear idea of what was going on. I don't always mind restrictive perspectives or sparse writing, but perhaps because I didn't care too much for the characters - I found them generally uninteresting - it was hard for me to embrace their perspectives. I always considered myself a “concept-driven” reader, but these days I need a character with some depth to them as well to really enjoy a book.
Another very « usual » Priest when it comes to pacing, style, and tone. This time, the author focuses on climate change and discusses in great details about the hopes and the nightmares. The overall experience is, as « usual », delicious and hypnotising, ending abruptly but in an emotional way.
