This is a sophisticated book, long and meandering, which makes sense as it follows a character destined to live, die and be born again with his memory in tact, ad infinitum; a strange sort of immortality.
After his entirely ordinary first life (and death), it takes Harry August a couple more (believing himself mad, possessed or cursed), before he is found by others of his kind and initiated into The Cronus Club. This shadowy organisation exists to support and shelter its members (the Ouroboran), and defend the secret of its own existence. Other than rescuing Ouroboran children from their linear parents to save them from the boredom of endlessly repeating their childhoods, the club is mostly social in nature, though it does have one strict rule: No interfering with linear time.
It is on his eleventh death bed, that Harry receives a message. A small girl bearing a warning passed back in time through future generations of Ouroboran that something is wrong. The end of the world is getting faster.
Already a little tired of immortality, Harry begins an investigation into the cause of this acceleration, a search which gets him entangled with a formidable nemesis, and leads to a ferocious battle of wits played out across multiple lives, while the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
“Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you’re not helping people, just servicing the machine.”
The premise is intriguing, and underneath the skilful world-building and juicy vignettes about life as a Ouroboran, the text is full of big questions about what it means to live well. On its release, it received widespread praise in the media and had since reached Bestseller status, extremely impressive for a book of this length and complexity. If you have the patience for it, it’s well-written, expertly crafted and rich which space for contemplation.
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Buy on kindle £4.99
Paperback from World of Books £4.19
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