Turning the Hourglass by M J Keeley

I would like to thank the author for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Black Rose Publishing

Published - Out Now

Price - £3.27 Kindle eBook

Historian Dyrne Samson doesn’t want to read about the past anymore. Now he visits it.

Abandoning University lecturing he joins a classified research organisation, hidden beneath the streets of New London. Their time distortion pods let hi witness crucial moments throughout history, but when observing the past, Dyrne discovers that he can actually change it. Of course, visiting events from his own life is forbidden – the only reason he can’t return to the day he’ll never forget…unless he can manipulate the rules

The temptation of time travel is to see the past as it really happened.  While on holiday this week I would have loved to see what Ancient Rome looked like; felt like; smelt like (no scratch that idea) and in 2019 another reason time travel I think is popular is that we want to see if time can be rewritten. In M.J. Keeley’s novel we meet a historian who has the chance to do both and that may have consequences for the present as he knows it.

In the late 23rd century the world has begun to recover from fierce wars that have nearly destroyed the world. The population was in danger of being wiped out, so the world introduces the concept of metagenics – creating artificial organic life to help save the population. Despite being human in outward appearance and having emotions/feelings just like humans there is as always, a segment of the world that refuses to see people as their equals because they are in some way different.  Dyrne whole teaching history to a young metagenic teenager who was bullied and ultimately found dead has this as the eternal sin he can never put right – as a lecturer should he have acted differently. But now there is technology to seethe past and Dyrne finds himself able to step into the past and see the world as it was.  Part of a secret government initiative to understand the past better be it seeing Julius Caesar get assassinated or the events that led to the world’s near destruction Dyrne realises he can potentially influence the events that led to his student’s appearance at his university and eventual demise.

On the one hand I found the concept behind this story fascinating. Dyrne isn’t seeking to make a huge world changing change to the universe he just wants to save one life.  But to do that he has to weigh up his loyalty to the project and his relationship with the few friends he has made in his new life.  Keeley is very good at capturing that self-doubt and eternal discomfort Dyrne feels in never being able to be honest with anyone about his true motives. That really powers the novel and his ultimate decision was what kept me reading to the end.

However, the novel moves at a glacial pace. It is nearly halfway before Dyrne gets a chance to visit the moments in history that he has studied and the build-up up tot that is just a lot of scenes about Dyrne’s self-doubt. Very little actually happens up to that moment which considering the premise feels like an opportunity missed. Even once time travel starts, we see that the traveller’s ability is more to move the odd object rather than say or do anything that really would make an impact.  I’d have loved a lot more action – Dyrne is supposed to be someone who has dedicated himself to doing this one thing for several years and yet across the novel I saw someone more nervous and fuller of hesitation that I couldn’t match the two character’s together. I think part of this is the worldbuilding here is very very limited to a research station and the researcher’s homes.  I never really get a sense of the wider world and what is going on in it. There should be a rich seam of society to mine and that never really gets looked at in any detail as Dyrne is so introverted they rarely do anything but work. I never felt like I was in the world or understood why it was the way it was.

Overall, I found this a good idea that was not being used to its full extent and would think this could have worked more as a novella rather than a novel. There are lots of lots of good ideas being raised here but it needed a bit more drive and sense of scale to make the idea and the ramifications of changing the past to be a more dramatic read.