A River Called Time by Courttia Newland

I would like to thank Canongate for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher - Canongate

Published - 7th January

Price - £16.99 Hardcover

The Ark was built to save the lives of the many, but rapidly became a refuge for the elite, the entrance closed without warning.

Years after the Ark was cut off from the world, a chance of survival within its confines is granted to a select few who can prove their worth. Among their number is Markriss Denny, whose path to future excellence is marred only by a closely guarded secret: without warning, his spirit leaves his body, allowing him to see and experience a world far beyond his physical limitations.

Once inside the Ark, Denny learns of another with the same power, whose existence could spell catastrophe for humanity. He is forced into a desperate race to understand his abilities, and in doing so uncovers the truth about the Ark, himself and the people he thought he once knew.

Set in an alternate world where slavery and colonialism never happened, Newland's staggering novel is both a timely exploration of social inequality and a story about love, loyalty and the search for the truth.

I love being taken to new places in my specualtive fiction. But I also need to see progression in more than just your world. It is 2021 and certain tropes are well past their sell-by date. I’m afraid that A River Called Time by Courttia Newland ended up a story that started promising but I found went down a very familiar path and soon lost my goodwill towards it.

We come to Dnium in 2000 we meet Markiss a young eight year ol boy who finds himself knocked off his bike by a vision of something beyond his comprehension. This happened again and his younger brother dies unexpectedly. Markirss has another experience as one of his best friends assaulted his lower seeing them in an out of body experience. Moving this aside Markiss studies hard to reach the sacred place of learning The Ark. He succeeds and finds inside them yet more fractured societies of rick and poor. He works for a propaganda newspaper and finds himself attracting attention of rebels. Finally it is revealed Markriss has abilities not seen for 5000 years and he can channel his ka to move between physical and astral worlds. Then he jumps into parallel versions of his life and then….and then and then and etc

This story lost me I am afraid to say and I’m very disappointed as the first fifth of the novel had a compelling voice and ideas. A world where colonisation did not happen instead of a peaceful merging of cultures sounds fascinating, Markriss initially seems a compelling young man trying to make sense of the world. But two things jump out - the female characters are wafer thin and in one scene his officemates all seem fascinated that two beautiful women love him. His assaulted schoolfriends come and go with little thought to their assault and his mother is exposition rather than a character in her own right. The world building is poor. Having a fractious outside world of rich and poor but then having an internal locked up world of further division really didn’t gel. Finally with little forewarning we find Markiss is a Chosen One and soon given a whistle stop tour of powers without him asking any sensible question just taking things on trust.

I would also add that the style is overly descriptive and exposition heavy - we are not being allowed to explore the world just constant infodumps to set up the next chapter.

I love diversity in fiction and this has an interesting culture that could have been explored a lot more but instead uses old school SF ideas and reheats the sexism of the past that even five years ago would have been called out. Hugely disappointing and sadly not recommended