A Second Chance For Yesterday by R A Sinn
Publisher - Solaris
Published - Out Now
Price - £16.99 hardback £7.99 Kindle eBook
Nev Bourne is a hotshot programmer for the latest and greatest tech invention out there: SavePoint, the brain implant that rewinds the seconds of all our most embarrassing moments. She’s been working non-stop on the next rollout, even blowing off her boyfriend, her best friend and her family to make SavePoint 2.0. But when she hits go on the test-run, she wakes up the next day only to discover it's yesterday. She's falling backwards in time, one day at a time.
As things spiral out of control, a long-lost friend from college reappears in her life claiming they know how to save her. Airin is charming and mysterious, and somehow knows Nev intimately well. Desperate and intrigued, Nev takes a leap of faith. A friendship born of fear slowly becomes a bond of deepest trust, and possibly love. With time running out, and the whole world of SavePoint users at stake, Nev must learn what it will take to set things right, and what it will cost.
The chance to reset our lives has always held a deep attraction. Not say those words, be there on time and who knows perhaps our lives would be better? It is a rich theme in SF from Doctor Who, Star Trek and Groundhog Day. In RA Sinn’s SF novel this is explored with a focus on the future and changing your life but I found it a bit of a disappointment.
Nev is a skilled software programmer working on a top secret project. Suddenly Nev finds they’re floating in and out of time through their life. Are they lost or is there something else going on. I’ll be honest I found this a mess of a story. While diving us deep end into Nev’s life and the weirdness of time travel there is a complete lack of character in Nev and while I think the idea is like Nev we re-discover themselves by re-examining their life with perspective and making changes there nothing done early on to show us who Nev was early on to make it work. This feels more a screenplay than novel lots of short images and scenes but for me not really hanging together enough to really keep me interested in the world or story. A little bit of set-up beforehand may have helped but overall my take reading the story was this was a messy novel with a flat style of writing that failed to grab my attention. The world-bulding feels slight with a focus on the crunching world software programming which I admit is not an area that excites me either. sadly not one I can recommend.
