My pick would have to be the A Whole Nother Story trilogy, in which (spoiler warning) you can only travel back in time. But because time is in a loop of sorts, if you go before the beginning of time, you will be at the end of time. From there you can go back to any time you want to. And time paradoxes cannot be produced. Plus, your memories from the previous timeline exist as well as the memories from the new one.
Kindred by Octavia Butler.
I just finished this one.
Hey! Me, too!
For those wondering, the protagonist is “summoned” back 200+ years when her ancestor is in some danger. She goes back to her time when she is in danger of dying.
I feel like it’s important to mention that she’s a modern Black woman pulled back to a plantation in the 1800s where her ancestor is enslaved. It’s phenomenal but very very heavy.
There’s a great interview with Octavia Butler floating around where she’s asked about the themes of race and identity in her books. She sort of brushes it off is just another tool to write about lol.
One of her strengths is to handle this material in such an objective way. She’s a black female author presenting her ideas in the most masculine way. She really is one of a kind.
Incredible book, possibly the best I’ve read this year
Yes, I was going mention this one. Very good book.
So good. So brutal. Butler was an absolute genius.
I came here to upvote Kindred. It was one of those books that once I started it I was a thousand percent hooked from the opening sentence and couldn’t put it down until I finished it.
The FX/Hulu series was so good too!! I’m really bummed they canceled it before season 2 - hopefully another network picks it up. Seems to be the trend recently.
I came to the comments looking for this one. Such a good book but brutal.
I read this over the summer and it was phenomenal!
Absolutely incredible novel. I wrote my final paper for my 20th Century Literature class, wrote a crap ton about chronemics, and got a 100!
I keep meaning to read it, especially after seeing the one season on FX. I kept going, “oh they’re so screwed now” every single episode. Add they don’t get any less screwed by the end of each episode.