Review of Bullet time: This is not a love song, but how you write great parallel universe fiction:
The following is a spoiler free review. If you prefer your reviews short here is a quick test to know if this book is for you:
You will enjoy this book if 1 OR 2 applies to you, Or if AT LEAST 2 of A, B, C apply OR if D applies alone of with any of the others:
1) You enjoy an extremely well crafted narrative that explores the battle of free will versus fate.
2) You like your rugged individualism extreme.
A) You want to know what it's really like to get punched in the face really really hard without super powers but don't actually want to experience it.
B) You are really mad at your parents.
C) You are really mad that the clever pithy girl/boy you super like always gets the best of you.
D) Want to know what it would really be like to actually live out the fantasy of shooting up your high school, but again, don't want to be bothered with actually experiencing any of the consequences of such as but not limited to: guilt, painful suicide/ early death, prison (covering being a giver or a taker in correctional facilities), escaping and living on the lamb as a minor.*
*Just in case I triggered any FBI flags or violent people If you think this book is pro-school shooting than reading this review isn't going to make you any smarter. Both the book and this reviewer are very against shooting of any kind.
More....
Nick Mamatas's Bullet time is his best work yet if you are judging on the power of storytelling and how storytelling has the power to resonate in a person's thoughts and life. I think the story goes further than this as it also resonates and redefines how parallel universe fiction is able to examine free will versus determinism. I know there has been countless other parallel universe fiction stories that have examined the free will debate (as I suppose that is often the main use for the genre) and I won't claim to be an expert in the genre. What I can say is that Mamatas is able to weave a tale that tells a story of many different universes that splinter off of the protagonist, David Holbrooke's, life in a way that is fantastical, simultaneously realistic, and always captivating. The narration tense of the story is complex, (first person narrator talking about the different "Davids" in the second person, except for one other universe that is also first person) but it comes off effortlessly and the reader is never lost or confused. This narration style only adds to the story and never appears to be a cute trick.
Even though the bad middle-class parents are cartoonishly circa 1980s horror movie bad parents and David is rendered circa 1980s horror movie middle class trapped by them you there is still believability in the characters. David (or at least the main two or three Davids) are sympathetic characters.
While David is often fighting against helplessness and trauma he still manages to have insight and sympathy for most of humanity. However, when it comes to personal relationships he is completely inept. Readers who can relate to this will enjoy this story. Like almost all of Mamatas's stories every man seems to be an island. He berates authority and class structure with great subtlety of a bullied teenage awareness, but the protagonist doesn't seem to be able to affect anyone's life but his own and the ones who affect his life may be very interesting, but remain mysterious and their true intentions unknown.
Now, there is nothing more annoying than a reviewer that talks about themselves, accept maybe when they talk about their own writing. However, all meaning is contextual. So, I will tell you that I am the sort of person that enjoys stories where people ban together to overcome adversity. I also like to write about the what-if.
I am also a romantic. NOT a Twilight romantic but a romantic in the way that I like stories where people feel/experience/ are transformed by love whether it ends realistically or tragically (some would say they are always one in the same.) I devour stories of twisted romance. Mamatas teases romantics like me in Bullettime with one of the opening lines being "It doesn't matter. She is alive and I lover her."* The female "love interest" in the story even makes a winking references to some of the iconic twisted romances that a sucker like me loves : "We'll make a secret society like Sid and Nancy, Bonny and Clyde, Mickey and Mallory."* But, this is not a love story it's rather a fight to the top of the broken ice of one's life. There are times I get so mad at the protagonist for not trying harder to affect his life with intimacy.
Love and overcoming adversity through intimacy doesn't occur in this book or any of Mamatas's stories because as much as he seems down on class structure he seems to be addicted to rugged individualism where people may bump into each other but have to work it all out on their own. However, I'm never truly mad at the story. It's a good fight for free will. Also, I think anyone who likes to write parallel- alternative universe fiction should read it because this is how you do it well.
*I'm paraphrasing here.
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