A Time Travel Comedy Drama By David Atkinson
What if you could go back in time and correct that mistake you made that started a chain-reaction of successive events leading you to where you are right now?
It’s a question that Sam Harris would like to know answer to, sitting on a sofa bailiffs will probably take from under his arse in the next few minutes. The reason why bailiffs are taking any valuables out of his dirty apartment and he’s sitting on the above mentioned sofa with a social worker is because he’s a very depressed man who can’t take care of himself. He might have a way out, though: his social worker says there is a programme he could take part in, a medical trial for depressed people, that will study which of his genes got damaged by traumatic events leading him to wrong choices and then help him to ‘switch’ these genes back through an innovative epigenetic therapy.
He has nothing to lose after all, and accepting this offer means that he can have a roof over his head for the night, instead of sleeping rough. The sessions are divided into two parts: during part one he will receive an injection targeting the damaged genes, while during part two, another injection will provide a protein compound that supposedly heals the damaged genes, and he will wake up a better person. Once again: why not? Worse case scenario he will wake up with two pinches on his arm.
Instead, he wakes up skinnier, a lot skinnier than when he’d been put to sleep, and despite his insistence, both the doctor and the nurse who administered him the treatment are positive that when they gave him the first injection a few hours before, he was already that skinny.
After the initial shock, Sam soon realises that every time he relives an episode of his past and, using his hindsight knowledge, changes a detail, he inevitably changes the future chain of events that brings him to the present time.
The journey that leads him to his happy ending is long, complex, full of peril and, at times, difficult and painful moments. But it’s a journey that keeps you glued to the chair – and the page – and makes you wonder ‘what’s next?’
We are not surprised that Atkinson won the Page Turner Awards 2022 – Genre Award because this book is simply great. It has everything: the mystery component, the romance, the inevitable ‘what if…?’ regretful question we all asked ourselves at least once in our lives, the happy ending, the rich prose, the spot-on narrative and an amazing control over the sci-fi element, something that, when it comes to time-travel is quite difficult to master.
A must-read book that comes with its own Spotify Playlist: each song has been specifically written to correspond to a key moment in the book, to enhance the overall reading experience.
Future Proof is available for purchase at: https://amzn.to/3RA7DOz