A Review Of The One-Way Time Traveler By Tom DeMarco

Print Length: 401 pages

Publisher: Artful Press (June 12, 2018)

Publication Date: June 12, 2018

Language: English

The BookViral Review: Genre – Time Travel & Dystopian Fiction

As inventive narratives go, there’s original, and then there’s out of the box with an author introducing another dimension entirely which is exactly what DeMarco does with The One-Way Time Traveler.

Dystopian fiction remains ever-popular and one of its key draws is the way it aims to examine society’s problems and inequalities through a typically cataclysmic lens and here DeMarco’s cautionary tale forces us to re-examine and ponder our own actions and place in the wider world as he ingeniously flips Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale on its head.

In doing so he certainly fulfils the promise of futuristic fiction but refreshingly he keeps it real. We aren’t distracted by the technology of the time or vast visionary cityscapes and far-flung space travel. The only thing we will have to fear in the future, we learn, is the past itself. 

Yes, it’s a novel about men and women and civilization and the way that fear can be used to justify far-reaching change but it’s the moral awakening DeMarco wants us to experience which ultimately makes The One-Way Time Traveler such a good read. 

Women are in control and Demarco’s characters are utterly convincing. From JJ Donegal, to Lydia, Valerie and Sachiko we see the future through different lenses. A world that might end not with a bang but a whimper as male birth-rates decline and the old ways are forgotten

A highly original, entertaining and thought-provoking read, The One Way Time Traveler proves a superb introduction to DeMarco’s novels and is recommended without reservation.