I'll admit that about one-third of the way through the second chapter of The Deluge, I really had to decide if I wanted to put this book down. Thank gI'll admit that about one-third of the way through the second chapter of The Deluge, I really had to decide if I wanted to put this book down. Thank goodness I decided to stick with it, because it's been worth it. It wasn't a smooth ride. Not in the least. But it was definitely worth it.
Stephen Markley has so many characters (and I accept that I'm in the minority, since I love books with lots of characters) and narrative strings, it is hard not to wonder when (or even if) their stories will eventually come together. Nevertheless, I admire him for writing such a tome and tying such disparate threads together. I was a doubter for a good portion of the book, and my patience was paid off.
So I say just go with it and accept that this is not an easy read. But it will be worthwhile, if you give it a chance.
Stephen Markley has a very interesting writing style. When I initially saw that many people had catalogued this as literary fiction, I wondered why. I didn't quite see it when I started reading. Then I got to the second chapter. And the various interludes between chapters and sections. And it became clear. Not only was it the language he used, but the different styles of writing he experimented with (and I say "experiment" because I'm not sure how else to explain why an author would choose to use such diverse writing styles in a single literary work).
Depending on the character, he uses different narration styles: first-person, second-person, third-person omniscient, third-person limited, and third-person objective. While many writers opt never to use the epistolary format, he does so with gusto (another thing I appreciate, as I'm a fan of the epistolary). He mixes professional white paper/journal writing (which are meant to be dry) with first-person narratives within the same chapter(s), to break down walls.
On the basis of the writing alone, this would have been a solid 3-star read for me. However, what bumped it up was the message Markley was trying to hammer home: we are killing our world, and we are awfully close to the tipping point where no matter what we do, we won't be able to save the Earth.
Not to get preachy here, but this was a terrifying novel because events Markley described in The Deluge can happen, and we're likely experiencing the beginning of things. The other scary thing is that we are now in 2024, on the eve of what is likely going to be another insane, politically- and emotionally-divisive election year. We have people who do not believe in global warming and the climate crisis, and politicians and lobbyists who encourage these same people to disregard science and common sense. Was this in the novel? Oh yes. Multiple times, as it spans numerous election cycles, with both Democrats and Republicans alternately winning and losing.
The novel is a look into what our near-future could look like. It spans the 2020s through the next twenty years. A majority of the book took place in the next decade. Think about that. We're talking the 2030s, which is right around the corner. Is it speculative/science fiction? Absolutely. But as with the best SpecFic/SciFi, it's always based on reality. And this one is. It's also based on current science, including findings over the last twenty-or-so odd years. So on the basis of that, it's quite the realistic read.
My husband and I were listening to The Deluge together on Audible (I was following along with the actual novel--I'm the kind of listener that needs to still have the text before her). One of the things he was grousing about was what he felt was the general absence of artificial intelligence from the novel. There's been much written recently about the dangers of AI, from taking over certain jobs that humans do to completely making Skynet into a reality. Nevertheless, the use of AI was peppered throughout the novel and especially towards the last fifth of the book. It wasn't quite as threatening as the climate crisis, the displacement of people, potential genocides, racial and religious wars, famine, etc., but I have a feeling ChatGPT was still in its very early days when Markley wrote this novel.
So, having said all that, I'd gladly recommend this book to anyone, regardless of their political, racial, or religious beliefs. On the surface, it's a political thriller; dig a little deeper, and it's more than that: you've got the family drama, ecological disaster tale, the rise of evangelical politics, how lobbyists control politics and politicians, psychological thriller, denunciation of the sciences, how militant eco-warriors plan to overthrow everything, how Wall Street and Big Business are both friends and enemies to the ecology, and a window into how a high functioning autistic thinks.
Just know that you could hit a wall early on during your reading. If you do, press on, my friend. Press on. It's worth it.
Updated review: okay, okay, I've had some time to think about this, and the more I think about it, this book was really just okay for me (I know a lotUpdated review: okay, okay, I've had some time to think about this, and the more I think about it, this book was really just okay for me (I know a lot of others really enjoyed this novel).
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I know I shelved this book in under "time travel" but this isn't a novel about time travel. Far from it. It's a novel about a man, Jeff Winston, who travels back in time, relieving his life until he dies. His death is a fixed point in time -- he never dies sooner or later, and he always dies on the same day, at the same time -- just like much of history remains as fixed points in time (thank you, Dr. Who!). Attempts to change major historical events (view spoiler)[(i.e., the murder of JFK) (hide spoiler)] aren't always successful and events will almost always occur, often with minor variations in details but with a similar outcome.
Jeff relives his life over and over again, and he gets a chance to change his life with each iteration. He creates different lives for himself, with different people, different circumstances and different histories. But each time, on the same day in 1988, he dies again, only to wake up at another point in his past life. At first, he wakes up a few days apart until his jumps back in time increase logarithmically, going from days to years until he wakes up minutes then seconds and milliseconds before each of his subsequent deaths.
While this novel has been labeled as sci/fi, fantasy or speculative fiction, at its heart, this novel is really a philosophical and psychological study of how a man deals with his knowledge of the future: a future he can't change, a future that is inevitable, a future where people he love cease to exist at the moment of his death. While his knowledge of the future is a blessing (i.e., he can provide for himself and his family financially, he becomes very successful, he can learn at his own pace, travel anywhere he wants, experience things he never did in his original life), he very quickly discovers it is more of a curse, for himself and those around him.
His life changes in his third iteration, when he meets Pamela, another person who replays time. She dies nine minutes after he does, on the same day in 1988. They try to spend the rest of their lives together, with each iteration becoming shorter and shorter as their jumps back in time increase. The novel deals with how they approach these replays -- both individually and together -- and how each one deals with the loneliness and frustrations of this strange existence, of trying to find meaning in the replays, of attempts to exact changes on society, of trying to impart a message to non-repeaters. Of trying to live with each other, with each other's decisions, and failing.
This was a strange novel -- wistful, morose, thought-provoking, melancholy, hopeful -- and it took a long time for me to really get into it. The writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. Sometimes, it was stilted and at other times, Grimwood's thoughts would just come together so beautifully that it was almost poetry. It is obvious that Grimwood either spent a lot of time doing research or that he was just a very well-rounded individual with very eclectic tastes in art, books, philosophy, current events, travel, politics, etc. Personally, I didn't think it was as earth-shattering or life-changing as others have made it out to be. I didn't think Jeff was a particularly likeable protagonist. It wasn't that he did or said things that irked me; I just couldn't connect with him on an emotional level until much later, when he'd found Pamela.
There were also times when I felt that the novel was too much like Groundhog Day, but without the humor or the heart (even though the best parts of the book for me was when Jeff found Pamela, in each iteration). Unlike Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day however, Jeff doesn't change. He tries to change lives, sure. He tries to effect global and societal changes. These are all changes on the surface, but inwardly, he's essentially still the same 44-year old guy who died in 1988, same flaws, same warts. He remains blatantly the same throughout his various lifetimes -- his thought processes, his logic, his viewpoints. He doesn't become nicer and sweeter. He doesn't win the girl in the end. His positive personality change isn't what stops the day from repeating.
And I guess at the end, that is what irked me most: for someone who's lived 8+ lifetimes with all the experiences that came along with each one, for someone who's had a chance to enrich himself and those around him, it didn't seem like he'd really grown much.
Hmmm...if I hit "Save" now, I won't be able to change my rating to 2 stars...because it's very tempting right now. :-/