Download Unhappenings Edward Aubry 9781620077191 Books
Download As PDF : Unhappenings Edward Aubry 9781620077191 Books
When Nigel Walden is fourteen, the UNHAPPENINGS begin. His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice. Several years later, when Nigel is visited by two people from his future, he hopes they can explain why the past keeps rewriting itself around him. But the enigmatic young guide shares very little, and the haggard, incoherent, elderly version of himself is even less reliable. His search for answers takes him fifty-two years forward in time, where he finds himself stranded and alone. And then he meets Helen. Brilliant, hilarious and beautiful, she captivates him. But Nigel's relationships always unhappen, and if they get close it could be fatal for her. Worse, according to the young guide, just by entering Helen's life, Nigel has already set into motion events that will have catastrophic consequences. In his efforts to reverse this, and to find a way to remain with Helen, he discovers the disturbing truth about the unhappenings, and the role he and his future self have played all along. Equal parts time-travel adventure and tragic love story, Unhappenings is a tale of gravely bad choices, and Nigel's struggle not to become what he sees in the preview of his worst self.
Download Unhappenings Edward Aubry 9781620077191 Books
"I love well written time travel fiction; there is just something about it that tickles my brain in a way that is incredibly entertaining. I recently endured a five day reading slump and needed something to lift me out of it, and re-reading UnHappenings for the third time managed to bring me out of my existential crisis!
Meet Nigel, who since he was fourteen years old has been plagued by "unhappenings." Conversations, friendships he had, relationships all retroactively were undone around him and he is the only one with the memory of the original timeline. After awhile he retreats from socialization to avoid negatively affecting those in his life.
The narrator Nigel has a nuanced wit and tone which had me imagining him telling this story of his adventures through time-space with a sardonic grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. It turns out that the unhappenings that have plagued Nigel can be traced to one decision, and that they are a symptom of something much more nefarious. This book really makes the reader think about how different things can be with just one small shift; the concept of the butterfly effect in time travel fiction. Every action (or inaction) matters. Maybe not on a global scale, but certainly in your life. I can directly trace the point where the trajectory of my life completely diverged.
It is difficult to review this book without giving spoilers. What you need to know: Nigel becomes fascinated with time travel as a kid and wants to pursue it as an academic researcher, he is brought fifty two years into the future by his Future Self to perfect time travel technology, and while he is there he meets Helen. And then it gets crazy.
I really enjoyed this book. The characters are well developed and it is fast-paced action. It gets science-y but not in an overly cumbersome way, and I like the different takes that Aubry has on paradox - it made for a refreshing read."
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Tags : Unhappenings [Edward Aubry] on . When Nigel Walden is fourteen, the UNHAPPENINGS begin. His first girlfriend disappears the day after their first kiss with no indication she ever existed. This retroactive change is the first of many only he seems to notice. Several years later,Edward Aubry,Unhappenings,Curiosity Quills Press,1620077191,Alternative History,Fiction - Science Fiction,Fiction / Science Fiction / Time Travel,Fiction Alternative History,Fiction Romance - Time Travel,Fiction/Alternative History,Fiction/Romance - Time Travel,Romance - Time Travel,Science Fiction - Time Travel,Science fiction
Unhappenings Edward Aubry 9781620077191 Books Reviews :
Unhappenings Edward Aubry 9781620077191 Books Reviews
- An engaging novel, it kept me reading and reading and reading despite some rather repetitive (and occasionally underdeveloped) "action scenes." The central character suffers from at first seemingly random personal crises, which subsequently are identified as deliberately harmful acts on the part of an antagonist, and which eventually are discovered to be the results of the protagonists' fatal flaw, selfish and short-sighted love. The story fits the pattern of classic tragic opera and as such is extremely interesting to observe as it develops. As some other reviewers have already commented, there's not a great abundance of science, but then the science of time travel is presently largely limited to theory and speculation, anyway, and besides, it's not really a story about time travel, it's a story about people dealing with power they use but cannot comprehend and with the results thereof. The conclusion of the tale reveals a flawed hero (as all heroes are) who wins our empathy because, were we to be in his situation, we'd probably make the same errors and experience the same heartbreaks ourselves.
In short, it was a good read...I enjoyed it...I'm glad I had the experience. - I love well written time travel fiction; there is just something about it that tickles my brain in a way that is incredibly entertaining. I recently endured a five day reading slump and needed something to lift me out of it, and re-reading UnHappenings for the third time managed to bring me out of my existential crisis!
Meet Nigel, who since he was fourteen years old has been plagued by "unhappenings." Conversations, friendships he had, relationships all retroactively were undone around him and he is the only one with the memory of the original timeline. After awhile he retreats from socialization to avoid negatively affecting those in his life.
The narrator Nigel has a nuanced wit and tone which had me imagining him telling this story of his adventures through time-space with a sardonic grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye. It turns out that the unhappenings that have plagued Nigel can be traced to one decision, and that they are a symptom of something much more nefarious. This book really makes the reader think about how different things can be with just one small shift; the concept of the butterfly effect in time travel fiction. Every action (or inaction) matters. Maybe not on a global scale, but certainly in your life. I can directly trace the point where the trajectory of my life completely diverged.
It is difficult to review this book without giving spoilers. What you need to know Nigel becomes fascinated with time travel as a kid and wants to pursue it as an academic researcher, he is brought fifty two years into the future by his Future Self to perfect time travel technology, and while he is there he meets Helen. And then it gets crazy.
I really enjoyed this book. The characters are well developed and it is fast-paced action. It gets science-y but not in an overly cumbersome way, and I like the different takes that Aubry has on paradox - it made for a refreshing read. - After reading this author's first two novels, Static Mayhem and Caprice, and after finding out that the movie rights for this book had been picked up, I quickly purchased a copy.
The main character is Nigel Walden, who is also known as Graham Walden. Starting at a fairly young age, things begin to "un-happen" in Nigel's life. After having a dog for several years with a certain name, the dog was suddenly a cat, with the same name. As far as everyone else knew, there had never been a dog and had always been a cat. After making friends with someone in his class, that someone was suddenly not there. When Nigel inquired, with his teachers and his friends, about the missing friend, he was met with blank stares. No one knew who he was talking about, even though the missing classmate had attended that school for several years.
As Nigel got older, these episodes became bigger and more consequential. In high school, Nigel started to fall in love with a girl named Carrie Wolfe. After dating her for several months, he called Carrie's home and asked for her, only to be told by her mother that Carrie had passed away many years previously.
With the increasing severity of these episodes, Nigel began to keep his distance from people, out of both self-protection and out of concern for possible consequences for the other people. Then, things got very confusing when he encountered . . . that would be giving away too much of the story. I will just say that he encountered someone that unequivocally convinced him that something very important and world-changing would eventually exist that would change his life and he would be a major part of it.
This book has elements that would traditionally be seen as appealing to male readers (science fiction) and elements that are more often seen as appealing to female readers (romance). The two factors are blended well and neither really predominates. If this book does become a movie, I am guessing it will be, among other things, a date movie.
Of the three books by this author that I have read, I would identify this one is tied for second in how much I liked it, with Static Mayhem being ahead of the other two. I definitely still recommend this to any reader who enjoys romance and/or science fiction, and especially for those who like stories with both elements. The writing is solid, the characters are interesting, the plot moves at a good pace with a mixture of contemplation and action, and there are definite surprises along the way. It is told in a mixture of first-person and second-person narrative.
