Book Title: Arcadia
Author: Iain Pears
My Rating: 4,35
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| amazon.com |
Arcadia. The title somehow has a similar meaning to an arcade. That true, the book draws a puzzling story. There a lot of characters and stories from different paths. Each character has a part until the ending of this book, and they played perfectly well.
This book divides into three major timelines and two worlds. The three major timelines placed in Oxford (the 1960s), Wildon Anterworld (?), and Mull (2300s). The two worlds are the real world and Anterworld.
The very first character showed up in the book and one of the main characters, Henry Lytten is a professor from the 1960s. He was a secret agent but he just wrote a story at the end of his career. He created an imaginary world, named Anterworld. He unconsciously made some characters from his close friends. Anterworld is an old-fashioned world. There is a society and the leader is Catherine, a widow who just lost her husband (who is the last king). Pharmacon is the king’s cousin who is the perpetrator of the murder, but he run away. The murder event of Catherine’s husband will be the main topic in Anterworld. In Anterworld, Henry created some of the main characters, such as Henary (He is the educated person in the world), Jay (Henary’s student), Catherine (the next candidate of Anterworld’s leader), Parmachon (Catherine’s cousin), etc.
Back in Henry's world (I will say the real world), some events are happening together. It started in the future (maybe 2300s’), a mad scientist named Angela made a machine. She worked together with a team that is led by Hanslip. Hanslip and the team believe the machine which they will build is a machine for finding a parallel world. But, Angela just finds that the machine will bring them into time traveling in the same world, not the other world. She concludes that the world hasn’t had a parallel world but only one world, so people only could go forward or backward. Angela tries to persuade Hanslip about her finding, but Hanslip doesn’t believe it. Afterward, Angela decides to throw herself into that machine and she proves her saying. She goes back into the past, in the 1930s.
Angela befriended with Henry Litten, the person that we discuss before. They are in one spy agency. In some years, Angela makes a machine again to come back to the future and she put it in Lytten’s house even though Lytten doesn't know what machine is. The bizarre events start to happen. Everything becomes complicated when Rosie, a close friend of Lytten finds the machine. Rosie is Jeskin’s keeper (Jeskin is Lytten’s cat) when Lytten went away. Rosie accidentally finds the machine, and she is too curious to not look at it. Then she got in, but she locked in the machine after the second time. And what is inside the machine? Neither the future nor the past (because we know the machine is a time travel machine), but it is indeed a parallel world. Surprisingly, it is the Anterworld. Lytten’s imaginary world becomes real.
Rosie got into the Anterworld, similar to the world that Lytten made. She has to adapt to the new world, change her name into Rosalind, and make a relationship with some of the characters like Henary, Jay, and Pamarchon, who is her love interest. Back in the real world, Angela confuses with the reality that someone gets into her machine. Now, she should find a way to make Rosie getting out from the Anterworld because if Anterworld still exists, the real world’s existence will vanish. Remember that there is impossible if the parallel world existed. There is only one world will survive, the real or the parallel one.
On the other side, Hanslip who is Angela’s colleague tries so hard to figure out where Angela is. The pressure from someone who has power than him (I don’t want to spoil who he is), making him tries in many ways to find Angela. Chang, Angela’s student, knew that Angela traveled the time, not to the other parallel world. He told Hanslip, but he didn’t believe any of Chang’s story. He still believes that Angela still wanders along in that world or time, so he sends Jack Moore to find Angela. Jack trusts Chang’s story because of some weird shreds of evidence. Unluckily, Hanslip makes a risky action, he sends Chang into the machine. Otherwise, Jack found Angela’s daughter, Emily. The story in the future timeline will focus on Hanslip and Jack-Emily’s side of the story.
I know that I spoil some of the important parts of the story in the book. Besides that, the book is magnificent. Each timeline has been written perfectly well. Each part intertwined with each other and it makes some twists. You will get goosebumps when understand how each character’s story influence one another. The ending is satisfying for me, and I couldn’t agree more with the plot story. Even though the plot is complicated, it is easy to read. The time-traveling story with a parallel world, it is the heavenly story for all of sci-fi fans readers. This is an underrated novel. Whoever likes sci-fi and fantasy story and some addition of spy and mystery, should read it.
Note: Iain Pears noted a new apps for this book. If you eager to discover the new way to read, just install the apps.
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