Review: Time Travel Dystopia
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 10, 2013
When Lane Mason, a scientist and a test pilot, boards the space travel capsule to travel far into the future, he is prepared to spend ten years in the confined isolation of the tiny capsule in the name of science and breakthrough research.  As his capsule gains speed and accelerates to faster than light speed, it bends time and enters the future. All communication with the control center is lost, as was expected in case of the successful outcome.  As a an accomplished physicist, Lane knows that time travel into the past is not possible. Thus, his flight will be one way, into the unknown.He travels for seven and a half years until he's finally able to leave the capsule. The initial euphoria Lane feels because of the momentary freedom he experiences is quickly replaced with the realization that the world of the future he arrived to is far from welcoming. The picture of our future civilization painted by Dennis Butler is bleak: devoid of free will and ability to think independently, the people of the future are reduced to nothing more than slaves in a highly regulated and controlled corporation. In the tradition of dystopian literature of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, Dennis Butler creates a world ruled by a dictatorial government where citizens are closely monitored by the secret police. There seems to be no escape from this world and not enough free will on anybody's part to attempt such escape.Lane Mason, the man who came from a more progressive time of the past, may be the only hope and the only person who can save himself and others from this miserable existence. His love for Abbie provides an incentive for his attempt to help others to escape. The question is whether his space capsule will be able to handle another long flight and whether a better place exists in the universe where a better life can be established. And that question is answered in an unusual and unexpected way in this novel.