Dissolution

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there in the first place? Could just be a good old fashioned brain burp, but perhaps it is something more sinister. In Nicholas Binge’s Dissolution there is a character who knows too much, so much that their mind is being wiped to prevent them ever passing the information on. There is only one person who can help, his wife who must travel into the memories of her husband. Kind of like in my house now. She reminds me that I am in the kitchen to get my car keys. 

When Maggie Webb wakes up in a mysterious room with an anonymous voice asking her for help it is a change to her usual routine. For the past decade, Maggie has looked after her ailing husband, Stanley, whose memory has failed him and is who is now housed in the memory unit of a specialised clinic. Stanley’s memories may have been wiped unnaturally and there is a way for Maggie to save him. She must enter his memories and witness what happened in the past, but in doing so she may alter the present. 

Time travel in fiction is always mind bending and that makes it one of the trickiest science fiction concepts to tackle, but also one of the most entertaining. Binge explores the idea in an unusual way. Rather than a machine or a blip in the space/time continuum, memories are used. Somehow, you can travel into memories and alter them, and this effects the future. The book is not about the manipulation of time as such, but the protection from doing so. Why does Stanley remember nothing and what is the strange entity that Maggie comes across in his memories? 

One of the most interesting elements is the use of Maggie as the protagonist, an elderly lady who gives short shrift to any nonsense. Seeing someone bouncing around time in their later years is not the norm in fiction and makes for a pleasant change. Hers is a life lived; Binge can populate the story with some of those time travel nuggets that make the genre for fun. We only find out the truth about something later in the book. 

The story is divided between Maggie and Stanley. His elements are separate and follow his early life, explaining why he is under threat. These read more like straight literary fiction, a coming-of-age tale. These sections proved a nice oasis of calm as they made more sense with their linear storyline. Time travel is tricky, but Binge made things even harder for themselves by throwing in memories. In places the book is complex to follow, but Binge never loses the thread. 

Among the memory diving and tale of a young man growing into themselves, there is also a thriller. The book reveals at the right pace what is truly happening, who is behind the sinister clinic that Stanley is staying in and who Maggie is helping. The conclusion has that classic time travel feel to it that fans of the genre will appreciate. Dissolution is a thrilling take on the time travel genre, but also a more cerebral one for fans who like their science fiction challenging but also entertaining.