Life During Pandemics
This novel was published in April 2022, just the latest spike in Covid-19 cases was going down yet again. Thus, it will inevitably be stuffed into that sub-genre of books written during the pandemic that are about a pandemic, though in this case it is not actually about Covid-19. It is really more of an examination of the nature of what life is like when it is lived under the conditions of a dangerous viral infection. This theme is explored meta-textually as it is itself a book written during a pandemic that is about a writer who has written a novel about life during a pandemic who then finds herself living during a pandemic. Regardless of how one responds to actual health threat, the main thrust of the thematic exploration is it is impossible to not have one’s daily existence shaped and influenced by the response to that health threat.
What is Reality?
Of significant importance to the narrative’s progression is a theoretical postulation referred to as the “simulation hypothesis.” As a character explains in a remarkably succinct bit of clarity, this hypothesis poses the question of whether virtual reality could become so sophisticated that it becomes impossible to rule out the potential that everything we think of as reality is in fact merely a simulation. The pursuit of this theme relentlessly leads to one character’s rather philosophically troubling conclusion that it really wouldn’t matter since “a life lived in simulation is still a life.”
Time Travel
The story does include actual time traveling characters. But unlike many speculative science fiction stories revolving around this ability, the trope is not really exploited for traditional purposes. The mechanics behind the ability to travel through time and the conventional paradoxes that serve as fodder for plot twists is of less interest than how traveling through time offers the potential for human connectivity across currently unbreakable barriers. What would be the emotional impact of meeting people who are dead during your lifetime and how would knowing the future impact one’s social interaction with those whose lives were already over by the time they went backward?
