The Paradox Hotel
A Novel
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- 6,99 $US
Description de l’éditeur
“Time travel, murder, corruption, restless baby dinosaurs, and a snarky robot named Ruby collide in this excellent, noir-inflected, humor-infused, science-fiction thriller.”—The Boston Globe
An impossible crime. A detective on the edge of madness. The future of time travel at stake. From the author of The Warehouse . . .
FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, Kirkus Reviews
January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder.
Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past.
Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls.
None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see.
On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology—and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.
January is sure the timing isn’t a coincidence. Neither are those “accidents” that start stalking their bidders.
There’s a reason January can glimpse what others can’t. A reason why she’s the only one who can catch a killer who’s operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once.
But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality—and as her past, present, and future collide, she finds herself confronting not just the hotel’s dark secrets but her own.
At once a dazzlingly time-twisting murder mystery and a story about grief, memory, and what it means to—literally—come face-to-face with our ghosts, The Paradox Hotel is another unforgettable speculative thrill ride from acclaimed author Rob Hart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Time travel has been monetized in this stellar SF thriller from Hart (The Warehouse). The U.S. government charges the 1% "hundreds of thousands of dollars to see the first-ever public showing of Hamlet or visit the Library of Alexandria," but it's still losing money on the hyperexpensive operation. That leads to a privatization initiative, and several trillionaires arrive at the Paradox Hotel to make their proposal to buy the Einstein Intercentury Timeport. Their presence is a headache for hotel security head January Cole, who's suffering deleterious health side effects from entering the time stream frequently and overwhelming grief from the accidental death of her lover, Mena, a waitress at the Paradox. When January sees a stabbed corpse in a guest room that no one else can see, including her smart-ass AI assistant, Ruby, she endeavors to determine whether there's a real murder to investigate or whether it's an apparition that's a symptom of her illness. The twists keep coming without simplifying January's mental struggles in this impressive melding of creative plotting and three-dimensional characters. Hart remains a writer to watch.
Avis d’utilisateurs
Not worth the slog through
3/4 thru the book & it’s just not worth slogging it out anymore. Unlikable, in extreme, main character, that just doesn’t inspire making the effort to get to the end of the story. You start wondering why someone who despises other people’s non-caring choices keeps on making those same uncaring choices of their own & treating everyone like crap. It wore me out & I’m done before the book is.
Gripping, messed-up take on time travel
Talk about a flawed protagonist—this book has the most flawed main characters I can think of. And I was really pulling for her. There are too many other characters to even begin to keep track of, so don’t even try; just roll with it. As with many time travel books, it’s a more enjoyable read. If you don’t get too, hung up on all the details as you go. Trust me, eventually, it will all make sense. Well, sort of. I took a lot of time out of the main parts of my day to keep reading the story. I had to know how this fun mess of a story was going to end up. And I wasn’t disappointed.
Kept us guessing
Sweet story that had lots of twists and turns.