With Version Control Dexter Palmer (The Dream of Perpetual Motion) has written a slow burn of a near-future science fiction novel that manages to dive deep into themes of gender roles, grieving parents, the culture of academia, racism, what it's like to be a scientist and the fragile nature of causality violation--just don't call it time travel.
Rebecca Wright is married to physicist Phillip Steiner, the public face of the causality violation machine that he and his government-funded team have been testing for eight years. Phillip has trouble relating to people, but has found Rebecca "interesting," the highest form of praise from a socially awkward physicist.
In this near-future, the president interrupts television and radio shows to have personal chats with individuals, an online dating service employs algorithms and computing power to ensure its own future, and self-driving cars continue to evolve into spaces to relax and retreat while being taken anywhere.
Rebecca feels like something is wrong with reality, a discomfort--as though things just aren't the way they're supposed to be. Even the couple's personal tragedies seem somewhat off-kilter. Is it her grief talking, or something more sinister, something at the base level of reality itself?
Is the causality violation device, proven to not work hundreds of times, actually changing reality?
Version Control is a thoughtful look at a society's foibles through the lens of speculative fiction, while telling a compelling story that will engage readers from the first page. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor