The Future Happens Twice: The Perennial Project [ペーパーバック]

If you judge this book by its cover, you'll be missing out on a great tome. the cover certainly doesn't do justice to what's inside...

This is a truly captivating and intellectually stimulating book. I was challenged when trying to categorize it -- Is this a sci-fi work? An action/adventure? A study of the human mind? An exploration of female heroism? Well, at the end, I realized this book defies a single categorization and encapsulates all these genres. "The Future Happens Twice" will appeal to sci-fi buffs, action/adventure readers and those fascinated by the study of the human mind and relationships.

At first, the premise of a supervolcano eruption resulting in total annihilation of all living things on earth ("extinction-level event") seemed like stuff of fiction. But as I kept reading, the more I understood how possible such an event could be. The project's mission to save humanity (or at least part of it) is thwarted by a number of things, not the least of which are the dark forces of human ego and duplicity.

I was impressed by the depth and breadth of the author's knowledge in the various science fields that are at the core of the book (e.g. bio-engineering, long-distance space traveling, geology). The author manages to make all this science stuff appealing to the lay reader and to build a chillingly realistic, action-packed and suspenseful plot around it. More impressively, the author's understanding of the human mind and his position on the future of humanity made me look to the future and at the same time be introspective about who we are and what we are here for.

All in all, I thought the science of this book was very thoroughly researched, the plot frighteningly real, and the story-telling gripping.

The synopsis on the back of the book does not touch about ninety percent of the story. My synopsis will give a much clearer idea to readers what is going on. Nothing over the half way point of this book will be told. I refuse to give spoilers. However, I do not believe the back of this book tells enough for readers to decide if this trilogy is for them or not. I, as the reader, would have liked to know what the project is actually about. Had I known, I would have picked up this book long before now.

Book One takes place in Reno, Nevada, 2064. Debrya Handsen is a thirty-three-year-old professor in computational linguistics. When offered a massive salary to join a top secret government project, Debrya leaves Minnesota and relocates to Nevada. She is eager to dive in immediately, even though she has no idea what the project is really about, only that it would challenge her skills in linguistic programming.

The project location is in a subterranean research facility. Alexander Johrd is over the computer science section of the project. The task of escorting Debrya around and explaining the project is delegated to him. Alexander notices that as he tells Debrya what is going on, she is attracted and repelled simultaneously. He knows that he must be careful as he explains the project. After all, most people would be appalled at first and no one wants to scare the new project member away. Debrya's role is vital.

The Pernennial Project's goal is to spread humanity across space. This way, should something happen to Earth and humanity be wiped out, the human race would have a chance for survival. The planet named Acantarius, located in the Omega Altaris System (over tens of thousands of billions of kilometers away), is the chosen destination. It will take a spacecraft around forty-two thousand years to reach it. To save most supplies (including oxygen, food, and the like), it is not human beings that are frozen on board, it is embryos. Four of the embryos are chosen to be the first born. The two androids on board will defrost the four when Acantarius is only twenty years away, watch over them as they mature in an artificial womb, and then raise the children as their own. The children will not learn that their parents are actually androids until their sixteenth birthday. The children will also believe they are quadruplets until then as well.

Of course, all of this must be tested. Using embryo-splitting technology, the project members have been making twins of each of the four embryos for many years. The current four believe they are actually in space, approaching Acantarius. They do not know that they are actually in a spacecraft, underneath a military complex on Earth. It is the next batch of twins that will actually be sent on the long interstellar trip. The four kids' entire lives, from birth and over sixteen years have been nothing but lies. Since the project leaders know the public would go ballistic when they find out, everything has been kept under wraps. Only the project members with blue badges know the full truth.

*** Be warned that this is a thick book, over seven hundred pages. It is the first of a trilogy. Book two is titled HUMAN DESTINY. Book three is titled THE ANDROMEDA ENCOUNTER. Due to the way the story is written, the plot is told many times. In my opinion, it is told too often. It is told to Debrya, then to the children, then slowly to a few public people... I cannot help but feel that this could have been written in a way that I, as the reader, could learn it as Debrya learned it. Then when others became involved or the kids learned the truth, I would not need to hear it retold and retold. Do not get me wrong; the way it is written works. It is just too repetitive for me.

The plot has been done before; however, author Matt Browne has given it much more thought. (In fact, there were times I believed Browne's version bordered on genius!) It seems as though the author did a lot of research before putting pen to paper, so to speak. I could not, and still cannot, stop wondering if something like this is actually going on in a secret remote location. The very thought is disturbing to me.

If you enjoy realistic sci-fi, this book is for you. I enjoyed it immensely. I only wish the plot execution had been told differently. Recommended! ***

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

Debrya Handsen, Julara, Ronyo, Gilvan, Sabelle - these are names you won't soon forget when you read The Future Happens Twice. This imaginative and provocative science fiction tale spins these lives together through events that are astounding, absorbing, and also foreboding. Matt Browne has created a work of splendid science fiction that is embedded with an exceptional scientific realism not often realized in the genre. Moreover, as he weaves his tale of courage in the face of the unknown, Browne brings to the forefront a number of ethical and moral dilemmas, dilemmas that we often struggle with today, and will no doubt be struggling with in the future.

Let's step into Browne's world, one about as detailed as I have ever encountered in a sci-fi. We move forward several decades from today. Debrya Handsen, a linguistics professor at the University of Minnesota, has just accepted a new position with a secret project that has been going on for decades - the Perennial Project. As Debrya learns early in the story, the Perennial Project is ultimately trying to change the destiny of humanity. But little does Debrya realize, once she has become entrenched in the project, it will change her own destiny as well.

Sponsored by the government, the Perennial Project is attempting to send people to the stars to safeguard the future of humanity. The Earth is a volatile system, whether we wish to believe it or not. Many times in the long history of the Earth, life has taken catastrophic hits from stellar and terrestrial phenomena. One of those events, the Permian-Triassic extinction, wiped out nearly 90% of life on Earth. For those working on the Perennial Project, extinction events like those are not far from their thoughts. What if something like that happened today? Could we even prepare for it? Who of humanity would survive, if anyone? Is it possible such an event might push humanity back to the Stone Age? No one has the answers to those questions.

As you progress through the story, you begin to realize Browne has covered just about all the bases in his vision of how humans might take their first steps to the stars. Unlike Star Trek, where ships are zipping around the galaxy, Browne puts a more realistic slant on space travel. Engines have been developed to push a ship at amazing speeds, but far short of light-speed. Thus a trip to a star some 82 light-years from Earth, where a suitable planet, Acantarius, may have been found - is going to take an astounding 42,000 years! For me, just the thought of that distance in time (in itself) is astounding.

But since in Browne's world, cryonics (freezing humans for long periods of time) is not a reliable and tested technology, the only means to get people to the new world is to freeze embryos, then birth those embryos within a reasonable time before the encounter with the new world, letting androids care for the children until they are of age to take on adult responsibilities. Coming at us with the viewpoint of a scientist, Browne believes such a scenario is testable and reproducible - thus the reason for the long timeframe of the Perennial Project. As the goals of the project unfolded before me as I read, they often gave me chills. Not chills of horror, but chills of wonder. The scientists sending the ship to the stars have no idea whether their mission will be successful. It's like sending a ship and its passengers into a void - you will never know the end results, and those making the journey will never really know who sent them because they are not only separated by distance, they are separated by the passing of 42,000 years. Though this concept has been touched on before in other stories, Browne did it in a way that made me shudder in awe.

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters the author "has worked his novel around." They are real people, with real emotions, and it doesn't take much to empathize with them in their situations. This novel evoked more raw emotions in me than any book I have read in the last five years. Julara is my personal favorite, but Debrya Handsen is a superbly crafted presence in the novel, and you will empathize with the struggle that is going on inside her as she delves deeper into the Perennial Project and begins to obsess with what she believes is a grave moral injustice.

Take a journey into the future - The Future that Happens Twice! You will not be disappointed.

Jim Erjavec
Author of The Caverns of Mare Cetus