Edward Aubry recently left the comfort of his long-standing Mayhem Wave series to try his hand at a standalone time travel novel, which he titled Unhappenings. In it, we are told the story of Nigel Walden, whose past seems to be constantly rewriting itself from one day to the next since the age of fourteen.
A few years later, he receives a visit from two people of his own future, one being an elderly version of himself, and they attempt to find the truth behind the “unhappenings”.
Edward Aubry Makes a Tear in Time
A person's past is an element which unequivocally defines them in relation to themselves and others alike, playing a pivotal role in the ultimate composition of our ever-changing sense of identity; all we know and think about ourselves stems, in one way or another, from past experience. Someone's past is generally lost after they leave this world, but in Unhappenings by Edward Aubry, it's happening to a fourteen-year-old boy.
Nigel Walden is only a teenager when his girlfriend disappears from the face of reality on the day after their first kiss. Over the next several years, many events follow the same course in Nigel's life, like his dog of many years suddenly turning into a cat. One day, Nigel receives a visit from two rather enigmatic people: a young and secretive guide, accompanied by an older version of Nigel himself.
Unfortunately, neither of the two visitors seem capable of providing him with an adequate explanation for what is going on, and Nigel's search for the truth takes him forward by fifty-two years in time, where he meets the brilliant and beautiful Helen in a world feeling hostile and lonely to him. However, Nigels' relationships always end with an “unhappening”, like with his first girlfriend.
Trying to find a way to make the relationship with Helen a possibility, Nigel is informed by his young guide he has already committed a tragic mistake by entering her life... a mistake which promises to have tragic consequences for everyone.
Nigel's only way forward is to try and unravel the mystery behind the unhappenings which have followed him his entire life, and what role his future selves have to play in the story. Struggling to undo his bad choices and set at least some things right, Nigel is also trying his best to escape his own future and become someone other than the worst version of himself he caught a glimpse of.
The Technicalities of Time Travel in Unhappenings
Whenever we're dealing with a science-fiction time-travel story, I think the most important first step is to accept the idea time travel, as we understand it, isn't really allowed for by our current models for the causality loops it inevitably creates. Nevertheless, our understanding of this world is so incredibly limited we have no way of telling what might or might not be possible one day.
Knowing this, most authors who choose to write time-travel fiction don't spend too much time trying to justify and explain how everything works, especially when it's not the point of the story, and I think we can all agree it's a sensible approach. As for Unhappenings, Edward Aubry made the brave attempt to integrate true science and realistic possibilities into his story.
In other words, there are many passages which are dedicated to unravelling time-travel from a modern scientific perspective, with some of them getting surprisingly and pleasantly technical. While he couldn't naturally plug up all the plot holes time travel carries with it, I found Aubry did an excellent job at presenting it as something which could be scientifically-feasible.
If, contrary to me, you're the type of science-fiction reader who eschews technicalities and prefer to focus on the story, then I would like to assure you, the technically-loaded passages are not only far and few in-between, but don't require you to grasp everything in order to understand what's necessary for the progression of the story.
The author does an excellent job at summarizing the important parts of his technical deliberations and conveying them in a few simple and memorable sentences, allowing all sorts of readers with their personal preferences to keep up with the events.
The Life of a World-Changing Element
When an author chooses to try and add some scientific explanations to their time-travel story, they generally have a tough time balancing them with the rest of the story, hampering its progression by ill-advised breaks. Aubry, on the other hand, skillfully uses the scientific elements to complement the meat and potatoes of the story: Nigel's journey of self-realization.
I have to admit, the premise for this story is quite original, and even if it has been done before in certain variations, it certainly remains one of the least-studied ones, which is unfortunate because I find quite interesting the study of interplay between one's past and their identity.
I found Nigel was well-written as a character, and despite some lapses where he made questionable decisions despite being a genius physicist, he was likeable enough to be easy to follow. What's more, Aubry uses him as an extensive study case for how a regular person might try and live with a past which keeps rewriting itself.
For me, a good part of the appeal in this book wasn't necessarily solving the mystery behind the unhappenings, but it was simply watching how Nigel managed himself, the people around him, and the struggle he faced against his own sense of identity. If anything, Aubry makes an excellent case for our stable past set in stone being the primary factor in our mental composition.
Of course, there is also a fair amount of adventure as well as romance which complements everything I've written up until now, with the quest to solve an unravelling timeline becoming only more pressing and captivating as the story goes. While a certain reveal by the author does make it lose some steam about two-thirds of the way through, overall I found it was an immensely enjoyable adventure.
The Final Verdict
Unhappenings by Edward Aubry is an original and well-balanced time-travel story which complements its adventurous plot and thorough examinations of past and identity with a good dose of realistic science and technical support elements.
If you enjoy time-travel science-fiction and are looking for something a bit more profound and out-of-the-box, then I don't believe you can go wrong with this one.
 | Edward AubryEdward Aubry is an American author living in rural Pennsylvania who also works as a part-time teacher. He has a degree in music composition from Wesleyan University, and as a poet has published the sixteen stanza “The History of Mathematics”. As a writer, he began the Mayhem Wave series, featuring Prelude to Mayhem and Balance of Mayhem among others. He also wrote a standalone time travel novel titled Unhappenings. |
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