from issue 26

Books

A Scientific Romance

Neil MacDonald

Ronald Wright

Knopf

In Ronald Wright’s A Scientific Romance (Knopf), an archae­ol­o­gist suf­fer­ing from a ter­mi­nal ill­ness dis­cov­ers H. G. Wells’s time machine when it arrives sans pilot in a London ware­house in the year 1999. He gets it work­ing again and sets out into the future hop­ing to find a cure. Wright deduces an entirely believ­able descrip­tion of a pos­si­ble future from the few clues his archae­ol­o­gist uncov­ers while exca­vat­ing the ruins of an unin­hab­ited London and UK turned into trop­i­cal jun­gle. This book is a great read: it kept me awake all night.