This was a fun far future romp, harking back to classic science fiction stories with a nod to Jasper fforde along the way. Not sure how long it was, but felt like a novella: a man has planted himself at the far end of time, and with his pet dinosaur guards the future...

I've been a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky's sci-fi writing since I read his Arthur C. Clarke Award winning Children of Time, which is very "science-y" and touches on themes of what it means to be human. Once Day All This Will Be Yours is about as far from that as you can get and I love it almost as much. It's a delightful, campy, time-travel story about a hermit at the end of the Time Wars that's made it his mission to kill any other time travelers and keep his farm at the very end of time. Until he comes across a pair of time travelers from a future that shouldn't exist. It features a human-eating dinosaur, a Spy Vs. Spy-esqe murder contest, a battle royale of historical villains, and time travelers going back in time not to save humanity, but to pull pranks on the people of the past. It was a complete delight to read and my only complaint was it was over too soon. I rarely have so much fun reading a book.

The last veteran of the time wars sits at the end of Time, killing or erasing anyone who discovers time travel and makes their way to him. Then, one day, visitors arrive from the future, and everything he thinks he knows is upended. Cutesy novella; I don’t really like hugely murderous protagonists, even when “it doesn’t really matter because everything has already happened” or some variant.

4.5 stars - refreshing, dark and funny

I have received a digital ARC via Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Well, this was quite the ride! Having read and thoroughly enjoyed the Children of Time series I was quite curious what the author would come up with in this novella.
And he certainly did not disappoint.

This is the story of a time war soldier at the end of time. Time has been shattered and now he is the only person left - and determined to make sure no such thing can happen again. No matter what it takes.
And that is a dirty business. Then, one day, visitors from the future show up and things do get interesting ...

It was a joy to read this dark but also darkly funny story of a man on the other side of the horrors of war. The narrator, or rather Tchaikovsky, has a way with words that is just a joy to behold. The language is rich and clever but it always feels like it is serving a purpose, it's not just showing off the author's cleverness.

Add to this an Allosaurus (props to Tchaikovsky to not go with the all-popular T-Rex) and lots of shade for all things twee that had me chuckle quite a bit.
Also a love story that isn't.

Definitely recommended!

Funny. Mind bending. Delightful. Insightful. A time-warping novella that will have your brain trying to wrap itself around all the paradoxes of time travel and it's implications. Our time warrior who shall not be named has set himself up at the end of the Causality War to keep all other time travelers from repeating the same mistakes that have been made in the past. This tale grabs you right from the start with humor, sarcasm and a sudden need to have an Allosaurus of your own. Miffly!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of a man who has set himself up at the end of time to safeguard the future from the past, I love a good time travel story and this has everything, trips to the past, famous people and events and twists that really stretch your brain to understand all the ramifications. I really enjoyed the humor and viewpoint of the time warrior and his dedication to what he sees as the only way forward. Highly recommend this for anyone who loves time travel, and science fictions stories with a humorous edge that absolutely leaves you questioning your own place in time.

Started reading this book at 9pm. I finished it at 1am. I couldn't put it down. I have to be up early and it's already 1am but my the gods this book pulled me in and I didn't want it to end! What an incredible spin on story telling and time travel. I LOVE time travel and the theories around it. I can't even get into the time travel aspect of this book without leaking major spoilers all over the place. It's got everything. Enemies to lovers, awesome pets, advanced war tactics, laugh until you cry moments. Characters that you can't help but root for and timelines that somehow make sense. 10/10 fully recommend!

I wanted to like this book - I really did - because it has everything I love in it - time travel, a dinosaur, lots of wit... but it dragged on and on about "the war" and went over and over the same info so many times that I felt as if I were caught in a time trap myself - one I just wanted to get out of - but then it ended rather abruptly. Mostly I regretted that here were no characters (except the dinosaur, really) to get attached to. The witty narrator and his Eden at the End of Time; his Russian tractors and his agro-bots, were entertaining - but the paradox and the parallel timelines and the mess that was the war ... well, we all know war is a mistake, no matter how it starts. This review is as choppy as the book. Like I said, I really wanted to love it, and because I got a free copy from NetGalley I forced myself to read it - but it wasn't my cup of tea. After seeing most of the other reviews, which raved about the book, I am glad it does please other readers because it was very clever, but it just didn't do it for this reader.

One Day All This Will Be yours, Adrian Tchaikovsky's newest novella releasing in early 2021, is a brilliant and witty time-channel take on what happens when you are the only one left, and you damn well want to keep it that way.

Our titular narrator wakes up from his calm and untroubled clumber. He peers out onto his estate; there isn't a cloud in the sky. And, even if there was one, a little rain is good. Bring on the rain for us farmer types, he thinks. It is a beautiful day because everything and all days are gorgeous, forever and ever amen. This beauty was hard fought for in a winner take all fight over the future, past, and every branch of possibility spread out forever—the casualty war. A war waged by many who could not remember why they were fighting. The past had been expunged, and the future was a fractured mess.

The narrator, the last soldier of the causality war, and his cohorts fractured and dismantled time itself. If you don't like the current path this government is on? Go back and sew discord 200 years ago so that that government won't come into existence. Don't like that Einstein helped develop the Manhattan project, go back in time and scare him so badly about what his ideas wrought that he destroys everything around his energy formula. It takes the philosophical question of, "would you go back in time to kill Hitler as a baby" to a whole new level.

The list goes on and on. So much so that there isn't much left after time has been tinkered with so much. Just pockets of reality that disintegrate in the blink of an eye when they reach a critical moment.
It is as if many malicious time lords from "Doctor Who" were warring with each other had no scruples.

How do we get to the point of a bright sunny day on a perfect farm? Well, if I told you that it would spoil the fun, and in the words of River Song from Doctor Who, "Spoilers!" However, know that it involves an Allosaur named Miffly, poison (occasionally), a couple of statues, and a possible sarcastic bastard of a soldier, or he just might be lonely. It's hard to tell.

This soldier narrator has an excellent reason to act the way he acts and do the things he does without compunction. In his saving the future and living it up as best as possible, he faces something that challenges everything. That is the exciting part.

One Day All This Will Be Yours is another brilliant science fiction novella in the sea of Tchaikovsky's deep and brilliant catalog. Tchaikovsky has proven in the last decade or so that he is a man who can write anything. Such as science fiction, as seen in his Children of Time series, where he eventually became known as the "spider guy." Walking in Aldebaran, where he smashes horror and science fiction, creating an existential take on madness. Or his huge epic Shadows of Apt series. A sprawling and immense epic story involving beings known as Kinden. You would be hard-pressed to find a story by Tchaikovsky that is not a great read. One Day This Will Be Yours, which takes the time-travel-gone-crazy trope and turns it on its ear, is another excellent read to add to his catalog.

Pacing and world-building wise, Tchaikovsky understands the fundamentals needed for a tight and gripping novella. Unlike regular novel lengthed stories, novellas have a stricter economy of words. You only get so many words to work with to create world-building, dialog, and character arc. It is the same constraint that short story writers deal with but to a more extreme extent. Some writers are good at this "dialed in" type of writing style, while other writers are very good at it. I would put Tchaikovsky in the latter group. I have read three of his novellas recently, and not in a single place did I ache for some part of story creation that was lacking. Readers loathe to branch out into novella and short story length stories because some writers struggle to pare their ideas down to the minimum word count with the maximum effect.

This problem isn't the case in One Day All This Will Be Yours.

The humor is wry and witty; the narrator's situations are hilarious and wild but do not stray into the ridiculous or uncomfortable. The pacing is quick, a must for a novella. And, the story overall is sweet in its own twisted way.

I loved this book, in case you can't tell. It will find a place of honor on my bookshelf and as a delightful reread in my future.

Stories of time travel have always fascinated me – particularly ones where the author explores the nature of time and causality. The paradoxes that could be produced are nearly a proof that travel back in linear time and free will are incompatible, but when did that ever stop a science fiction writer? In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s short 2021 novel One Day All This Will Be Yours, he imagines what happens when a wartime flurry of agents is actively modifying history at odds with each other, and the whole system breaks down.

The story is told in first-person by an unnamed retired soldier of a “future” ultimate time war. He has become detached from his original milieu, as have each other such soldier, which raises the question of just what reality they are attempting to restore or undermine. As they have turned on each other, eventually he found that many of the surviving agents are variations on himself. He has set himself up as the final barrier, killing anyone who attempts to pass forward in time past his line in the sand. But the challenge comes from a completely unexpected direction.

Peppered with a sarcastic dialog, the tone of the novel walks the fine line between earnestness and comedy, yet manages to remain serious enough to create plot tension. I enjoyed the story, wondering all along where Tchaikovsky was going with this. The final ending is appropriate, and you will know what I mean when you get there. It seems to be a pattern with Tchaikovsky – both this and his recent Walking to Aldebaran end on existential notes.

I read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2021 stand-alone short novel in kindle ebook, which I received from Solaris Books through netgalley in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. Adrian Tchaikovsky is the pen-name of British fantasy and science fiction writer Adrian Czajkowski. The book is scheduled for release on 2 March 2021.

The world is at absolute peace! Because the world consists of only one human being. And he is living at the end of time after surviving the causality war—the war that shattered time itself, making it impossible for events to follow one another linearly, and is determined to never let it happen again. Where, and when, he lives is the ultimate place, and time, that any time traveller from any era can hope to reach. But that travel will be the last, both for the traveller as well as their entire generation, for that is what our hero, or anti-hero, ensures to keep world peace. Now, he has some visitors who are different from his regular visitors from the past, and his paradise on earth and his position as the lone man standing between the past and the future are in danger of getting destroyed.

If my summary of One Day All This Will Be Yours by Adrian Tchaikovsky written above is incomprehensible, it just shows my inability to summarise this magnificent, ingenious, hilarious, compelling piece of science fiction without robbing its would-be readers of the fun I had reading it. I confess that I have not read much science fiction, leave alone those about time travel. But, even with my limited experience, I can say without any hesitation that this one is surely among the best! The author’s imagination of a war fought along the fourth dimension is one of the greatest I have read in the past few years. The character of the narrator, the sole survivor of the war, is complex; he is simultaneously the most scrupulous human being on earth and—to quote another fine character from this book—a misanthropic bastard who does not want to share his heaven with anyone. The other characters, though there are only a handful of them, are interesting too.

Right from the start, this novel catches the reader by the neck and never lets go. The author’s dark humour is worth a lot of laughs. Within less than 200 pages, the author has packed so much that rereading and re-rereading it is the only way to enjoy the multiple layers on display. My only grumble—one powerful enough to dock a star from my rating—with this fantastic tale is about its shortness and its cliff-hanger ending. I would have loved the book to be twice its present length, and the opportunity to follow the protagonist into the heady worlds of time travel. I enjoyed every bit of it and am waiting for the next volume eagerly.

My sincere gratitude to NetGalley, the author and the publishers of One Day All This Will Be Yours for the digital ARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

In Search of Lost Time

There are lots of very amusing books that are set in some sort of sci-fi frame. In almost all of those books, as good as they are, the sci-fi element is almost just an afterthought. Much rarer is the well thought out, crisply imagined, cleverly plotted sci-fi work that also happens to be very funny. Well, that's what you get here.

Our hero is a charming, deadpan, sardonic master of gallows humor. That makes sense because he's also a sociopath. As the sole survivor at the end of time he's mostly occupied by the task of tidying up. His methods are unconventional, and often brutal, but he's a whistle-while-you-work sort of guy.

The book balances on the line between serious and bizarro, which seems to be where our author always seems to feel most comfortable. He can touch on existential questions or consider which snack goes best with the end of the world, (which actually might be the same thing). Either way the writing is brisk, engaging, rewarding, and entertaining. A nice find.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC copy of this book available to me.

This book gives me my favorite new made-up word: postepochalypse. It could even refer to where we'll be in the coming year, but we must wait and see.

The first half of this short novel is fun, with the dark humor descriptions of the dangers involved in time travel and the altering of timelines, the pet dinosaur, and the subtle (and not so subtle) digs at our current society that disavows the need to keep our planet healthy and safe. The second half of the book is where the major fun comes in. And the last page of the book... you'll have to judge for yourself, as I'm not going to give it away.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is indeed a fearless writer. I think the idea of revisiting an abused trope like time travel should freeze the blood in the veins of a science-fiction writer. But he loves revisiting old tropes adding new twists, and when he is successful (not always, I am afraid) he really deserves hats down.
And this is the case, in my humble opinion. I really enjoyed this novella, really had the impression of reading something new on time travel. The characters are well depicted, easy to love, and who wouldn't need a lovely pet allosaur to deal with pesky visitors?

Awesome! Highly recommend this book! I started reading this book in the evening and had to stay up late to finish this as I could not put it down. I love reading Time travel storis, and this one is one of the best that I've read in quite some time. Will recommend that my library purchase a copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion for an early copy for me to review.

It’s not surprising that experiencing a war from the front lines (or at all, really) might be enough to make a person unstoppable in their mission to prevent another war surfacing. How far that person might go though, if given time travel as a tool, is perhaps up for closer debate.

In this short story, it is one man’s mission to behave as a lone survivor in his own idyllic land, ensuring that any person he comes across travelling from another time is swiftly dispatched, by whatever means necessary.

So unfolds a constant game of cat and mouse between the man and his curious time travelling counterparts; all of which are promptly murdered by his pet dinosaur. Except, that is, until a distant relative visits from the future utopia he is (totally unbeknownst to him) responsible for.

I found the story very compelling, particularly when pitted against his future family. And the mindset of such a person is always a unique reading experience. But, quite honestly, it was also a little bit boring and the ending was abysmal (it wasn’t an ending at all, actually).

I would be interested to see the authors Children of Time series after seeing his writing style, but I won’t be revisiting this story again.

ARC provided from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"One Day All This Will Be Yours" is a prime example of why time travel stories will always be poignant, relevant, and fascinating. No matter how many time travel stories you've read, Tchaikovsky has managed to make the genre fresh and new with his new twists on the subject at hand. For we know find that time travel is the ultimate doomsday weapon. Each side with its glorious time soldiers keeps changing the timeline to their side's benefit until it all breaks with a thousand shards of time adrift in a whirlwind. One intrepid curmudgeon has survived the end of time and planted his cabin on the shores of eternity. And, he's determined never to let time shatter again. He will do whatever it takes -- by any means necessary. What, of course, makes it all work is the wry, sardonic narrative voice.

This is the story of time travel gone wrong. Hilariously wrong, which is so very believable considering how many other things at which government utterly fails. The narrator has staked a claim on the last linear moment in time, which he's enjoying thanks to the things he's brought there from other timelines - farming equipment, a (very cute and hungry) T-Rex named Miffly, etc. His goal? To prevent anyone else from horning in on his spot. That's about all I can really say without giving the whole plot away.

The pacing is fantastic - it reminded me of KJ Parker's novels a bit, which I've seen other reviewers mention - and even though it's a story of a tangled up mess, I never got lost or thought, wait, what on earth is even happening? This is my first Tchaikovsky novel, and it definitely won't be my last. I have a few of them I just haven't picked up yet, and this made me a fan for sure.

An entirely original time travel story. I have read heaps of these stories (some wonderful and some horrible) and I have not come across anything with this approach before. It has a entertaining and snarky tone, fascinating characters and a home-base that actually sounds like a fun place to stick around at the end of Time.

Paradoxes, causality and the “I am my own grandpa“ contributions to the time travel genre are all addressed and given brand new perspectives. There are some wonderful examples of what might be possible given multiple timelines and lots of chances to make good things even better. There is an amazing visit to the place where time ends with the author managing to make something indescribable actually understandable. I enjoyed the book a lot!

Adrian Tchaikovsky is rapidly becoming my new favourite author. This short story is full of wit, sparks of humour and a story full of inventiveness and cleverness which is just very enjoyable to read. The central characters are formed and aligned perfectly, which this author is especially skilled at and the story just races on, bouncing off various realities and historical characters and events.
Very enjoyable and readable throughout.

A complex, quirky time travel novella which takes place (mostly) at the end of time, after the Causality War has destroyed pretty much everything. The first person narrator – I'm not sure we ever learn his name – is a survivor of the war determined never to let it happen again, however-many people he has to kill if they find their way to his idyllic farm. He lives pretty well. Robots do most of the work, though he amuses himself by looting different time-streams for whatever he needs. If he gets lonely he simply gets into his own time machine and pops out to the 1700s for a party at Versailles or goes to see a Shakespeare play – with the Bard himself. His pet allosaurus, Miffly, helps him to dispose of errant time travellers. He also goes gadding around the timestreams putting an end to anyone who might contemplate time travel. Then one day, visitors arrive from the future. How can that be when he's already at the end of time itself? Weldon and Smantha (that's not a typo) and suddenly he has a problem. It seems he might be their many greats-grandfather. How is he going to avoid a second epochalypse? Funny and poignant in turns this is as sharp as a tack and well worth reading even though it chucks your logic circuits into a blender and serves them back up to you with a side order of wheee! I loved it.