Many years ago, the search for contact from alien life instead picked up a chilling warning, a terrified voice imploring: “Kill Austin Lang before he wipes out the universe“. The problem? The name doesn’t appear anywhere in any documents in history, ever. Which is… weird.

Osheen Shupple has spent his life taking the message seriously, and now he has a solution: time travel. He’ll go back to the source of the message, and find out what it means. Well – not him, per se: but it’s alright, he doesn’t have to figure out the perfect guinea pigs.. urm, heroes to attempt the first time travel adventure… because the very first test resulted in a list of names flittering out of the machine, and all he has to do is track them down. One has been in prison for 28 lifetimes, one has just graduated after cheating – badly – on her exams, one has had more body parts replaced than they ever started out with, and the last is a very, very famous starship captain, who also died a heroic death centuries before. So, piece of cake, right?!

I can’t really say too much about the plot because… well, less spoiler risk and more that it would take another 500 pages to explain – time travel tends to get complicated! I did really like the idea that the chapters are presented ‘out of order’, but numbered chronologically, which theoretically could help but also – timey wimey shenanigans, so maybe not! Although I am tempted to try another read through with the ‘corrected’ order… hmm!

The idea of paradox(es?) is kept at the centre of it all, so the fact that logic goes right out of the window doesn’t really matter – is possibly half the point, even. However, I did end up feeling like the book reached where it felt like it would/maybe should end, and then just launched into a whole new batch of twists and turns. It kept things unpredictable, but also perhaps a bit overlong.

Tonally, this is a very chatty, ‘youthful’ kind of book – as in, it feels very fitting for a modern age, albeit taking a lot of vibe from Douglas Adams. It works – but was bordering on getting irritating, so ymmv. I only found out afterwards that the author is something on social media, which makes a lot of sense while at the same time I remain rather clueless.

The characters come from a range of times, ages, and even species, each bringing their own traumas into the mix. I found some of these more convincing than others. I’m not entirely sure any of them really resonated for me, not least because there’s no firm sense of who’s the ‘main’ character. It shifts, but not in a planned kind of a way, and it doesn’t help with clicking with any of them.

Perhaps the issue is the pace, which doesn’t really let up, just twisting into more zany (mis)adventures. A manic romp, for sure. It was enjoyable, and it deserves far far better than the whole publishing fiasco behind it (I’ll leave the reader to look into that if interested), but it hit me at the level of ‘daft fun’ more than anything. But hey: huge place for that in the world! Perhaps a little tighter, a little shorter, and it could have been closer to brilliant fun.

I had a lot of fun reading The Paradox Paradox; it's a very well crafted time travel story (especially for a debut fiction novel!), and had me laughing all the way through. It sets out its stall early on as far as humour goes; plenty of absurdity and snark, with a smattering of pop culture references to boot. What impressed me though is it still delivers a strong, serious story with plenty of bite and tension on the way, to stop the humour running amok and creating a farce. The use of footnotes in particular to add a little exposition and a lot of laughs was absolutely on point!

There’s a couple of characters who definitely got a lot of preferential treatment in the novel! Kez arguably gets the most screen time, and rightfully so; she is one the clear standout characters, and her story and development is very much the driving force behind the novel. Another character gets some truly excellent characterization that makes great use of the paradox concept, but that would be straying too much in spoiler territory to get any more specific. I love how both character’s backstories intertwine with the plot, giving the whole book a very cohesive feel. I think a few other key characters do fall by the wayside in terms of development, but that simply means Dan will have to write a sequel and some spin off novels in the future (please!).

Did I understand all of the plot? I don’t think so, I did get a little confused at times. Were there plot holes in the story? Possibly, but they might all have clear explanations that I just missed while I was confused. Did I enjoy the novel anyway? Yes, definitely! Should you read it? If you love a good, funny space opera, yes! Is this too many questions at the end of a review? Almost certainly.

The Paradox Paradox by Daniel Hardcastle[1] is a sci-fi comedy book (and as far as I can tell, his first fiction book). I recently got a chance to read the book courtesy of an ARC[2] from netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review of the book, so here goes!
The book itself is a science-fiction comedy, in many ways a cross between The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Doctor Who. The story, (largely) set in the 2700s[3], takes place in a galaxy where Earth is part of an interstellar union, and follows a motley crew of eccentric recruits who are working together to stop an evil time traveler from accomplishing his goals.

The Good

I'll start with the strengths of this book, of which there were many. The biggest strength, for me, was the humor. Daniel Hardcastle channels his inner Douglas Adams and the book (especially the first half) had me genuinely laughing out loud regularly. The book is very indulgent with its use of sci-fi tropes, using common ones to flesh out the world, but also pokes fun at them and satirizes the genre in a way that worked well. (For instance, all species in the galaxy speak English, but only because "Marvel's films were in English, all seven hundred of them needed to be seen before the new ones, and nobody likes a dub.") It uses a combination of pop-culture references and timeless references, blending together into a self-aware style of humor akin to Hitchhiker's Guide or Deadpool that especially delights long-time fans of the genre. He also extensively uses footnotes, sneaking all sorts of hilarity in there: I am, of course, a big fan of Pratchett-style joke footnotes4, so this, of course, was a big plus. Overall, I'd rank Hardcastle as one of the funniest authors I've read, just below Adams or Pratchett, which puts him in great company.

Now, lots of books are funny. What elevates this book beyond just a comedy is that, unlike Hitchhiker's Guide, this book actually has a plot and characters. Indeed, I was pleased to find that the characters and plot—while funny—weren't simply vessels for a punchline. The two most important characters, in particular, I found to be quite interesting and well fleshed out. Each had a strong backstory, interesting and complex motivations, and an arc over the course of the story. They were both characters, who, while being different from me in many ways, I still related to in some respects, and they were both just fun to read about.

The Bad

And now, for the less exciting stuff. While this book was good and had a strong plot and some good character work throughout, I did find the ending to be a little underwhelming, and there were definitely parts that held this book back from being even better.

I'll start with the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey nature of the plot. As tends to always be the case, time travel stories are hard to write in an internally consistent manner. My general motto for time travel stories tends to be "don't think about it too much", but in this case I thought the time travel to be especially convoluted and inconsistent. The story didn't just follow one of the "standard" time travel paradigms, but mixed and matched aspects from lots of different approachs: playing with bootstrap paradoxes, alternate universes, Back to the Future-style timeline erasure, and so on. It, furthermore, used some key timey-wimey plot devices as key elements in the resolution of the story. The end result, ultimately, was that it was hard for me to get invested in the ending, and largely found the ending to be more convoluted than satisfying.

The other bit that disappointed me a bit was the character work. I know, I know, I just praised the character work. Yes, I did: but for two of the characters. The problem, however, is that there are more than two important characters. The book itself follows a whole group of people: around 5-7 characters that I probably should have cared about. Unfortunately, I simply didn't. Part of this was that (perhaps to handle the large cast of characters), the author chose to write out certain characters from big chunks of the middle portion, but that didn't work for me. One character I was quite invested in just kind of disappeared partway through the book, leaving my quite disappointed, while other characters re-became relevant at the end at a point where I genuinely had to stop and go "wait, who was this again?" And there was at least one character that was around for a majority of the book, but just didn't get much development, leaving me uninvested in anything they did. So yes, overall, the character writing for some characters left a little to be desired: had Hardcastle replicated the character work on the two most important characters to even one or two more characters, I think this book would have been closer to a 5 star (at least a 4.5 star for sure), but as it stands that's what held it back by the end.


Final Thoughts

Overall, I thought this was a really fun read. Had the story been nothing but Daniel Hardcastle's jokes, one after another, I probably still would have enjoyed it, but it did a good job of elevating itself beyond a mere comedy with some sci-fi set dressing. It's an ambitious time-travel story with a fairly large cast, and while it falls a little short of them, it does get most of the way there. It's funny, uplifting, and well-written, it put a smile on my face most of the way through, and I'm glad to have read it.

Once again, a big thank you to Daniel Hardcastle and netgalley.com for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book.

---

[1] Also known as the youtuber @NerdCubed
[2] Advanced Reader Copy
[3] With some detours to all sorts of time periods, ranging in wildness from utterly tame (early 21st century) to quite wild (2.5 million BC).
[4] I, uh, didn't really have anything to say here. I just wanted a footnote on the bit about footnotes.

Dope read! Sci fi isn’t my go to genre mainly because I lack the brain capacity for science in general. Just not my thing. But I have been reading/loving it more, and time travel/dimensional shifts and paradoxes have always interested me so I gave this one a go. I admittedly have a hard time with abstract reality books. I have a terrible imagination and struggle with forming mental images and was a bit overwhelmed in the beginning of this one. There are so many characters of all sorts of alien/AI/human/etc. variety and it took me a bit to get everyone straight, but it does click. Hardcastle does an excellent job at making his vision of the universe 700+ years in the future both accessible and so vivid. The footnotes included did a great job at giving us bits of history here and there and there are so many clever bits.

Overall, fantastic read. It’s a funny book and I found myself laughing frequently. There is some darkness and gore in this one, but it’s a bit of a lighter tone than my usual fare which was a nice change of pace. The story is wild, but basically we have a time travel machine, multi dimensional blending and a very lovable cast of characters.

I loved all the possibilities referenced. The endless opportunities that exist within our universe have always made me feel infinitesimal and it was awesome reading some of Hardcastle’s imagination come to page. Some of the science-y bits and logicality behind certain concepts went over my head, but not in a way where I felt lost. If you appreciate dark comedy sci fi I’d highly recommend this one. It’s a thicc boi but one you won’t regret.

There’s a good story in here somewhere, but it’s pretty confusing and meandering as is. IMHO, the book needs to be trimmed down quite a bit. DNF.

#TheParadoxParadox #Netgalley. Thankyou to both Unbound as well as Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this unique ARC book.
The concept of this story was unique and interesting but I was pretty thrown by all the jumping around of the time travel aspects of all the various characters throughout the story. It is due to this aspect that I wasn't fully able to immersive myself in the story as it detracted my full attention and enjoyment as a whole.

What a brilliant, timey wimey, mind-rollercoaster of a book!

This was such a journey, ultimately about just some random people trying save the universe. We follow (a very ttrpg assembled) team as they travel through quite literally millions of years of history, in a semi-linear, but not chronological, fashion - to stop one madman from ending everything. And I loved every minute of it.
At times, I will admit there were times the book drags a bit, overwhelming you with dense plot and time jumping. But reflecting back on it after finishing - it's all settled in my brain and it's brilliant.

My biggest praise for this book, probably has to be the cast of characters. All super memorable, despite the number of them. A wonderfully queer and diverse bunch, mixed in with some literal aliens (who all feel so Doctor Who inspired). My standout characters of course have to be Kez and Eureka, both wonderful lead women, and the way they play off each other is just perfection.

Overall, if you've ever loved Doctor Who, or if you're just looking for a bit of a brilliantly confusing time travel adventure, this is a must read.

Thanks to Unbound for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions in this review are my own.

I received a copy of this book for a free and unbiased opinion.
This book is darkly humorous, and I loved the little blurbs at the start of the book of people involved in the project.
The concept is amazing, with a complex plot and multiple intriguing characters and this must be one of the best titles I have seen.
But I found it hard to keep up with the story and what was going on which was particularly frustrating for me. The toing and froing between time was an interesting but it was hard for me to keep track of what was happening.
The Paradox Paradox is a high concept story, with a highly advanced plot and plenty of twists to navigate but it just might have been a little too advanced for me.
But this is a book that so many sci-fi book readers will love and devour.

A book about time travel and possible paradoxes sounded right up my alley. And it had an over abundance of those. For me, this was a book that was a bridge too far. I think I’d have enjoyed it more if a few of the time loops had been removed. The humor, reminiscent of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was fun and a large part of why I kept plowing when I was completely lost. It was simply TOO much. I don’t consider myself dull usually but in fairness, perhaps that’s the problem with the book. It’s just too advanced for my little pea brain but I suspect that may be true for many readers. I did find many thought provoking philosophical points to mull over and I appreciated those. I hope it is actually a wonderful book to the majority because I can tell blood, sweat and tears went into its writing.

Thank you for the ARC and I wish you all the best.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the author for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I wasn't a huge fan of the massive amounts of characters or plot. Not my jam.

**Features:**
- Time-bending hi-jinx
- Humorous writing style in the vein of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Mind bending but satisfying when all the pieces fit together

**Synopsis:**

In a far flung future, eight species from across the galaxy have formed an alliance known as The Affinity. Working together, they have been able to create a utopia where all can live and work together in peace and security. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, there is only one lingering threat to their known universe: Austin Lang. But who is he? Why is a man who lived over 700 years ago so important? The only logical way to find the answers and save the universe is to build a time machine and put together the perfect crew for this crucial mission. Too bad the best person to lead the mission is far from perfect.

**Thoughts:**

I have so many thoughts, it’s hard to put them all down! If you are picking this book, just know that you are about to go on a journey. It has the time-bending adventures of “Doctor Who” mixed with humorous writing style of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Mileage will definitely vary depending on whether this style of humor lands for you or not. For me, the humor was well balanced with some of the more serious moments and themes that the story explores and never overstayed its welcome.

As a book about time travel, it should come as no surprise that the story tends to jump around the timeline quite a bit. It does not follow any particular pattern in these jumps and it takes a while for characters from one time period to fully appear in another. I never found this confusing, but this is definitely a book where you have to ‘trust the process’ and allow things to develop. Similarly, there are a lot of characters and they are introduced rather quickly. However, each character feels extremely unique and really jumps off the page. Even if I didn’t quite remember all of the names right away, it was really easy to remember who the character was when they would reappear.

Despite its length, this book was a quick and delightful read for me. I would definitely recommend this book to any sci-fi fan.

Special thanks to NetGalley and the author for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!