Assessment:

Plot/Idea: The Movement, the second title in the Time Corrector Series Book, hosts an intricate storyline with many shifts in time and perspective. Readers not familiar with the first book will need to expend some effort to gain their bearings amidst the crossed realities the narrative presents. Ultimately, the story is well worth the investment; The Movement is a compelling, richly rendered, and unique sci-fi novel that, despite its multilayered elements, remains engagingly accessible. 

Prose: The writing is consistent, immediate, and propulsive, which is critical given the frequent shifting of the storyline in terms of time, setting, and pov character. Datta capably balances these many narrative threads, allowing the reader to remain engaged in the moment, while not losing sight of the overarching storyline.

Originality: The Movement takes a fresh approach to time travel and futuristic AI, spinning an intricate web. The world and setting are drawn effectively by the writing and create a complicated world sufficient in scope to support the book's ambitious plot.

Character/Execution: The book features some larger than life characters with arcs that span beyond this entry alone. Although characterization takes a backseat to the sometimes dizzying circumstances, Datta makes the most of even short glimpses of characters, supplying them with distinctive traits and humanity. 

Date Submitted: April 18, 2023

Datta’s head-spinning, time-bending Time Corrector science-fiction/romance epic continues, after The Winding, with this follow-up that doubles down on the first book’s already grand ambitions. Picking up in media res—appropriately, since given the Möbius strip plotting, every moment can come before or after the next—The Movement opens with blood and destruction before vaulting pack a year, to 2026, with Vincent, the Time Corrector hero of the first book, about to launch the “Neurolink” network in his capacity as CEO of Quantum World, while Emika, the woman he loves, observes from a distance … and the villain Vandal stirs global digital chaos. With Emika is Nozomi, the daughter Vincent doesn’t know he’s fathered. Emika’s world is shaken, though, when after at last making sense of the misunderstandings that have kept her and Vincent apart, she dares to see him again—and he doesn’t seem to know who she is, and his closest advisors want to keep it that way.

From there, the novel offers a wealth of perspectives and surprises, with Datta taking great care to guide readers through the labyrinth of time jumps, A.I. surprises, alternate histories, and Jack Kirby-scaled visions: “Chronos’s scythe, Zeus’s thunderbolt, Hades’s spear, and Poseidon’s trident multiply and create an impenetrable wall of weapons,” Datta writes in one go-for-broke moment. While more narratively complex than its predecessor, The Movement is in many ways more inviting, right down to the helpful footnotes explaining the nuances of backstories.

The length is daunting, though the story moves fast, balancing heart, brainy timeline complexities, and an ethos of self-sacrifice to protect us all. Passages from the point-of-view of Vandal are especially engaging, blending mad science, righteous revenge, and Vincent’s own history. For all its sweeping scope—the “escalating tragedies” foretold by the mysterious Chronos—the novel’s heart is as much in its romance as in the intreton-powered “core” that only a Time Corrector can draw upon.

Takeaway: This time-bending epic blends SF, romance, and adventure on the grandest scale.

Great for fans of: Heather Blackwood’s Time Corps Chronicles, Blake Crouch’s Recursion.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A-