Michelle Herbert reviews All Our Wrongs Today by Elan Mastai…
Tom Berren, has messed up the present, or at least his present, as he now inhabits the present we have always known. Tom grew up in what we would think of as a post-scarcity utopia. People still work in that reality, but they work to achieve new entertainments because in Tom’s world most of the problems we have today in regards to dwindling resources and the energy crisis were solved decades ago with the invention in 1965 of a device called the Goettreider Engine. When switched on released a clean renewable energy that the creator Lionel Goettreider gifted to the world.
The story is told as an autobiography by Tom, so this is his version of the truth. From the start, it is interesting to see how self-absorbed Tom is. When we read about Tom’s life in the alternate present, he never seems happy, mostly he compares how superior the world he lived in is in comparison to our present. At the same time in his new timeline, Tom’s counterpart John has a much happier family life and is also a visionary architect. Yet Tom is not satisfied with this life either, Tom believes that John is a plagiarist, as the buildings he envisions and designs come from Tom’s memories of his reality. Tom doesn’t acknowledge that this isn’t John’s fault or intention.
In Tom’s original reality, his family life wasn’t the best, his father Victor was a genius who worked in long-range teleportation, before setting up a company to work on time travel. Tom’s mother spent her time keeping her husband happy, without ever thinking of her own needs. Tom has grown up knowing he is a failure, as he is not a genius like his father which nurtured an inferiority complex in Tom. This sense of knowing he is a disappointment has allowed Tom to coast along in his life. At the age of 32, Tom has still never tried to achieve anything. A series of unfortunate events leads Tom to join his Father’s time travel team as they begin the countdown to launch day. Joining his father’s company means that Tom meets Penelope, the star chrononaut who will be the first person to travel back to the switching on of the Goettreider Engine. Which is exactly how Tom inadvertently causes his present to never exist.
The alternative versions of Tom’s parents are the antithesis of his own, John’s parents care about each other and their children, with John’s mother being the more successful of the two in their academic careers. Tom in this version also has an incredibly smart sister who can’t believe (when she hears Tom’s story) that he wrote her out of existence! This reality also has a version of Penelope, who Tom starts a relationship with, leading to the question: Is it ethical to start a relationship with a doppelgänger of a woman you knew in a previous reality, even if they are the only person who believes your story of not coming from this reality to be true?
It is good to know that in a technologically advanced society, you can still have character traits that mean that you are may not be considered a fully functioning human. Tom and the original Penelope although both very different personalities are both able to sabotage their lives. There does seem to be in the futuristic version of the world a lack of true communication, especially as everything is tailored to your wants and needs by computer algorithms, which can predict the jobs you should apply for, as well as the people you should date.
All Our Wrongs Today is a morality tale that allows Tom to become the man he has always wanted to be, to grow up and stop being resentful for all the things he never thought he had. This is a story about redemption and second chances. There is a lot of soul-searching from the characters, as well as a lot of time travel shenanigans. Mastai has created a well thought out tale, that takes into account the theories on why time travel shouldn’t work, without ever losing sight of the characters and their motivations.
Michelle Herbert
Originally published April 18, 2017. Updated April 15, 2018.
