13/07/2025

ON SUNDAY JULY 13, 2025 theSunday Special IV Read this before you go back in time Venture beyond the present and into the mysterious realms of time travel, where each moment offers a journey of its own I F you could go back in time, where would you go? Who would you meet? And what might you do dif ferently? In great time travel books, there’s no limit to how far or how BY AQILAH NAJWA JAMALUDDIN

Recursion, by Blake Crouch Chaos breaks loose when time travel, memory syndrome and a global epi demic collide in one storyline. Recur sion centres around a detective and a scientist trapped in a world where False Memory Syndrome is sweeping through the population, leading to devastating consequences. It all begins with a mind-blowing and chilling research project exploring how memory is stored in the brain, aimed initially at combating dementia and Alzheimer’s. Funded by a mysterious benefactor, the experiment spirals far beyond its intended scope. In their attempt to fix what was broken, the characters uncover a threat no mind could comprehend, no eyes could see and no heart could accept.

strangely you can go. At their best, these literary works are inventive and authentic, often rigorously crafted with endings that surprise and resonate in ways readers could not predict. Characters are frequently intertwined subtly and cleverly, foreshadowing key twists and connections. With so many complex time travel stories, here are a few brilliant ones to warm your mind and prepare you for the reality-bending art of time travel. What if the universe is conspir LQJ WR KHOS \RX ¿[ ZKDW ZDV QHYHU PHDQW WR EH EURNHQ LQ WKH ¿UVW SODFH" This book follows the story of Alice, who turns 40, but on the morning of her birthday she finds herself transported back to the 90s, reliving her 16th birthday. She is once again reunited with someone who has grown distant in her present life – her dad. The forty-something past version of her father is now standing before her. W KDW FRXOG VKH GR GL̆ HUHQWO\ LI the universe had altered her life and sent her back in time? The book ex plores the enduring threads of family and the timeless bond between a father and daughter. This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub

Sea of Tranquillity, by Emily St. John Mandel From 1912’s Vancouver Island to a FRORQ\ RQ WKH PRRQ ¿YH KXQGUHG years later, this novel unfolds a sweeping story of humanity across centuries and space. The book fol lows Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City , who is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness. In doing so, he uncovers a series of disrupted lives: the exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer stranded far from home and a long lost friend from the Night City . With its varied stories, backgrounds and insights, the book masterfully explores time, memory and meta physics, offering a reflection that feels eerily relevant to the present moment.

The Gone World, by Tom Sweterlitsch

Suspenseful and deeply unsettling, The Gone World explores the dark side of military power and the long trail of secrets it leaves behind. When Shannon Moss is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a Navy SEAL’s family and track down his missing teenage daughter, she uncov ers a devastating truth: the missing SEAL was an astronaut, carrying a top-secret national weapon – an element of time travel. He may now be lost in the depths of quantum time. D HWHUPLQHG WR ¿QG WKH JLUO DQG KDXQWHG by her troubled past, Moss decides to journey into time herself. What she un covers is more terrifying than she could have imagined – a chilling revelation and an oncoming doom rising on time’s distant horizon, one that could shatter the present and trigger the cataclysmic end of humanity. So, how far would you go to save a nation?

The Vanished Birds, by Simon Jimenez “This is when your life begins,” the book wrote. After decades of travelling through the stars, Nia Imani has lost track of time. The years passed and those closest to her have faded from her life. All that remains is her work. Immune to the world’s pass ing time, she continues until one day she stumbles upon a mysterious boy who has fallen from the sky. But the boy does not speak. He only communicates through the haunting, beautiful music he plays on an old ZRRGHQ ÀXWH :KR LV WKLV HQLJPDWLF \RXQJ stranger? How could he be connected to Nia’s past, present and future? And most importantly, how will his arrival change Nia Imani’s life?