The Gone World

The possibility of time travel has long captured the imaginations of writers, but Tom Sweterlitsch, author of The Gone World, takes the concept in an exciting new direction. In this mind-bending new thriller, humans can travel only to the future, not the past, and only to possible futures at that.

Shannon Moss is a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a top-secret government agency. It sends humans into deep space to discover new worlds and to the future to gain insight into their own time period's criminal investigations. Moss's latest mission at first seems straight-forward: she's to uncover information that could lead to the whereabouts of a missing teenager. But what she discovers instead is far more terrifying: a possible answer to how the world is going to end.

With The Gone World, Sweterlitsch offers a highly engaging--and deeply human--story informed by hard science and a refreshing sensitivity to trauma and disability. Moss, we learn, lost her leg in an early mission, and that loss, combined with the psychological strain of her job, makes her strong and cautious in equal measure. Her character isn't afraid of much, but she understands all too well just how risky her missions can be: "Moss had long ago learned the dissociative technique of viewing bodies through different lenses, divorcing the mutilation as much as possible from the personalities they once were." The Gone World is as unsettling as it is unforgettable. --Amy Brady, freelance writer and editor

Powered by: Xtenit