Dichronauts by Greg Egan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For fans of multiple world-time-lines and especially for fans of Christopher Priest's The Inverted World, welcome to Dichronoauts.

Walking one way brings you to the future, the other, to the past. But space is still space and time is still time. Thanks to the little creature attached to the people here, we've got a cultural/exploratory thing going on that is the spiritual godchild of Priest's classic novel. Just look at the cover to get an idea. That's a picture of the Earth. As in, the Earth, to these people, is shaped like an hourglass. That makes EVERYTHING pretty messed up. :)

So let's explore! And the characters barely know anything more than us, so we're introduced to many theories that may sound absurd, but the Earth is ALREADY absurd... because time and alternate worldlines are as easily traversed as walking across a field.

As a LITERAL worldbuilding novel, almost all the fun is in exploring and visualizing the world they inhabit.

The rest... well... as okay. Not overly special. The chasm was pretty cool. Bits and pieces elsewhere. But overall, I was not overly invested in any character.

Win some, lose some. The cool aspects are VERY cool, however. :)

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