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As mentioned before, this book feels like a throwback to that time in the 90s when everybody tried to emulate Michael Crichton - but in a good way. Maybe it is just a bit of nostalgia on my part, I loved those kind of books as a kid. But regardless, I found this book highly entertaining; a mix of plausible sounding marine biology jargon and some sciency sounding stuff I think is all made up (in good Crichton tradition); easily recognisable good guys and some cartoonishly stereotyped bad guys and not at least an almost human, still but wholly Other Big Bad. In other words, this is - in very broad strokes - a "Congo" set on the high seas.

I'm very forgiving when it comes to this kind of literature. It is pure entertainment, an action movie in book form. If there is is anything to nitpick at it is that some of minor details have aged poorly - so I prefer to think of it as set in a parallel universe 2022. There never was a pandemic, politicians seem to act on the climate crisis, Tesla's optimism re self driving cars were not a sham to lure investors etc... Perhaps the biggest departure from our reality (except the Big Bad) is an American built ship run by an American corporation with coed showers! What an absolute HR nightmare 🤣

I can't decide if this would have worked better (for me) as a short story, or a full length book. If it was longer, it could have expanded on it's ideas. If it had been shorter, it wouldn't have felt so repetetive.

There is some good ideas here, but they deserve better than being hand waved away. How do Red and Blue target their letters to each other across strands of time? If there are certain contested junctures in time, shouldn't they be swarmed with agents, and multiple aspects of the same agents? If the protagonists are just cogs in two massive opposing machines battling for supremacy over all time - why does it seems like they are the only two operators in the field?

I'm not saying this is a bad book, there is a lot good writing here. But it didn't work for me. Two highly subjective stars. (I'm going to hold of actually rating as there are so few reviews here yet)