Last Year

November 7, 2016
The 21st-century time travelers who came to 1870s America didn’t just reveal themselves to be from the future; they also built the City of Futurity in the Midwest to give tourists—at least those willing to pay the extremely expensive ticket price—a vague look at the world to come. Jesse Cullum is a “native” City employee, born in the 19th century, who knows he’s got a good deal working security and means to keep it, especially while supporting his sister, Phoebe. Knowing the future people’s oddities well, he’s not surprised by the forthright and occasionally crude behavior (by 19th-century standards) of his new security partner, Elizabeth DePaul. But he is surprised when he falls in love with her, and shocked when someone arms the oppressed groups of the 19th century with future knowledge and weaponry. Wilson (The Affinities) flips the traditional time-travel genre on its head with an engaging protagonist who adapts the best of both worlds into rugged, brainy secret-busting resourcefulness, forging talents superior to 21st-century technology. Wilson’s turnabout effectively turns both past and present into “another country” and may just lure readers tired of temporal clichés back into the time-travel fold. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Associates.

November 15, 2016
People from the twenty-first century have opened a portal in rural Illinois that allows them to visit 1877. They've built a tourist resort called the City of Futurity, where wealthy individuals can experience the past and locals can catch a sanitized glimpse of the future. Jesse Cullum is a native of 1877 who works for the City. A man with a violent history, he meets and falls for a woman from the future. Meanwhile, someone is smuggling future technology into the past and sowing discord toward the City. Soon enough, it all starts to fall apart. There's a lot going on in the latest from Hugo Awardwinning Wilson. It's an alternate-history novel, a time-travel story, and a whodunit all in one. It explores parallel universes, corporate greed, and culture clashes while critiquing the entitlement of modern society and our tendency to romanticize the past. Wilson wrangles all these threads with skill and vividly renders the reality of the past. The story is well paced, builds to an epic crisis, and makes for a satisfying read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)