The Incredible Exploding Man: A Tale of Quantum Physics, Time Loops, and Few Details

So I decided to read some short stores because I’m indecisive about what novel I want to read next. So I returned to the 29^th Edition of the Year’s Best Scifi and read the next unread short story in the collection. This time around I’m reviewing The Incredible Exploding Man by Dave Hutchinson.

What is it about? It’s about a journalist who gets access to a government experiment site to get a story. At this site there was a mistake of some sort and for years now the government has been sealed it off. In this containment zone a strange tornado is spinning in place well above the ground indefinitely. And while our main character is out there, something strange happens. He slips into another dimension and then slips out, over and over again. Time is looping where a particular acquaintance is dying time and time again.

The good? I say bravo for imagination here. The set up was fantastic and the concepts were great. And the ending was a quite interesting retrospective of the character as well.

The bad? Sadly, this is not a very good story. The story concept and where goes is superb, but its approach and execution is done in all the wrong ways. The lack of details hurts it most. At the beginning it’s not mentioned why the reporter is there or if he was even a reporter at all. We learn he's a reporter late in the story. The environments have very little detail. The accident has virtually no detail, creating a jarring transition in the story. Everything is so lacking and it made things incredibly hard to follow because the author did not show enough for the reader to understand and that is just a shame.

Overall, this great in concept alone, but I cannot recommend this as a good read. It’s a skip for most people.

Overall Rating: A Tale of Quantum Physics, Time Loops, and Few Details.

1 smoothie review out of Four