What if time travel were possible in the future? Why would members of a future society prioritize it?
These questions are prompted in Open Atlas, when a future time traveler explores dozens of the world's greatest places across all continents and with expansive timelines. The explorer investigates and vividly describes each of these sites, and connects us to them in consequential, surprising ways. Diving into this genre-bending novel, one senses the brilliant bazaar that is life on planet Earth.
Many of these visited sites are remote, and not on the typical tourist trail of contemporary, international society. The boundless scope of sites on this global, geographic journey include: volcanic islands near Antarctica, a madrasa filled town in the Middle East, hunting grounds in the Arctic Circle, a Roman city in North Africa, a Bell Tower in Europe, and rainforests in South America to name just a handful. In fact, these important sites of discovery are world heritage cultural and natural sites. The reader will come away from this novel with rich, diverse knowledge about these numerous sites' histories that they may not have a chance to visit in their lifetime.
Yet the novel reads like a conceptual, science fiction adventure, less so a history or geography lesson. The explorer and her mentor are searching the world for full comprehension to complete their future technologies which others would like to steal, giving the story momentum and purpose. Seamlessly blending fact with fiction, the time traveler meets spirited historical and scientific figures as well as everyday strangers from these sites and converses with them.
Open Atlas allows readers to take pleasure in the remote possibilities of our world: to feel like the world is still mysterious, discoverable, abundant and sublime. It also gives way to a broader understanding of multiple cultures and mythologies, as well as an extensive study of archaeology and architecture from an accomplished writer and registered architect, Lindsey W McLaughlin. Open Atlas is a profound, insightful story that marries science to art, environmentalism to multiculturalism, and discovery to introspection. It allows one to feel refreshed by the possibilities of storytelling and memory, paying attention to the details of experience and imagination anew.
By looking through a kaleidoscope of key places, figures, and events, one wonders if this is a kind of colorful gestalt of the world itself. There is the ever-present question that lifts this enchanting novel to our present-day experience: what do we value here on planet Earth?
