“Shift” by Kim Curran (Strange Chemistry)

A fast-paced, entertaining debut

When your average, 16-year old loser, Scott Tyler, meets the beautiful and mysterious Aubrey Jones, he learns he’s not so average after all. He’s a “Shifter”. And that means he has the power to undo any decision he’s ever made.

At first, he thinks the power to shift is pretty cool. But as his world quickly starts to unravel around him he realises that each time he uses his power, it has consequences; terrible unforeseen consequences. Shifting is going to get him killed. In a world where everything can change with a thought, Scott has to decide where he stands.

There seems to be a new sub-genre developing in YA fiction, focusing on various forms of time-travel or inter-dimensional travel. Recent great examples include E.C. Myers’s Fair Coin and Ian McDonald’s Planesrunner. Now we can add Kim Curran’s Shift to the genre’s growing ranks of quality novels. In her debut, Curran has written an intriguing world of limited time-travel (it reminded me a little of the dynamics in the Nicholas Cage movie, Next). It’s an excellent introduction to the setting and characters, and despite a couple of niggles, I certainly enjoyed reading Shift.

Strange Chemisty: First Experiments…

It was an exciting day when Angry Robot Books announced the launch of their YA imprint, Strange Chemistry. Doubly so, when we were told that Amanda Rutter would be the imprint’s editor – some, if not most, of you will remember Amanda’s excellent book and review website, Floor-To-Ceiling-Books. So, knowing that she has impeccable taste in books, this bode well for Strange Chemistry’s line of books. Now that the first five title have been announced, I thought I’d put together a single post about them all, providing synopses and artwork. It’s a nice clutch of novels.