Book Review: “The Paradox Hotel” by Rob Hart

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

Every nerd enjoys a good old fashioned time travel tale, including moi.  So, yeah.

Throw in some contemporary satire and post-modern noir, and you’ve got a good read.

Hart’s hotel is the hospitality center for a large time portal.  The portal itself was built with US government funding and is operated by the government.  Why do you need a luxury hotel?  Tourism.

Sigh.

The protagonist January Cole is the head of security for the hotel, which is crazy at all times (everyone wants to smuggle back stuff, including dinosaurs).  Things are even nuttier because the government is going to sell off and privatize the hotel in an auction.  The bidders, obnoxious oligarchs all, are in the house and up to no good.

Plus, there seems to be something seriously wrong with reality.  Probably because somebody did something stupid in the past, despite the best efforts of the time police.  The really worrying thing is that no one seems to be as worried as they should be by the time slips.

Cole herself is cracking up even as time is cracking up around here.  What’s the deal with the dead body only she can see?  What are the bidders up to?  What is real and what is her own paranoid hallucinations?

Lot’s of stuff happens.  People are tested.  Mysteries uncovered.  You have to read all the way to the end.

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1. Rob Hart, The Paradox Hotel, New York, Ballantine Books, 2022.

Sunday Book Reviews