With a couple of time periods, a couple of storylines and a couple sets of brothers, Christopher Priest tells several stories in his latest work Expect Me Tomorrow. Does all of that fit together to create one cohesive novel? I am still thinking about that. Priest takes a pair of twin brothers in the late 1800’s and parallels them with another pair of twin brothers about 150 years later. Thus we receive historical fiction and speculative fiction in one book, with a mystery in both time periods. The mystery is quite fun, and includes science fiction and future tech, which I love. But there is a twist in this story, which is not part of the synopsis but is a major player. This novel is a climate change statement. The completion of this book requires reading weather and environmental history, the characters’ environmental “research” and speculation on future global weather and landscape change. It is an extensive portion of the book, most of which has nothing to do with the plot. The mystery and relationship between the brothers is great and would have been an exciting story on its own. The long climate history and research is a thick fog to push through in order to get to the meat and excitement of the questions answered. Is the history and research that is given true? I don’t know, but there is too much of it. If you are passionate about climate change, you will enjoy that fifty percent of this novel. If not, you have a lot of details to weed through to find the jewel of a story within. I enjoyed the parts of Expect Me Tomorrow, but feel it could have been more exciting without the filler. Thanks to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

1.5 stars, rounded up. I hate to rate it so low, as I never got to a point where I wanted to quit reading it. I did have reservations, but was interested to see where it was going, but the problem is that it did not come close to sticking the landing, so the overall experience must be judged accordingly.

<i>Expect Me Tomorrow</i> is another in a micro-genre that I keep running into surprisingly often (along with things like Maja Lunde's <i>A History of Bees</i> and Anthony Doerr's <i>Cloud Cuckoo Land</i>): a climate-themed interbraiding of multiple storylines across time. This book skips the present-day storyline of the other examples I mention, instead focusing on two main threads: one in the late 19th-very early 20th century, and another focusing on the year 2050 suffering from the effects of climate change.

In the past storyline, we follow Adler Beck, a glaciologist; in the future storyline, Chad Ramsey, a police profiler (and distant descendent of Adler Beck). Both men have a twin brother (Dolf and Greg; if the twin pairing is for a thematic reason, it was not clear to me), and this partially drives the interrelationship of the plotlines -- Dolf is a bit of a ne'er-do-well, and is several times (mistakenly) jailed for fraud (in what seems to be based directly on a real historical case of mistaken identity), while Greg, a reporter, is worried about his job as the news organization he works for is set to roll out bafflingly comprehensive background checks, in which the fuzzy family legend of "Uncle Adolf" the maybe-criminal may represent grounds for him not keeping his job.

Greg asks Chad to look into it for him, and when conventional genealogical investigations turn up no leads (because Dolf's nephew, Greg and Chad's direct ancestor, changed his surname after Dolf's convictions) Chad turns to an unexpected technological solution. Priest introduces two bits of future-tech here: "Instant Mental Communication," a neural weave of nanomaterial grafted into one's head (which Chad seems most excited to use for listening to music or watching movies, or occasionally for video chats); and the "DNA visualizer," a piece of tech that Priest is so uninterested in explaining that it borders on the magical. When combined with IMC, the visualizer allows Chad to literally inhabit the sensorium of whoever's DNA is being specified (who then experiences a sort of locked-in syndrome until Chad withdraws). Here we have the purpose of Adler and Dolf being twins, I suppose - due to their identical genome Chad sometimes pops into one of them, and sometimes the other, confusing his attempts to determine the truth of the prison stories (which basically consists of him barging into one of their minds and going "ADOLF RAMSEY? PRISON? TELL ME ABOUT PRISON," which you will be shocked to learn is not particularly effective anyway).

The climate piece of the story comes from Adler's research into the Gulf Stream, paralleled with Chad's encounter with some corporate research that suggests the same thing: that, greenhouse effect notwithstanding, the disruption of the Gulf Stream due to melting Arctic ice (plus a cyclical diminution of solar intensity) will actually result in a COLDER climate in the not-so-distant future. It's a new take on the "climate apocalypse" fiction I'm encountering lately, but I can't say I found it totally convincing (unlike Chad, who is lock-stock-and-barrel in on the idea because he's "following the scientific evidence"). Chad's research into this doesn't seem to serve much of any plot purpose, though, and seems totally in service of Christopher Priest having read a few books or papers suggesting it and wanting to build a book around it.

Likewise, neither does the Dolf Beck wrongful-conviction plotline. Again, it seems that Priest came across the historical case, thought it would be cool to put in a book, and just winged it (along with copious anachronism; see <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5022899170">this excellent review</a> for more detail). The two halves of the plot really do not cohere at all. For instance: partway through the book Greg leaves his job at the news organization whose background check prompted all this to begin with, leaving no reason to go time-traveling to get further details on the legend of "Uncle Adolf" (setting aside the many other issues with this plotline from a suspension-of-disbelief sense). Nevertheless, Chad continues to do research into it, even as his brother more than once reminds him that it's no longer necessary, and I was never convinced why he should. To satisfy his own curiosity, no doubt, but the story isn't interesting enough to me as a reader to want to be along for the ride.

All in all, a bit of an incoherent mess. As I see it, what value you get out of it will be in direct proportion to how interesting you find the two kernels of real-world information Priest has built it around, but unfortunately the framework he's built adds nothing.

It’s difficult, so very difficult, to explain why you don’t love the book that is so obviously good. I’ll try, anyway.
Expect Me Tomorrow is my first read by the author, though I absolutely loved the cinematic adaptation of his movie Prestige. Granted, some of that love might have had to do with it being about magicians (one of my favorite subjects) and he fact that it was simply a very well-made movie, but still…
So, that’s what made me aware of Priest, and when this, his latest novel, came up on Netgalley, featuring more twins and alternative timelines and science, I figured it was time to check him out.
Well, ok, I did. Took days to get through – unusual for me. And for a book not much over 300 pages.
There’s so much good within these pages, too. Priest has really crammed it with plots and subplots and information. The latter of which might have been the novel’s downfall for me.
Downfall’s too dramatic, though; more like a lamentable detractor.
There’s a paragraph or two toward the end where one of the characters described the book by another as heavy going and too loaded with detail or something like that, and it’s exactly my opinion of this novel.
For all the ingenious interwoven structure of the plot, for all its clever use of utilizing a dramatized version of an old true crime case, for how well it alternates between historical and futuristic fiction, for all of its prescient timely message about the climate…it is so freaking heavy going, dense, and minutely detailed that it’s kind of a slog to read.
The climate message particularly is very heavy-handed here. In both timelines. The first protagonist is a climatologist from late 1800s/early 1900s; the second is a police consultant enhanced by experimental technology who gets involve in analyzing and creating a climate report.
The trick (well, one of them) is that the latter is a descendant of the former, and through his new tech device he traces his relative in time and contacts him.
The irony is that climatologist of yore wasn’t paid much attention to because the science was too new and too experimental, and in 2050, similar reports are ignored or dismissed as alarmist, because people are simply too stupid and self-involved to understand and appreciate them.
Priest, though, pays attention. It’s obvious that a tremendous amount of research went into writing this novel, but that is also responsible for all the times it seemingly turns from fiction into a climate change documentary.
Mind you, I’m all for it. This is a significant hugely important subject, and it should be taught, discussed, etc. but…maybe not to this extent in a fictional novel?
It’s frustrating, really, because the novel is otherwise so well composed and written. Priest is obviously a very talented author and storyteller, and this novel of yesterday and tomorrow demonstrates it amply. But it weighs itself down with an anchor as heavy as it is well-meaning.
So didn’t’ quite work for me. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.

The premise of this book is intriguing. The book itself isn't as interesting.

The author is a talented albeit wordy author. My main problem was the inability to connect with his characters, which made me lose interest.

I appreciate Netgalley and the publishers for giving me this ARC. This is my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Expect Me Tomorrow.

This is my first book by this author and I went into it with an open mind and reasonable expectations.

I don't read a lot of sci-fi but the premise of Expect Me Tomorrow was intriguing.

Sadly, this wasn't for me for a number of reasons:

1. The narrative was wordy and verbose, focusing on climate change and the damaging environmental impact humanity has unleashed on the planet with their wastefulness.

2. This is well written but verbose, dry, the tone matter of fact like a textbook. Facts are laid out like an encyclopedia and the style of writing is dispassionate, lacking warmth and emotion.

3. I didn't care for any of the characters, not in the past or future. Copious chapters was devoted to the devastating effects of climate change on humanity and the planet, barely touching upon the characters.

4. The advanced technology created in 2050 and discussed was over my head; jargon that made my eyes glaze over. Even its function was a minor subplot to the true engine driving the narrative; climate change, climate change, climate change.

5. There is no suspense or tension between the characters and the sci-fi aspect of the story bogged down with all the technical and scientific jargon. I'm still not sure of the ending.

The author is knowledgeable and concerned about climate change, as we all should be.

But if I wanted to read a textbook, I'd pick up a nonfiction book.