I swear to God I tried with this novel. I tried so many times, friends, and at some point it's just madness to try to continue reading something that truly puts you off. These ingredients are fully my bag (fantasy AND sci-fi; time travel, freaking Oxford) but combined into one dish it came out claggy and dry at the same time. It's a regretful no for me, but I will read other books from Pears in the future as he's a wonderful author and we didn't match this time.

A complex book, whose plot is based on many narrative lines, from what seems to be a bucolic fantasy-style past to a technological dystopian future passing through 1960s England, struggling with the Cold War. With a truly masterly hand Ian Pears guides the reader through all these worlds; knotting and unravelling the relationships between the characters; often making the reader doubt that the events are the product of the literary imagination of a possible Tolkien copycat, only to remove this doubt and bring everything back to a completely realistic frame of reference.
I must say that I approached the reading as if it were a normal fantasy and then, overwhelmed by the number of characters and the changes of scene, I started again with more attention, and at that point the pages began to turn by themselves.
I've never been a big fan of Pears, but with this novel I was completely captivated.
A small note: the text includes a rather harsh judgement about the work of C. S. Lewis, a judgement I fully share.

Unfortunately, I didn’t engage with the characters and found the plotline too complex. I don’t post negative reviews, so have declined comment.

"From the author of the international best seller An Instance of the Fingerpost, Arcadia is an astonishing work of imagination.

Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future—or the past?

In 1960s Oxford, Professor Henry Lytten is attempting to write a fantasy novel that forgoes the magic of his predecessors, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He finds an unlikely confidante in his quick-witted, inquisitive young neighbor Rosie. One day, while chasing Lytten’s cat, Rosie encounters a doorway in his cellar. She steps through and finds herself in an idyllic, pastoral land where Storytellers are revered above all others. There she meets a young man who is about to embark on a quest of his own—and may be the one chance Rosie has of returning home. These breathtaking adventures ultimately intertwine with the story of an eccentric psychomathematician whose breakthrough discovery will affect all of these different lives and worlds.

Dazzlingly inventive and deeply satisfying, Arcadia tests the boundaries of storytelling and asks: If the past can change the future, then might the future also indelibly alter the past?"

This sounds like an especially awesome episode of Inspector Morse or Lewis or Endeavour!

What a clever, delightful novel! So many interlocking pieces, ultimately forming a most excellent picture. The three main strands -- 1960 England, a future dystopia, and the quasi-medieval Anterwold -- start out so different even in their tone, and the main pleasure here, besides Pears' on-point writing and character-building, is to see how they all connect in the end. This novel felt "made for me", and I loved it.