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    The Tourist
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    The Tourist
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    The Tourist
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Tourist

    Written by Robert Dickinson

    Narrated by Peter Kenny

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The future has already happened.

    It is expected to be an excursion like any other. There is nothing in the records to indicate that anything out of the ordinary will happen.

    A bus will take them to the mall. They will have an hour or so to look around. Perhaps buy something, or try the food.

    A minor traffic incident on the way back to the resort will provide some additional interest—but the tour rep has no reason to expect any trouble.

    Until he notices that one of his party is missing.

    Most disturbingly, she is a woman who, according to the records, did not go missing.

    Now she is a woman whose disappearance could change the world.

    With breathtaking plot twists that ricochet through time, this is the most original conspiracy thriller you will hear this year.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLittle, Brown (Hachette UK) Audio
    Release dateOct 20, 2016
    ISBN9781405536752
    Unavailable
    The Tourist

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    Reviews for The Tourist

    3/5

    43 ratings11 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Time travel / Detective fiction that'll put your brain through a mincer.
    • 1/5
      When I first read the premise of this novel, I thought that it was weird and elusive, but interesting. After trying to read this novel and make sense of it, my verdict is that this novel is weird and elusive. That's it. I thought that the novel would open up into this really interesting mystery. Instead, it just kept me confused. The basic question of "what is happening" was never properly answered, so the whole time I was reading this novel, I was just perplexed. It made no sense. As in, actually no sense. I get that the author was trying to make the reader put on the detective hat... but it really shouldn't be that hard to go around and find the clues. Also, I really wasn't expecting to do that much "work"; I just wanted an engrossing, fast-paced novel with big reveals that would blow me out of the water. Unfortunately, this novel wasn't any of that. For those reasons, I'm giving this a 1/5 stars.

      I received this novel as an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
    • 2/5
      To be honest, I was digging this book in the beginning. I was feeling the futuristic vibe. Yet, that is about the only thing that this book had going for it. The first person narration in this book was not working for me. It left me disconnected to the narrator. In addition, none of the other characters were that interesting. I was expecting a more suspenseful tone to this book. Instead, there were a few moments of hope but they were quickly dashed and overshadowed by the voices. The voices had no faces to them. Therefore, no way for me to gain an emotional connection to them. I did finish this book but I could not tell you most of what happened in the story. A nice concept that needs more polishing.
    • 3/5
      An intriguing beginning, a strong and exciting middle section...and a total let down at the very end. I'm not usually a fan of time travel stories as a whole, so I was very surprised at how much I was enjoying it this one. I actually found myself enjoying the confusing back and forth of people meeting out of synch and being given just enough of a hint of what may...or may not have happened in our future and their past.The mystery of the missing tourist and what she was up to worked for me, again right up until the end, and I enjoyed how each chapter was told from a different characters perspective, and timeline. And I found the implications of governments manipulating what information is given out and when and how that can be used as a form of control.I was really enjoying this right up until the very ending. It fell flat and left me feeling cheated and as if I had put all the effort into following the complicated plot for absolutely no good reason. The ending felt rushed, almost tacked on offered no real resolution or reward as a reader. Still, I'm glad I read it, it was a fun ride for the most part.Edited to add:On further thought, I can sort of see what I think the author may have been trying to do. If you paid a lot of attention to certain details during the story the ending, while not predictable, is somewhat explained…sorta…The thing is, this still doesn’t make me feel satisfied with the ending, there just wasn’t enough pay off for all the work I had to do to follow the breadcrumbs. I will say this, it did make me think and rethink about what I read and what it could mean so I guess there is that.
    • 4/5
      I’d seen The Tourist by Robert Dickinson at the library several times before I picked it up. I was intrigued. The cover looked generic, the synopsis sounded like a typical thriller novel, and the spine was marked as science fiction. Something didn’t add up to me, and I was very reluctant to say that it was tagged wrongly by the library staff, a lovely group of people who have consistently remained there since I was about nine years old. I stumbled across this on Goodreads more recently and on my last trip to the library I finally picked it up.In this novel, time travel is not only possible, its rather commonplace. It’s main use? Tourism, almost with historical and scientific research. On one particular excursion to a local mall, one time traveling tourist goes missing. Spens, the main characters, must find her. After all, there are no records from the future stating that she stays missing. The missing tourist, however, seems to be doing everything she can to stay missing as society around them begins to fall apart.I’ve heard about this book before, mostly along the lines of ‘it’s very confusing’, something which is also reflected in the reviews left on Goodreads. However, I really didn’t find this at all.If anything, the book suffers from miss-marketing. I do not think the blurb does the novel justice, portraying the novel as more of a thriller/mystery. To be honest, I’m not sure I would have realized this was a science fiction novel at all if the library hadn’t stuck the sci-fi tag on the spine of the book. While there is a definite mystery aspect to the novel, this is not the only or most important aspect of the book. Time travel is a very, very important part of the novel. The book doesn’t stop for any long discussions on time travel, how it works, or popular theories or paradoxes. It expects the reader to already be familiar with time travel and time travel related theories.The Tourist is a bit ‘timey-wimey’. If you don’t read or watch a lot of time travel science fiction, this book may be a bit hard to follow. If you’re a fan of a show like Doctor Who, I don’t expect any confusion while reading.There are a lot of things that I really do like about this novel. I did enjoy the time travel aspect. I’ve always liked the discussion on how exactly time travel works. How do relationships with family and friends change when time travel is involved? Do things like death matter in a future with time travel in the same way they do now when family can merely go back in time and visit the deceases? If you have the possibility of looking at your own future, would you? Can past, or future, events be changed, even if they’re already recorded?This novel tackles all of those questions, providing commentary throughout the novel via the character’s actions. Some seem to have hard answers. Others, maybe not so much. It’s a fascinating study of the genre.In addition to this, I found the futuristic society portrayed quite fascinating. Dickinson did quite a bit I loved and don’t often see. The future doesn’t have only one language. The way different cities, or societies view one another is completely fascinating. One sees another as evil, an almost dystopic place. The future world seems to be teetering. Those from one city view another as despotic, an almost dystopian society.The majority of the novel takes place in our world around current times. The people of the 21st century are well aware of the 25th century sightseers that live and work in their midst. Both modern and future humans think of the other as strange, odd. Both sides view the other as all having a strange sameness, neither side really being able to tell one person from another in the same way those of the same century do. Neither side really understands the other. Those of the future are understandably careful with information released about themselves and the future Earth. Those of the past are an enigma due to a severe lack of information existing from the surrounding time period due to a time period of widespread extinction and global disaster. I feel that these things aren’t portrayed in quite the same way in any other book. I liked seeing these people of different times interact. The flaws and misconceptions each had for the other were very human and understandable, even if I didn’t agree with or like the character’s opinions.As for the characters themselves… Well, I had some issues with them.None of the characters are ‘bad’ per say. The pasts, likes, and dislikes of both main characters and side characters were all woven into the narratives. All of the characters were very three dimensional, and I found myself drawn to several characters. However, all of those I was drawn to were side characters. And this is due to a very important reason.The Tourist follows two separate characters. One of these characters narratives is told in first person point of view. The other is told in second person point of view. Let’s talk about the first person point of view first. Usually, I find stories told in first person full of life and personality. Unfortunately, the main character of this narrative, Spens, was utterly bland. There was no personality in his voice at all. It felt more like a third person limited point of view that just happened to have ‘I’ pronouns instead of ‘him’.As for our other main character, I don’t think using second person point of view necessarily hurt story. However, it certainly didn’t add anything special to the narrative. I didn’t find this style hard to get into, but it is very rarely used and I can see this style being an issue for some other readers.Despite some gripes, I really did like The Tourist by Robert Dickinson. I found the subject matter interesting and the story being told had be gripped from beginning to end. If you like time travel narratives or books with alternating point of view, pick this one up. If you aren’t well versed in time travel stories or you don’t like second person point of view, this might be a book to skip.
    • 3/5
      Spens, a tour guide with the cut-rate Tri-Millennium Tours, notices one of his charges is missing when the party returns to their low budget resort after a trip to a shopping mall – in which the biggest excitement is a bumper bashing. The twist is that they are all from the 24th Century, a drear and dystopian world following a Near Extinction Event: the remaining population use Time Travel to holiday in the early 21st Century, an era safely before the NEE. Spens has to find the missing tourist and hope to avoid a temporal paradox… The Tourist is a literary SF thriller and the excursions into the fourth dimension can be as confusing as they are intriguing, so be prepared.
    • 5/5
      A wild roller coaster ride as characters' stories intertwine over centuries of back-and-forth time-travel. There are two narratives which alternate. A first-person voice tells the story of Spens, a travel agent for 23rd century travel to the 21st, who loses a client on an outing and gets drawn into a convoluted search. The client (whose story is in second person singular), goes by various names and is, of course, not a client but is in the 21st on a mission. She proves elusive to both Spens and several agencies who have been tracking her back and forth for sabotage. One big question is whether the past can be changed to stop the damage she's already done in the 21st and which caused massive problems in the 23rd. Hold on to your hat and pay close attention!
    • 3/5
      It is the future and time travelling is a normal vacation. The 19th through 21st century earth seems to be the most popular. Spens, Reimann, and Li are responsible for a group of tourists but something did not go as planned and now the guides are in trouble. The plot is really about being at the wrong place at the wrong time and the choices people make.
    • 2/5
      Still not really sure wtf I just read. The premise sounded so interesting and promising, especially with the time travel, but it just was poorly executed to me. I had trouble following along with characters and what was going on, yet kept reading hoping to learn more about the mystery. Not worth it unless you love sci-fi. *I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*
    • 3/5
      Okay, first off this novel is in second person and this bothered me at the time of reading. I've since expanded my reading preferences but do remember this detracted quite a bit from the story when I read it. Be warned.

      That said, this is essentially a fun time travel novel with some twists. A bus full of time tourists visiting a time in the past go to the mall where the bus-travellers delight in the use of real money and purchasing items face to face with real "locals" (people from that time period). Afterwards, the time period tour guide takes a head count of the travelers once the tour is over and they return to their present time and realizes a girl is missing - worse yet, the record does not register as going missing. So, our tour guide goes on a quest to find his missing client, only to have quite the adventure himself.

      The Tourist is very cliche in many ways: time travel, finding missing people and even the over all plot but what it did do well was developing a realistic and interesting story about what it would like to be a traveler from the far future visiting our today. Also, time travelers holding tours of our time period and purchasing Starbucks at the local mall for the pure experience first time in their lives holds some kind of appeal for this reader.

      That said..the mystery behind this novel is so shrouded in shadows that it was a bit over my head. I didn't get the full scope of the mystery or the implications at the end..at least I don't think I did? I really enjoyed this book, but I can only give it 3 stars because the ending wasn't nearly as satisfying as I'd hoped after all that build up. It was like Helen Philips "The Need", I was left feeling like there were deeper layers of this book that I just..didn't get.

      While this book has plenty of negative reviews, I think this book is worth a read. It's not exactly a classic science fiction in the making, but its a fun and immersive story for a weekend read. Not complex, but still has enough meat to sate a reader between epic reads.

      Thank you to NetGalley and Redhook for a copy of this novel for review.
    • 3/5
      Good writing, but ultimately disappointing. After a promising start, the narrative simply peters out.