Skipshock by Caroline O’Donoghue

Title: Skipshock

Author: Caroline O’Donoghue

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Walker Books Australia

Published: Science Fiction

Format: Paperback

Pages: 400

Price: $22.99

Synopsis: Set in a universe where time is a resource – coveted and exploited, the key to power and privilege – comes a dazzlingly inventive sci-fi fantasy romance by a bestselling Irish author.

“Skipshock isn’t just a book. It is, literally, a new world to dive into, and one so exquisitely conjured that you feel you live there for a while. A suspenseful, romantic, charming and really unique tale.” – Matt Haig

Margo is on a train to a new boarding school when she slips into another dimension, passing from the height of Irish summer into the chill of an alien winter, from a 24-hour day to one that begins and ends in just six hours. From a stranger on the train – a travelling salesman by the name of Moon – she learns that New Davia is part of a world scarred by uprisings, travel bans and world sealings. Power is determined by time – who has it, who doesn’t, and who has the freedom to travel between time zones.

Can Margo find a way to get back home – or will she choose to stay in a world where her teenagehood is slipping away faster than ever before, but where she may have found the only person with whom she would choose to spend eternity?

~*~

Seventeen-year-old Margo is on her way to boarding school in Dublin with her father’s old watch when the train she’s on suddenly changes. And she’s no longer on that train. She’s thrust from her twenty-four-hour world, where Ireland is in a blistering summer into New Davia – a wintry world where each day only lasts six hours. She meets Moon – a salesman on the train in New Davia, in a world filled with uprisings and oppression, travel bans, guards and people seeking to seal worlds. Where time is power – those who have it, those who don’t, and where power also rests with the people who have the freedom to travel between worlds.

Moon has a quest he has to fulfil before it is too late – and Margo appears to be the key to saving his world. But she’s determined to get home as well – the first quest that Moon and Margo agree to do. The catch is – Margo has a watch from her father, Richard Madden, and there are people who are after it. Who will do anything to get it back from her. Margo, Moon, and Moon’s friends come together to protect Margo and the watch, and go on the run through the various worlds, each with days of varying lengths, where Margo notices changes in her body and her age. Things are changing rapidly for Margo and Moon

Skipshock is the start of a new science fiction duology, where Moon and Margo are racing against time. They should never have met, but as the story unfolds, the reasons why they did, why Margo appeared in Moon’s world become clear. She’s got something that will either help or destroy Moon’s world, and she’s the one who can save the world or destroy it. The one who has a power she is unaware about, and she has been carrying it around for at least a year – ever since her father died. Things aren’t as simple as getting Margo home, completing a task on Moon’s part and evading the factions and guards that are controlling the world on behalf of a ruler. Each step is filled with complexities and obstacles, where hours and days are filled with death, where Margo is irrevocably changed in so many ways. And where Margo and Moon realise their relationship might not be coincidental and transactional – there could be something more, but the question is: how do they navigate it when Margo isn’t really from Moon’s world, and where Moon’s aware of his impending fate?

It’s a cleverly plotted novel, where things come together to set things up and build the world Margo and Moon are in. It also navigates the complexities of time, and how different time zones and day lengths affect people. This feels like it examines the idea that whilst everyone in our world has twenty-four hours in a day, how each individual person is able to use them is vastly different based on individual circumstances. This is coupled with the idea of an authoritarian government, led by what felt like a figure whose presence was threatening. And who was more threatening because at times, it felt like nobody really knew or was willing to talk about who was behind it all. Because as this book shows, nobody is ever who they really say they are and time is a construct, particularly the way we divide our days up. As Margo struggles with all the changes, it reiterates the idea that we all experience each day and the time available to us differently. The novel is told through Margo’s perspective in third person, and Moon in first person, which works well and sets their voices and experiences apart. It’s an intriguing story, that ends om a cliffhanger to keep readers wondering what will happen until the next book comes out in 2026. I think this is a very interesting book, and a new take on science fiction that also brings elements of fantasy into the world. And it looks to be leading to an intriguing conclusion that will be filled with many ups and downs.