ridel reviewed The Perfect Run by Maxime Julien Durand (The Perfect Run, #1)
A Perfect Time Travel 'Reset' Novel
5 stars
Incredible - I have always been a fan of Groundhog Day-style stories, with Edge of Tomorrow being one of my favourites. The Perfect Run came out of nowhere for me, seamlessly combining time travel resets with the X-Men. In fact, the latter is more reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series, with a well-defined magic system and an incredible variety of superpowers (and weaknesses).
To say that this surprising mashup works is an understatement... and Maxime Durand shows true worldbuilding and narration skill in taking a single person POV and building atop video game concepts. Our hero is overpowered and his personality is fun (quip-based comedy that I enjoy but if you detest you better run far far away), and opposing him is a cast with equally overpowered superpowers and are incredibly devious. I love the antagonists, if you can even call them that, and nothing in this novel is black …
Incredible - I have always been a fan of Groundhog Day-style stories, with Edge of Tomorrow being one of my favourites. The Perfect Run came out of nowhere for me, seamlessly combining time travel resets with the X-Men. In fact, the latter is more reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series, with a well-defined magic system and an incredible variety of superpowers (and weaknesses).
To say that this surprising mashup works is an understatement... and Maxime Durand shows true worldbuilding and narration skill in taking a single person POV and building atop video game concepts. Our hero is overpowered and his personality is fun (quip-based comedy that I enjoy but if you detest you better run far far away), and opposing him is a cast with equally overpowered superpowers and are incredibly devious. I love the antagonists, if you can even call them that, and nothing in this novel is black and white.
The world is real, rich, complex, multi-layered such that you can only understand everything with the help of time travel resets. Dozens of subplots are running regardless of what our hero is doing, resulting in an ever-changing complex narrative that constantly surprises. My only nitpick is that the timelessness of this novel will stand to question... there are a lot of pop-culture references and I fear that in twenty years this book may feel incredibly dated. That's my only complaint!
Highly recommended. Read it. Read it now.
