The Curiosity Killers

Fantasy author Taylor (The Red Eye) switches to science fiction in this ambitious but often disjointed tale of dystopia and time travel. In an almost-standard future dystopian world, a large part of the American South and Midwest has seceded and formed the Rénartian Alliance of America (RAA), inexplicably “sabotaging [East Coast] universities and sending [their] technology backward to nearly Victorian-era antiquity.” Against this setting, scientist Edward Vere has a time-travel breakthrough, inadvertently pulling Wilbur Wright through from the past. As the two inventors join forces to continue Vere’s research, their technology is stolen, and the head of the RAA himself, Claudio Florence, uses it to set in motion a bizarre plan to find his successor, deciding that pulling Virginia Dare into the future from Roanoke is the only option. Taylor’s likable characters and solid narrative style make the ridiculousness of the plot almost palatable, but this isn’t a story that stands up to even the slightest scrutiny. (June)