The Cold Forever

by Dmitry Pavlovsky

When a voyager from beyond the stars crash lands on Earth, he inadvertently unleashes a global cataclysm that may erase our timeline from existence.

Now, to save our world, a team of desperate strangers must face devastating time fluxes, ruthless mercenaries and a remorseless monster from the future, that cannot be killed.

But first... they will have to cross eons of polluted and ever shifting time, to find each other. And a young girl will have to come to terms with a destiny that will take her into the darkest regions of our Solar System.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

355 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2014

About the author

Dmitry Pavlovsky is the writer of The Cold Forever, a science fiction opus spanning eons and a much more intimate, yet no less exciting crime novel, The Kill Stack. His latest book of illustrations, Ride Fast, Die Last: Moto Culture Illustrated, is out now, as well as the military science fiction space opera, Burn of the Abyss!

Dmitry is an artist, writer and musician. He also has an unhealthy obsession with food, traveling & motorcycles.

Reviews

[Gordon Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

The experience of reading “The Cold Forever” is like scanning a beautiful, elaborate tapestry from very close up. You can see individual threads and strands, but you never seem to get far enough back to see the way they all fit together. You keep getting lost, but then you get a clue that sets you on the track again. For a moment. It is this quest for meaning that provides the through-line of the reader’s interest and involvement in the story. We are sure, quite often, that we are going to figure this out in the end. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to reassure you that, for the most part, you will. (I somehow missed where King Geist came from, but it’s probably in there somewhere.)

“The Cold Forever” is a Time Travel, hard Sci-Fi novel with a Dystopian element thrown in. The plotline is detailed, incredibly complex, yet well thought out. Put briefly (if such is possible) it is the story of an alien test pilot whose experimental interstellar ship maroons him on earth when it self-destructs, causing “time fluxes” which appear randomly and destroy whatever they touch. The story takes place in several different time lines: one is the dystopian earth created by the time fluxes. The other is in a far future world of frost and super-technology. The others are…well, it gets pretty complicated.

The main attraction in the story comes through our empathy towards two characters who stay consistent throughout, to whom we cling in desperation when everything seems out of control. Other characters – all very human and individual – have their own subplots, which are intricately intertwined to create the fabric of the story.

I have only two complaints about this book. The first one is that it’s just too complicated. There are too many characters and permutations of characters and too many timelines to keep them all straight. There are most definitely too many points of view, which seem to float around uncontrolled. When I reached the point near the end of the book where the timelines and characters all flowed together into a single story I felt palpable relief.
A minor benefit of this is that we are kept so off-balance that no reader is ever going to pick holes in the plotline or the time-travel paradoxes, because nobody can understand it well enough.

The second problem is the style of the fight scenes, which borrow far too much from the Transformer and Iron Man movies. Adolescent boys who play video games may enjoy the conceit that fully armoured beings with futuristic weapons would fight with their fists like cowboys in a Western, demolishing scenery in all directions. But that palls rather quickly. The art of writing a fight scene is in maintaining the emotional involvement of the reader. No amount of bashing and smashing can make up for that. However, the bashing and smashing is very impressive, I must admit.

Taken as a whole, this novel is an impressive feat of literary organization. Recommended for fans of: time travel, hard sci-fi, Transformers movies.

I was given a free electronic copy of the book in order to write this review.

[Galit Balli · Rating 1 out of 5]

Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review
Plot/Story:

I was really looking forward reading this book and still no matter how much I tried I just couldn’t finish reading it (sorry) and I have tried a few times. I got stuck somewhere in the middle of the story and I did love a lot of things in the book. It’s clear that the author thought well of the characters and the plot, but I couldn’t connect. The plot is well detailed and the time travel was explained really good (the author did a wonderful job here).
Characters:

The characters were well thought off, but something was missing for me as I think this is where my connection to the overall story fell short.
Writing:

There were some grammar issues here and there, but this had no importance in my eyes and the overall writing style of the author was really good.
Cover Art:

For Science Fiction book, the cover is just not pretty nor it says anything about the books itself. (I would say that I did go to the author’s Goodreads and saw the new cover and it is just wonderful).
Other Stuff

Opening Line: “Sofya stood on a small, snowy hill, her eyes glued to the stars above.”

Final Thoughts: This was the weirdest thing that happen to me while reading a book. I loved a lot of things here, but somehow I just didn’t connect to the story. I really don’t know why and I still think that if you are a Science Fiction reader, you might enjoy this book. For me, I know I will go back to this book and try to read it again in another time.

Read the original review at: The Reading Bud

[Laurel Schmitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, I want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was outside of my typical reading genre and I couldn't put it down. The chapters are written in such a way that you keep getting hints and tastes of each character's storyline, but then the chapter ends just as you start becoming completely engrossed in the character(s). It makes you WANT to keep reading further and further into the storyline just to find out what will happen next. As I was reading, I kept thinking that I could easily see this being played out in a movie. I loved the detail and the complexity of the story, and especially how it all tied up in the end.

That being said, the only thing that is keeping me from giving it 5 stars is some editing work. I know it's wildly unpopular to be the grammar police, but I noticed words that didn't fit, given their true meaning. For example, taught vs taut; boulder vs bolder. Double words on occasion. This is the ONLY complaint I had and my own personal hang-ups. As I mentioned before, I loved the story and how it all came together. I truly look forward to reading future books by Dmitry.

[Chris Meads · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one Sci-Fi novel that I enjoyed reading. It took me a while because of its complexity but I thought was well put together. A bit hard to follow because you go from the Present to 2053 then to the Age of Frost. But through all three time periods there were time fluxes. I was happy to note that Dmitry tied everything together at the end and then I knew who everyone was.

The story is about an alien test pilot who somehow ends up on Earth and somehow causes the time fluxes. He know he has to fix the problem and travels through three different time periods and encounters people that will help him achieve it.

The writing contains vivid imagery and makes you feel you're with the characters. The characters themselves feel very real.

I gave this book a 4 based on that it was a bit hard to follow with the three time periods and multiple characters (even though at the end, the author brings them all to the major four characters). This is one book that I would recommend to everyone that love sci-fi stories and I myself will read it again.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a quick read by any means but definitely worth the investment. It took me a while to finish, and in fact I had to go back and re-read it several months later when I could focus on the content.
A talented young writer, and I'm looking forward to reading his future work.
Thanks Dmitry!

[Jessica Kovacs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting

Not my typical book but it grabbed me and I couldn't put it down. It was very well written and easy enough for me to follow.