Valleys of what have been and what will be

💡Scott Alexander Howard’s The Other Valley offers a new take on time travel — one that carries the emotional weight of its use in Interstellar than your typical sci-fi handling. Rather than treating it as the result of a man-made invention, in his debut novel, Howard presents time travel as a natural fact of geography — a natural phenomenon that needs to be carefully managed rather than a novel technology inevitably being exploited.

Odile Ozanne lives in a small mountain town — to the west lies an identical valley 20 years in the past, and to the east an identical valley 20 years into the future. On their borders are armed guards dispatched to secure exit and entry between the valleys, with rare visits approved by the governing Conseil. These supervised trips are usually reserved for mourners desperate for one last look at their departed loved ones, and require full-face masks to hide their identities and other strict protocols to ensure lack of interference in the timeline.

When 16-year old Odile spots future visitors and recognizes her friend Edme’s parents, she’s hit with a terrible realization: Edme is going to die, and she’s the only one who knows it. What makes Howard’s time travel feel so grounded is how naturally it exists in Odile’s world. There are no machines, no scientific explanations — just mountains and the crushing weight of foreknowledge, and the allure and horror of change.

Howard’s background in philosophy shines in The Other Valley. Through scenes where Conseil apprentices debate whether to grant mourning visits, the story becomes a sustained look at impossible ethical questions: When does individual suffering outweigh collective good? Can morality and empathy become destructive forces?

For readers drawn to character-driven narratives that spotlight fundamental human dilemmas, The Other Valley offers a deeply satisfying and emotionally resonant experience. It’s a novel that lingers long after the final page, leaving you with questions that have no easy answers.

WHERE TO FIND IT- You can find The Other Valley at Bibliothek, or as an eBook on Amazon.