REVIEW: “The Einsteiners” by J. Askew

Review of J. Askew, “The Einsteiners”, in David G. Clark, Callum Colback, Joe Butler, and Alex Hareland, eds., Beneath Strange Stars, (TL;DR Press, 2020): 237-247 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I appreciate a novel take on time-travel, and that’s what Askew’s “skimming” is, liking skipping a stone across a flat pond, but instead of a rock and a flat space of water, it’s a person and a black hole.

Esther, the narrator, is one of the Einsteiners, one of the few people who has a legal license to skim. All she hopes is that she’ll get through to the other side of the black hole known as Lilith — a hundred years into the future — at the same time as her girlfriend, Andee, and before humanity makes first contact with an alien civilisation. Unfortunately, only one of those hopes will be realised…