Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan

Science Fiction

From Goodreads:

Ellis Rogers is an ordinary man who is about to embark on an extraordinary journey. All his life he has played it safe and done the right thing, but when faced with a terminal illness, he’s willing to take an insane gamble. He’s built a time machine in his garage, and if it works, he’ll face a world that challenges his understanding of what it means to be human, what it takes to love, and the cost of paradise. He could find more than a cure for his illness; he might find what everyone has been searching for since time began…but only if he can survive Hollow World.

I call this thinking person Science Fiction.  The beginning in Hollow World seems very ordinary.  Ellis Rogers, the main character, finds out he is dying and that his wife had an affair with his best friend.  He has a time machine and decides to use it to go 200 years into the future.  Instead he goes 2000 years into the future.  That is where every thing changes.  The future and the people are perfect or are they?   That is what Ellis must decide for himself.  Ellis has to choose between the past (a old friend also travels to the past) and the future.  Hollow World takes an entertaining look at many of the issue that face us today and does it in a way that entertains instead of preaches. 

The title comes from where everyone lives in this future world.   Hollow World is under the surface of the Earth.  Sometimes the people go to the grass (the name for the surface) but they do not live there.  

The issues addressed in Hollow World are indeed thought provoking.  Hollow World is a great book club book.  It is one I will recommend to the Science Fiction Book Club for next year.  It would provide a lively  discussion.

Tachyon Publications published Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan in 2014.