The Anomaly: A Time-Phase Slip
Four lives. Three centuries. Four deaths. One consciousness that refuses to disappear.
"Reminded of Alfred Bester and Fritz Leiber, with heroic yet pragmatic characters worthy of Heinlein. This may be his best yet." — Alastair Mayer, author of The T-Space Series
A Waystation temporal agent should have died.
Instead, a catastrophic failure sends his consciousness rippling through time, embedding itself within four people across three centuries—each carrying memories that are not their own.
Jax Harlan perishes in the vacuum of the asteroid belt, haunted by impossible visions.
Beneath Europa's frozen ocean, Mira Thorne witnesses a stranger's death and realizes it is her own.
On Proxima b, Kai Okafor walks willingly into deadly electromagnetic fire to save a million colonists.
And aboard a starship bound for the stars, Asha Dey remembers three lives that came before—and must decide whether the cycle ends with her.
As the powerful organization known as Waystation fractures, a profound question emerges: was the anomaly a system failure... or four human beings with the right to exist?
Hard science fiction becoming something harder: a meditation on what it costs to persist.
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The International Review of Books said this about The Anomaly
The Anomaly drew me in with a single, unforgettable question: “Was the anomaly a system failure… or four human beings with the right to exist?” It is the kind of question that transcends genre, reaching into the deepest mysteries of identity, consciousness, and what it truly means to be human.
From that moment, I was captivated.
Robert G. Williscroft has written far more than an epic of space and time. Beneath its sweeping scope lies an intensely human story, one in which courage, sacrifice, memory, and love become the forces that shape reality itself.
Jax Harlan, Mira Thorne, Kai Okafor, and Asha Dey are not simply protagonists navigating extraordinary circumstances; they are fully realised individuals whose choices carry genuine emotional and philosophical weight.
The finest novels dissolve the boundaries of genre, replacing familiar expectations with wonder, and The Anomaly accomplishes precisely that.
Its speculative ideas are bold, but they never overwhelm the narrative. Instead, they illuminate the characters’ journeys, inviting the reader to reflect on destiny, free will, and the enduring significance of individual lives.
If I have one reservation, it is only that the richness of this world seems to demand even more space. The material could easily have sustained a remarkable trilogy.
The Anomaly is an ambitious, intelligent, and deeply moving novel that lingers long after the final page. It is a rare work that satisfies both the imagination and the heart, reminding us that the greatest journeys through space ultimately lead inward, to the enduring mystery of what it means to exist.”
The International Review of Books.
