This psychological space thriller is as dark and somber as space itself. Slow and full of self-contemplation which occasionally descends into wallowing melodrama, this is to space opera what Leonard Cohen is to pop music.

Although confined both in time and space to the claustrophobic Ishiguro - a spaceship crewed by eight and headed for some unspecified location ostensibly in order to inspire the public about space exploration - the narrative flashes back to the selection and training of the astronauts and the life of the protagonist, Cormac - a journalist along to record the trip for posterity.

The first paragraph makes it clear that Cormac is the only survivor after a string of seemingly unrelated deaths among his crew mates, and it doesn’t seem like he’s got long left as the air supply rapidly - too rapidly - dwindles. After the first chapter I did find myself checking I hadn’t accidentally started a book of short stories as this seemed almost wrapped up. But that’s when the anomaly is introduced and suddenly we are back at the start of the mission and so, to his and our confusion, is Cormac. Yes, it’s time travel and of course the question is “which type? The change things and see what happens type or the it must always happen this way type”?

Smythe uses time travel as a tool to view Cormac’s trip from outside and a very different view of the trip, the crew, and Cormac himself, is revealed.

I wouldn’t describe The Explorer as enjoyable exactly, but it doesn’t drag, and has enough reveals to keep things intriguing. It suffers, from the point of view of fans of the genre, from a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the physics of space flight - terminal velocity, too much momentum to go outside! What? - and really, once you get the idea about the events on the trip, the deaths and mishaps, the direction of the plot is as predictable as Cormac’s voyage to the anomaly.