Version Control

A Novel

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

£0.00 for first 30 days

LIMITED TIME OFFER

Get 3 months for £0.99/mo

Get this deal

Try Premium Plus free

Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.

Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.

1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.

Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.

Access exclusive sales and deals.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Version Control

By: Dexter Palmer

Narrated by: January LaVoy

Get this deal

Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

An NPR, GQ, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year
One of The Washington Post’s best science fiction and fantasy books of the year

The acclaimed author of The Dream of Perpetual Motion returns with a compelling novel about the effects of science and technology on our friendships, our love lives, and our sense of self.

Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: she constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the President seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet. Meanwhile, her husband's decade-long dedication to his invention, the causality violation device (which he would greatly prefer you not call a “time machine”) has effectively stalled his career and made him a laughingstock in the physics community. But he may be closer to success than either of them knows or can possibly imagine.

Version Control is about a possible near future, but it’s also about the way we live now. It’s about smart phones and self-driving cars and what we believe about the people we meet on the Internet. It’s about a couple, Rebecca and Philip, who have experienced a tragedy, and about how they help—and fail to help—each other through it. Emotionally powerful and stunningly visionary, Version Control will alter the way you see your future and your present.

Family Life

Fantasy

Genre Fiction

Science Fiction

Time Travel

Listeners also enjoyed...

Elantris: Tenth Anniversary Author's Definitive Edition (1 of 2) (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art

Most relevant

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

whilst the subject matter is time travel (which may put many off) its not a geeky, nerd book at all. In fact its mostly centred around the lives and relationships of the physicists and the people around them. The list of characters is quite small so there is time to develop their characteristics and back stories and we learn they are flawed human beings.

What about January LaVoy’s performance did you like?

She narrated very well and had clear voices for each of the main characters. I particularly liked her rendition of the security guard, Spivey.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This physically wasn't possible being 18 hours long and that is a long period of time so no I wouldn't want to. There was only one moment when I got bored and turned it off and that was the long chapter when they are reading Philips diary notes from his Graduate days. It seemed excessively long. other than that I was gripped for the most part.

Any additional comments?

If you have absolutely no interest in the concept of time travel, it's theory, problems and the implications of re-writing histories then there is little point in reading this book.If you are interested in the above and want it presented in the form of a story about the people involved, their intertwined relationships and subsequent "unfolding" which makes the more "techy" bits more palatable then this would be a good read for you. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it has left me thinking about the concepts in it and I'm sure I will be discussing and thinking about it for some time.It takes over half of the book to even get close to the "incident" itself. You know its going to happen at some point, because its a book about time travel (or causality violation), but the author does well holding off and sets up a good story with interesting characters. With it being set in the near future the author throws in a few developments he believes will happen - the most noticeable being the every day use of automated (or driverless) cars. Amongst other things he also discusses the techniques used by dating websites, the interest and funding of scientific projects, the problems of race in science, theology, marriage, divorce and alcoholism.If I was to put a figure on it I would only 35% of the book is about the time travel device, its creation, the theory of time travel etc and the other 65% is about the people who have it involved in their lives.Definitely recommended to anyone, even with a slight interest in this subject because of the palatable way it has been delivered and presented to you.