Holly-Jane Rahlens' latest work, EVERLASTING -- set in a future North America, and future and present-day Europe -- has been described as "science fiction for lovers." It could equally well be called "a love story whose truths are stranger than science fiction." Its hero, Finn Nordstrom, is a young historian specializing in a long-vanished culture -- our own -- as one of the very few specialists who can decipher an ancient information-transmission method known as "handwriting." Handwriting, pens, and even books of any sort are museum pieces by Finn's time: information is stored and managed by computerized brain-implants.
When Finn is assigned to study the diary of an early 21st-century teenage girl, he becomes absorbed by the strange world it presents: a world he eventually visits -- falling in love with the diary's author -- when physicists create a method for time-travel and encourage him to test it out. "Falling through time" (first through his studies, then through actual experience), Finn experiences the perplexities of our era from the vantage-point of his own society: a placid, comfortable culture which has conquered many of our present woes -- but at what cost?
Over the centuries, we learn, Finn's people have lost far more than just the written word. Romantic love -- and even the pronouns "I," "me," "my," and "mine" -- were abolished, some centuries before Finn's birth, as dangerous and anti-social. (Finn refers to himself as "this man" or "this historian" or "this friend," depending on the situation. When he realizes he must change this, in order to communicate properly during his ancient 21st-century adventures, he feels almost as if he is required to employ some bizarre ancient term of abuse.)
Finding -- and falling in love with -- the diary's author as she grows from a girl into a young woman, Finn only gradually suspects that his assigned research has a larger purpose than mere historical study. What is the physics institute _really_ after? What _haven't_ they been telling Finn Nordstrom?
This unusual and intricately plotted work has so far been published only in Germany: it is in fact the German translation of an English original (the author is an American expatriate in Berlin). Even in translation, throughout Germany it is steadily gathering readers from the romance, SF, young adult, as well as contemporary fiction markets. As a crossover romance with an American hero and USA-born author, it holds great potential for an American publisher (since the original is in English, the publisher would not even need to arrange for a translation). It would do even better as a summer blockbuster film.