The Gap in the Curtain

Professor Moe opens a hole in ordinary time and five men hear next year's Times read aloud in a country house. Buchan's The Gap in the Curtain, unabridged English: Arnold Tavanger catching a market in a headline, Mayot a political fate, Goodeve an obituary that names him. Leithen listens as each guest decides whether a spoken future is a warning or a tool. Determinism as a date you can hear coming. Free will as a racing pulse, not a seminar. Listen to hubris catch in the throat when the calendar arrives and the paper was telling the truth. A speculative novel of foresight, spoken as philosophy with a plot. Reggie Daker and Charles Ottery get their private sentences too; Lady Flambard's house holds the experiment like a séance that prints. Hear each man bargain with a future that has already been typeset, then live the year anyway.