Just finished reading Catherine Bush's Minus Time, and it's a pretty interesting novel. The chronological shifting took a bit of getting used to, as there are paragraphs interspersed to provide background both on the plot and the development of the characters. Quick summary: The main character, Helen Urie is in her early twenties and struggling in the nexus of separate, yet related events. Her mother, Barbara, is an accomplished scientist launched aboard a space shuttle to take up residence in a space station and set a record for the longest time spent aloft. Her father, David, is a geologist by training, has become a sort of disaster response expert, and hence flits around the world responding to natural disasters - a vocation with coincides with his flight from marriage with Barbara. Helen's brother is perhaps the most 'normal' of the family, pursuing a degree in architecture.

Helen, apparently accidentally, falls in with a pair of environmental activists, and gradually becomes more involved with the cause - and almost predictable, with the male activist. Through her adventures, we find that natural disasters are occuring with ever greater frequency which serves to highlight the fragility of the ecosystem - described as equivalent to a layer of Scotch tape on a basketball.

Conflict between the characters brings up intractable issues such as competing dreams and desires within families, and between individuals and 'the mass', questions of self, animal rights and ecology (there are well-placed references to philosophers of 'species rights'), activism, and love - as just a sample.

With a well defined core cast of characters, the book is focused, and rarely seems to wonder where it's going.

Lately, I've been finding the endings of books unsatisfactory - the last few I've read have really seemed like they were rapidly wound up because the author was running out of pages. This time, it still felt a little bit like that, but the sense of Helen finding peace and even some exhilaration in the present and future works to close the story.