Review of Rito Chatterjee’s The Chrono-Healers: Origins, published by Author’s Point, ISBN: 978-81-961904-2-2

In The Chrono-Healers: Origins, Rito Chatterjee crafts a sprawling, time-bending science fiction saga that is as politically charged as it is narratively ambitious. Set against the backdrop of a post-COVID, post-apocalyptic Earth, the novel imagines a future ravaged by climate catastrophe, nuclear warfare, and ideological schisms, yet also dares to envision a radical reconstitution of humanity under the banner of “Global Unitarism.” With nine strangers, one mission, and a fractured timeline to save, Chatterjee’s debut offers a speculative meditation on survival, memory, and the ethics of planetary conservation.

The novel opens in a desolate world where oxygen processing units and indoor farm laboratories sustain the last vestiges of human life. Kwan Ji Soon, a young girl born in 2076, becomes the emotional anchor of the narrative. Her parents, murdered by Nationalist militants opposed to the new world order, embody the lingering violence of ideological resistance. The Nationalists, as remnants of a bygone era, reject the Global Unitarism Pact of 2050, a UN resolution that abolished borders, nationalism, and exclusionary immigration policies in favour of a unified planetary identity.

Chatterjee’s dystopia is not merely a speculative exercise; it is a mirror held up to our present. The refugee crisis, wars for oil and water, and environmental degradation are extrapolated into a future where two-thirds of the global population has perished. Central Asia becomes a dust bowl, nuclear winter grips vast territories, and survivors are split between vault-dwellers and desert nomads. The novel’s ecological imagination is stark and unrelenting, echoing the warnings of climate scientists and the anxieties of postcolonial environmental thought.

What sets The Chrono-Healers: Origins apart from conventional dystopian fiction is its temporal architecture. The nine protagonists, each from different epochs and geographies, traverse time to intervene at critical historical junctures. From the icy frontiers of Antarctica in 2100 to the war-torn streets of WWII Japan, the narrative oscillates between past and future, blending historical fact with speculative fiction. Colonel Rajveer and his team of Chrono-Healers are tasked with preserving the fragile timeline that could prevent total extinction.

This temporal fluidity allows Chatterjee to engage with memory as both a narrative device and a philosophical concern. Dreams and subconscious recollections from alternate timelines haunt the characters, suggesting a palimpsestic layering of history and trauma. The past is no longer a static archive but a living, contested terrain.

The introduction of Zerf Xerex, a Platorian alien and agent of the Galactic Peacekeeping Congregation (GPC), expands the novel’s ethical scope beyond Earth. The GPC, an interplanetary body committed to preventing genocide, famine, and war, intervenes in planetary crises to restore balance. Zerf’s presence raises questions about sovereignty, interventionism, and the limits of human agency. Is salvation always external? Can humanity be trusted to govern itself?

The antagonist, Krenn Klore, a rogue Platorian misusing shape-shifting technology to infiltrate human society, embodies the dangers of unchecked power and moral corruption. His ability to manipulate identity and position evokes contemporary anxieties around surveillance, misinformation, and political subterfuge. The alien conflict, while fantastical, allegorises real-world struggles over governance, transparency, and ethical leadership.

At the heart of the novel lies the concept of “Global Unitarism,” a radical reimagining of planetary citizenship. Under this system, Earth becomes a single nation, with semi-sovereign regions retaining cultural and religious autonomy. The Magna Carta Universal Declaration of Human Rights is reinterpreted to dissolve borders and eliminate nationalist ideologies. This vision, while utopian, is grounded in a critique of contemporary exclusionary politics and xenophobic regimes.

Chatterjee’s speculative world-building is not naïve; it acknowledges the resistance such a system would provoke. The Nationalists, as armed rebels, demand the restoration of old hierarchies and territorial divisions. Their violence underscores the persistence of nostalgia and the difficulty of dismantling entrenched power structures. Yet the novel insists on the possibility of unity, not as homogenisation, but as ethical cohabitation.

The novel’s structure, episodic, multi-perspectival, and temporally non-linear, mirrors its thematic concerns. Each of the nine strangers brings a distinct voice, history, and trauma to the collective mission. Their interactions are marked by tension, empathy, and gradual trust-building. Chatterjee’s prose, while occasionally dense with exposition, is evocative and cinematic. The graveyard scenes, strewn with human skulls and animal remains, are rendered with visceral clarity, while the time-travel sequences captivate the reader with wonder.

The blending of historical figures with fictional characters is deftly handled. The narrative does not merely insert real events for dramatic effect; it interrogates them. WWII Japan, for instance, becomes a site of ethical reckoning, where the Chrono-Healers must decide whether intervention is justified or whether history must be allowed to unfold. This metafictional awareness elevates the novel from merely an adventure to philosophical inquiry.

The Chrono-Healers: Origins is a novel of our times, and for our times. It grapples with the legacies of colonialism, the failures of nationalism, and the urgent need for ecological and ethical reform. Its speculative premise allows readers to confront uncomfortable truths: the fragility of civilisation, the violence of borders, and the possibility of planetary solidarity. It is emblematic of a generation inheriting the ruins of the past and daring to imagine a different future.

Rito Chatterjee’s The Chrono-Healers: Origins is a call to action, a meditation on memory, and a blueprint for ethical world-making. As the nine strangers race against time to save a dying planet, readers are invited to reflect on their own timelines and the choices that shape them.

 

Debottama Ghosh

Assistant Professor, Department of English

Netaji Subhas Open University, WB, India

PhD Research Scholar, Department of English

Presidency University, Kolkata, India

Email: debottamaghosh@wbnsou.ac.in