Strong characters, ready wit and an excellent sense of plotting enliven Reinemann’s propulsive tale, which never flags in...
An impromptu trip turns into a sobering look into the future for John Roley and Tim Jackson, the hapless heroes of Reinemann’s ongoing series about time travelers given responsibilities and powers they barely understand.
Relatively fresh off the adventures of the first book, John, Tim and ISAC-9, their sentient computer partner, are working on retrofitting an experimental aircraft to be a time ship, but the repair and engineering work needed is far too much for two men and a computer, despite them being powerful Guardians who possess the legendary Amulets of Time. Between the need for extra help and the attention of a young med student John is falling for, Tim and John end up bringing three more people aboard the time ship, now christened the Wells. A surprise visit from a business rival causes the heroes to take the Wells on a short jaunt, but a malfunction drops them in the year 3000, in a world where humans have been almost driven extinct by a race of synthetic people—people originally created by one of the interns brought aboard by Tim and John. Faced with a world they inadvertently created, and split up by warring forces, John and Tim must figure out how to save their new friends while avoiding a grisly end in the ongoing battle between humans and synthetics. As befitting the second book in a series, Reinemann is able to dispense with much of the setup and jump right into the action; however, even readers who haven’t read the first book will be able to roll with the story, as Reinemann quickly and clearly establishes his characters’ voices and basic traits. Fortunately, he understands how to fold pertinent background details into the flow without resorting to infodumps. Despite the dark subject matter in the later pages as well as the philosophical implications the book touches on regarding the travelers’ responsibilities in creating this war-torn future, Reinemann clearly intends John and Tim’s adventures to be light in tone, with plenty of snappy dialogue. During a few stretches, the tone of John and Tim’s adventures clashes with the events of the book—including when a lethal robotic soldier truncates his identity until all that remains is his model number, HIRC-947—but for the most part, Reinemann manages to keep the balance. Even when the tone and subject matter are at odds, the story moves at a steady pace without jettisoning reader interest.
Strong characters, ready wit and an excellent sense of plotting enliven Reinemann’s propulsive tale, which never flags in its 700-plus pages.Pub Date: May 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483958392
Page Count: 716
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.
A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.
Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.
A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
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