An effective blend of time-travel tropes and military fiction about family loyalties, expectations, and betrayal.
In Pimpinella’s debut SF novel, an elite military corps strives to prevent damage to history by rogue time travelers, but one Time Ranger strains under the pressure of a fast-track career.
In the 22nd century, the invention of time travel allowed the ThirdEye Corporation to employ reckless Time Runners who accidentally or deliberately disrupted history. To set the timeline straight and prevent potential catastrophe, the members of an elite military corps called the Time Rangers travel back in time and correct anachronisms and anomalies, using deadly force if necessary. Kai Sawyer is a young graduating Time Ranger cadet who’s uncomfortable that he’s headed for a command role solely due to the machinations of his father, a powerful rear admiral obsessed with carrying on the family name. Kai is also a Spawn, created in a lab to be stronger, hardier, and more aggressive than the average human. That, combined with a harsh upbringing, results in Sawyer making impulsive decisions on his first missions. In 1995 London, for instance, he coldly kills a maverick freelance journalist from the future in a public place. In 1912, he nearly freezes while ensuring that the Titanic sinks with zero survivors, instead of hundreds, to remedy the fact that a Time Runner boarded it with a virus from the future. Kai faces his worst ordeal in 1634 France, where a larger-scale conspiracy seeks to advance Western medicine far ahead of schedule. Over the course of this novel, Pimpinella delivers a spry, action-filled SF tale full of time paradoxes and fills it out with solid characterizations and a particularly agonized hero. The conflicted relationship between father and son is handled well, and it would not be out of place in a work of earthbound, non–SF military fiction. The author doesn’t provide a lot of historical flavor in most of the time-tripping episodes, but Kai’s ordeal in 17th-century France may remind a few readers of the settings in Victor Hugo’s classic 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. (Readers should be aware that this book is unrelated to John Schettler’s 2004 novel Nexus Point, which also focuses on time travel.)
An effective blend of time-travel tropes and military fiction about family loyalties, expectations, and betrayal.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5255-9548-6
Page Count: 330
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.
A 16-year-old savant uses his Groundhog Day gift to solve his grandfather’s murder.
Nishizawa’s compulsively readable puzzle opens with the discovery of the victim, patriarch Reijiro Fuchigami, sprawled on a futon in the attic of his elegant mansion, where his family has gathered for a consequential announcement about his estate. The weapon seems to be a copper vase lying nearby. Given this setup, the novel might have proceeded as a traditional whodunit but for two delightful features. The first is the ebullient narration of Fuchigami’s youngest grandson, Hisataro, thrust into the role of an investigator with more dedication than finesse. The second is Nishizawa’s clever premise: The 16-year-old Hisataro has lived ever since birth with a condition that occasionally has him falling into a time loop that he calls "the Trap," replaying the same 24 hours of his life exactly nine times before moving on. And, of course, the murder takes place on the first day of one of these loops. Can he solve the murder before the cycle is played out? His initial strategies—never leaving his grandfather’s side, focusing on specific suspects, hiding in order to observe them all—fall frustratingly short. Hisataro’s comical anxiety rises with every failed attempt to identify the culprit. It’s only when he steps back and examines all the evidence that he discovers the solution. First published in 1995, this is the first of Nishizawa’s novels to be translated into English. As for Hisataro, he ultimately concludes that his condition is not a burden but a gift: “Time’s spiral never ends.”
A fresh and clever whodunit with an engaging twist.Pub Date: July 29, 2025
ISBN: 9781805335436
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
