NEXUS POINT

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.