THE TIME QUAKE

In 1763, young 21st-century time-travelers Kate and Peter yearn to return to their own time, and they work along with their 18th-century friends to recapture the anti-gravity machine that might take them there from the Tar Man, himself an unwilling (though native) resident of the 18th century. Meanwhile, in our time, Kate’s and Peter’s parents desperately try to recover their children with the aid of a NASA scientist and a refugee from the French Revolution, and the evil Lord Luxon, one-time patron of the Tar Man, works a time-machine–assisted antiques racket and plots to thwart the American Revolution. Whew. Readers will want to refamiliarize themselves with the events of the first two volumes in the Gideon Trilogy before tackling this one, as Buckley-Archer does little to catch them up. There’s no time, literally: Kate’s molecules are losing what tentative hold they have on time, and the modern world is experiencing terrifying “time quakes.” While the physics are played rather fast and loose in this concluding book, the plotting roars on as good guys battle bad guys across the centuries to a satisfying conclusion. (Science fiction. 10-14)