Author: Mary E. Rose

ISBN: 1413760759

John Walsh: CLICK TO VIEW John Walsh's Reviews & Blog

Time travel is a reality. The secret has been discovered by two scientists who are struggling to deal with its implications and with controlling who has access to the portals that have been opened. Of course, anyone who travels into the past and meddles with it risks creating paradoxes which could suddenly cancel the existence of who knows how many people and events. Consequently, when one of the scientists starts to behave oddly, perhaps dictatorially, then guards must be posted at strategic points in the past to prevent potentially disastrous interventions. Throughout history, therefore, a kind of secret war has been taking place between those who would change the past and those seeking to prevent them. Complicating this background is the link detonator, a person who has somehow fallen under the control of another person who can force him or her to explode into nothingness and reconstitute in some completely different time and location. Pity the poor link detonator, therefore, obliged to be blasted across time and space at the whim of an unknown puppetmaster. Such a person is Marion Pallor who, despite the name is actually male, an assistant history professor who is mourning the mysterious loss of his fiancée while also suffering the regular disorientation of the aforementioned blasting. Gradually, Marion finds allies in the faction of the good scientist and struggles to regain control of his life while fighting for the integrity of time itself.

This is an interesting and exciting premise for a novel. The characterization and the rather episodic nature of the plot suggest that the model is one of those television series which deals with this kind of modern fantasy. It puts me in mind of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Jake 2.0 or some other series in which the action provides in some senses a background context to the development of a regular set of characters and their various relationships. There is nothing wrong with television in its place, of course, although it is a poor substitute for the depth of emotion, thought and investigation of the human nature that can be conducted within the format of a novel. From the back cover, it appears that the author has previously completed a few short stories and that this is her first novel. I would be interested to see how she is able to develop her writing skills in the future so that characterization becomes more interesting and the plot development less formulaic. I would also suggest she work with a competent editor to eliminate some of the occasional slips – if characters are to have a ‘British accent’ then at least listen to how some British people speak.