B.T. Lamprey

Comedy books can be very hit or miss with me. Some books make me laugh nonstop (even ones that don't have stellar reviews), and other books just feel very flat to me. I believe this book will be enjoyed by readers that loved the kind of banter in the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series. So I do hope my difficulty connecting isn't because the book is bad, it's just not my cup of tea. I read one of the Hitchhiker's guide books over 20 years ago with great enthusiasm and spent half of the book wanting to dnf it. Just proof that every reader is very different and with comedy, even more so because it is such a difficult genre to write.

We quickly realize from chapter 1 our protagonist Al is both not a particularly clever middle aged office employee and he is about to die without much fanfare. I felt chapter 1 was written a bit more solidly than later chapters of the book. Mostly because there isn't much dialogue and the book has a better chance to display the irony of the MC's fate.

In the last millisecond before his death, Al gets teleported to a concrete building with a window display featuring... dinosaurs? I liked the idea that our time travel police force decided to set their HQ in a random place in the Cretaceous period. It was such a sin the book wishes to rush into the main save the day plot without letting us enjoy some dinosaurs. We could have had a page or two of Al running to the window and gawk at the Triceratops walking around while a bored Joan (yes THE Joan of Arc) closes the window. Quite a missed opportunity for character conflict!

I liked Joan, she was the only character in the book I actually had fun spending time with. This is one thing that can be very hit & miss about this book. Since 70% of the story is hearing the 4 time traveller characters arguing with each other while Al serves as a cultural liason of his era, you need to like them or else the book becomes unenjoyable. Given I liked Joan but not anyone else including Al, it was a bit hard for me to enjoy the book.

We later on meet the other two members of the team: a gigantic brutish woman named Impala that lived a century after Al in a polluted and chaotic Cleveland and an obnoxious cyborg nicknamed HLM. The cyborg is certainly very similar to the snarky robots I remember in the Hitchiker's series. If a person loved that book, they will find HLM funny. The problem is... I thought the book was spending too much time having HLM trying to make witty jokes with a disconcerted Al that made me skim through the passages. It isn't just a 1 time thing and the story moves on. We get pages and pages and pages of interaction that goes nowhere with Al complaining about being hungry and the cyborg offering counter arguments about how advanced his circuits are that he has minimal need for nourishment. I just wanted to look outside the window and gawk at the dinosaurs. :'(

The sense of plausible believability is a factor that I felt missing in this book. And I am not referring to the time travel technology and futuristic mustard yellow unitards. It's the fact that Impala and the cyborg have zero experience traveling to Al's time period yet they were selected for this mission because they are veterans. The cyborg is capable of hacking into an ATM to steal money, but he doesn't want to connect into the USB drive of a tablet and risk catching a virus? Huh? Even Joan who is the most level-headed and experienced member of the team seems rather lost in her flight attendant costume.

I like the idea of having the cast wear such outlandish costumes. But it would have made more sense if it was Al who selected them by mistake when he was fiddling with the buttons of his time traveller touchpad. This mistake was very plausible for the plot and his clueless persona. Everyone assumed the bureaucrat that selected him out of all the potential recruit time traveller candidates would have chosen someone capable. And Al could have messed with several buttons and now they were stuck wearing their costumes. Maybe spend a portion of the plot where the cyborg is trying to fix the glitch and offer us a myriad of comical mistakes. I would have thought this was funny.

The middle portion of the book bored me because it was just endless filler with dialogue that made me skim through most of it. Fortunately, this book is an insanely fast read and it can be completed in as little as 2 hours. I liked the final chapters, though. Since the book is no longer stuck in between endless dialogue sessions, we get some story action and an endearing villain. The ending is also quite nice.

In a nutshell, this book will have its fans that can connect to the kind of humor it was going for. Perhaps it wasn't the right book for me, but I liked the basic story premise and Joan.… (más)

O.m.g. this book was just what I needed! After having just read the last line of the epilogue, all I can say yesss... now THAT'S how you write a great Time Travel, SciFi story. It crushed the Trifecta of Awesomeness (writing, world building, and character developement)!!

The writing?

Well, glad you asked! This book was Hitchhiker's Guide- adjacent. The humor was very much along the same silly, dry(ish) vein as Douglas Addams' tales... something I don't say often but something I truly appreciated... yet it had its own flavor/timbre and social commentary. And you know what?? I adored ALL of it!! I actually chuckled out loud... a lot! And when I wasn't chuckling I was smiling... a lot! That's crazy to me! Not since I read Jenny Lawson (insert any Jenny Lawson book here) have I had such smiling til my cheeks hurt fun.

The Background?

The World building was robust. It was able to take us from the Cretaceous Period, to 15th century France, to a future where tech & man become one, to a post apocalyptic landscape and back around to 21st century California. This was done so well that it was easy to imagine and easier to get lost in. I am anxious to see how it builds from here.


Now the Characters.

These characters were dynamic and silly and oh so very flawed in such beautifully human (and cybernetic) ways. Only here can you find a Cyborg, a (more than) slightly ferral post apocalyptic survivor, Joan of Arc (yes THE Joan of Arc) and Al (our neurotic, bumbling, oft times reluctant 21st century "expert") all teamed up. They were stationed somewhere in the Cretaceous Period and their mission? To save the world(s?) from rogue time traveling agents (this time at a scifi-fantasy based convention in modern day Fresno) that are plotting to tamper with historical events to serve their own dastardly (?) plans. BUT who's really doing the saving?? Good question, all I know is that I fell hard for this dysfunctional crew. Each crew member added a certain je ne sais quoi to the mix and in the end the product was a loveable, relateable group of oddballs. Characters are usually the key ingredient for a successful book and although the characters were quite charming and easy to root for, I truly believe that each of the Trifecta held its own here.

Overall:
I'm a sucker for a good time travel story and this book was far better than Good! It had a healthy dose of SciFi (yummm) including parallel worlds, paradox avoidance and future tech. I can see this blossoming into one freaking awesome series... taking us to key moments in history with this ragtag crew of misfits and a cabal of nefarious (?) time travelers dueling it out. Will I look out for book #2? Heck yeah! Just shut up and take my money already! I MUST. HAVE. MORE! Ok, enough fangirling...

my last 2 cents: you should be adding this to the tippy top of your TBR especially if you like time travel, SciFi, Douglas Addams type (dry) funny reads.

~ Enjoy

*** I received an advance review copy for free from BookSirens, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. ***… (más)