These Twins Are Incredible and Dangerous!

Middlegame – Seanan McGuire

Science fiction, alchemy, transfiguration, timeline, time travel.

Rating 11/10

Asphodel, a woman alchemist and writer, wants to transform the world, but knowing the dangers of this idea of the Doctrine she writes innocent children stories to install the ideology. Also predicting her own end, she creates a heir to carry out her plans when she dies years later, naming him Reed. Long after Asphodel’s death, Reed proceeds to try to carry out the Doctrine with experiments by taking twins, doing something to them, then separating them into foster families to observe the twins. Roger loves everything language related and hates anything math. Dodger loves everything mathematical and hates anything language related. One night, they discover each other through telepathic means and help each other out. Reed finds out and sends someone to Roger to force him to stop communications. Years later, Roger and Dodger cross paths, both heartbroken and wanting answers, they agree to talk to each other at a specific time. Roger and Dodger find out they are siblings, but as soon as they find out the person who did the blood test died in a mysterious lab fire. Later on, Erin whom was made the same way as Roger and Dodger helps them escape from their maker’s supervision to not only save themselves, but to save the world. Erin tells them everything and this all comes crumbling down.

I was deeply intrigued with this novel. I was recommended the book by a LASFS member to read it and I was intrigued with the mere idea of this science fiction. The novel looks thick and is very thick with a detailed plot along with intricate characters. McGuire, as this is evident with the novel, had taken into deep consideration of the plot and narratives as well as characters and their interactions with each other. To top it off, this novel has all what science fiction should need in a story. I couldn’t simply put this book down at all. I highly recommend this novel to everyone and hope that the author writes more of this story.

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A Time Traveling Disappointment

Timeline – Michael Crichton

Science fiction, time travel, horror, thriller.

Rating 5/10

A man was found wandering the desert, speaking nonsense at first, then dies shortly after being admitted to the hospital. In another part of the world, an archeologist grad students comes across a shocking discovery at a current site that dates to the medieval ages, among papers, a letter from the professor who is assisting the archeologists. What the shocking twist is that the professor went missing. ITC, a company who is funding the archeologist grad students and their investigations, give them an offer. The team can go back in time to rescue their professor and be able to take note of history. Whether they come back or not isn’t the matter, surviving in the past is harsh and unbearable. Quickly the archeologist grad students fight for their lives and try to survive to come back to the present.

Michael Crichton sort of disappointed me with this book. It wasn’t as thrilling as his “Jurassic Park” and “Lost World”. However, this novel was good with the plot line and such. Just a slight disappointment that’s all. I’d had such high hopes for this novel, but overall time travel is a fun subject when paired up with history interactions. Its just this novel wasn’t piece of work.

Dead Teenagers and Time Travel?

Ascenders: Omorrow Book Three – C.L. Gaber

Supernatural, young adult, fiction, death, afterlife, school, teenagers, time travel

Rating: 10/10

Walker and Daniel plus a team of other various teenagers are sent out on a mission to retrieve the item that is needed to be retrieved from the past. It’s risky because it’s in the living realm. They’ve been prepared for the worst, demons, as well as anything else that is thrown at them. One thing they must do is time travel through the decades in search of the lost writings of Albert Einstein. Walker and Daniel must be careful to live because if one dies in the past, they’ll never be born. Cease to exist. This makes their journey even more perilous than the two hopefully had planned.

As what I thought was the final book in the series, it left off at a cliff hanger. Loved how time travel was added into the mix. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It made me laugh, cringe, and sympathize with the protagonists. Not much more to say other than I hope the series continue. I would want to see where Walker and Daniel end up in the afterlife. I find them to be cute together and especially how they have chemistry. Sometimes I would scream for them to like to become serious and get married in the afterlife. There are no rules other than don’t go to the living realm. I want to see more of this story however expanded into new adventures in general.

Worst Book Ever

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Time travel, fiction, repetitive, science fiction, war, aliens

Rating -10/10

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is about this Billy Pilgrim time traveling through decades and through wars. Then he is abducted by aliens as well as travels through space. He becomes traumatized by seeing deaths and goes insane. There is a lot of going back and forth, the past and present.

This is what I could only remember from reading this god-awful book in high school. I absolutely hate this book. It is confusing, repetitive, and depressing to read. Not sorry to give it an extreme negative review. I’d rather read Stephanie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn than this.

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Slaughterhouse Five: Kurt Vonnegut. Perma-Bound, 1989.