 Not bad, after all |
| Review Date: April 23, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Leo F. Fernandes, Rio de Janeiro, RJ BRAZIL |
| I do like time travel stories, but time travel plays a smaller part in the plot than I expected. Also, the author resorts to a few "deus ex machina" and, at times, the action reminds me of early Flash Gordon comics. Yet, the book is not bad and kept me reading till the end, unexpected twist after twist. |
Refreshing
|
| Review Date: May 2, 2009 |
| Reviewer: M. Donatto, Baton Rouge, Louisiana |
I read this book along with my 14 year old son. We both found the book refreshing. We enjoyed the character build up with made us fall in love with the main characters. The time travel piece was exciting and had us at the edge of our feet....waiting for more.
We are waiting for the sequel. |
It was good
|
| Review Date: May 26, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Lefty Lu, orange county |
| I enjoyed this book. It took me a little while to get into it. He had to set up the main characters so it was 1/3 into the book before it got really exiting. Now as for the technical stuff I did not totally get how the time machine traveled or how he could jump to Mars. That seemed a bit out there that's why 4 stars instead of 5. But I'd still recommend for someone to read how enjoys Science Fiction. |
Creative New Writer
|
| Review Date: April 26, 2008 |
| Reviewer: C. Weir, Rockwall, Texas USA |
| This book was not at all what I expected. It is not just another "star trek" sci fiction book. Dark, Complex, and Fun, this novel takes you on a journey that not only creates time travel but explains how it is possible. It is fiction, fantasy and physics all rolled into one. I loved it. |
Poor kindle format..for this ok book
|
| Review Date: May 9, 2009 |
| Reviewer: William Orem, Orlando, Florida United States |
If you are going to charge $15 for a kindle version of this book you should at least check that the formatting converts properly...
This book was ok but reads like its made for TV series, not worth the asking price IMHO. |
Seems to have been written by a fourteen year old.
|
| Review Date: August 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: A. Davey, Phoenix, AZ |
| This is one of the worst books I have ever read. The plot was infantile, the "science" was nonsense, and the writting was cliched. Do not buy this book! |
terrible - my elementary school students have more compelling style
|
| Review Date: November 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Artemis Fair, Oakland, CA USA |
| This book has a great premise but the writing just fails miserably at every turn. Characters and plot lines are introduced then dropped. Problems like how to communicate with the aliens are solved by lines like: I thought communication would be a problem but it wasn't they (the people from another planet 5 billion light years away) spoke English. Puhleeze. At least give us a StarTrek style universal translator. |
Worst. Novel. Ever.
|
| Review Date: November 1, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Kevin M. Bailey, Dallas, TX USA |
| I keep this book on my iPhone, so I can refer to it occasionally. I like to read from it out loud to my helpless friends. It was so jaw-droppingly, mind-numbingly bad that I couldn't stop reading. Think of any pulp sci-fi cliche, and you can bet it's in there, whether it makes sense or not. There are sequels? I can't wait. I recommend this. Just read it for laughs, and hope they don't ever try to make a movie from it. |
Pricing policy
|
| Review Date: November 13, 2009 |
| Reviewer: P. A. Visme, Algarve Portugal |
My first search of 'Kindle for PC' to see what is offered and, searching on best-sellers, - up came this book which I noted was 1 of 6 and priced at US$232 for the kindle edition and US$15 for the paperback.
Why? most reviews were pretty derogatory too. |
A Fun But Sloppy Tale
|
| Review Date: August 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Geoffrey A. Snyder, Dallas, TX |
First, the kindle version of this novel is poorly formatted - there are entire lines without spaces between words and random carriage returns throughout and that is completely distracting.
The actual story itself is light on the science and in some places. The author does not seem to follow his own laws of time travel. On top of that, the characters randomly develop super powers half way through the book. He gets extra points for allowing characters to die but the story skipped around enough I didn't really care enough about most characters to be affected by their death.
I can enjoy light sci-fi that's more about the fun of it all and this one definitely fits that bill. Overall, the story was fun, if choppy, but the by the end I didn't really care about the story line one way or another. This is a very forgettable book. |
Don't Bother.
|
| Review Date: May 27, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Sean L. Gilley, Columbus, OH USA |
In "The Time Traveler's Academy" by Reginald Williams, a meteor shower lands an organism that, by itself, is completely harmless. However, the organism manages to combine the bubonic plague virus with the avian flu virus. Anyone without natural immunity to the virus who contracts it, dies. John, a former special operatives soldier, is drafted back into service to train and then lead a crew on a time machine to obtain a cure for the virus and save humanity.
Minor spoilers below.
And from there the book plunges downhill. Other than the rather interesting concept of the viruses combining, the science is horrendous. In one particularly extreme example of bad science a human is blown from the Earth to Mars by a tornado. He survives the vacuum of space, then is able to breath the atmosphere of Mars. Without going into detail, all of those events are either impossibly unlikely or simply impossible. The time traveling crew meet up with aliens. Aliens who speak english. Huh? There's a guy who could beat "The Flash" in a race. Again, huh? There are times when the book breaks its own rules for time travel.
I read a lot of science fiction, and not every author gets everything right all the time, but to be believable an author must take time to research and understand basic scientific concepts and must understand them. This book wasn't believable.
I can't recommend this book on any level.
|
Low on science, high on campy fantasy
|
| Review Date: June 18, 2009 |
| Reviewer: R. Hernandez, Seattle, WA USA |
This might make a good campy sci-fi movie starring Bruce Campbell, but it's not to my tastes. I prefer something a little more grounded in a deep appreciation and understanding of physics.
If you like hard sci fi... turn back... there be dragons here. It's a fantasy romp with some random science jargon thrown in that betrays a lack of understanding of the most basic concepts.
I give it two stars out of charity and appreciation that it isn't a cloying romance novel couched in even greater scientific ignorance than was found here, as most alleged time travel stories seem to be.
ALSO
The book itself had a few glitches in it, missing whitespace, displaced footers, headers, unprintable chars, extra whitespace, missing chars. (Kindle version) especially disappointing since it was a ridiculously expensive kindle book. |
Incoherent drivel
|
| Review Date: June 26, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Biallas, St. Charles, Illinois, USA |
The price for this pulp should not be $14, it should be free, at best.
What this novel needed was to be submitted to John Campbell at the old Analog to be ripped apart and sent back for re-write, and then sent back again, and again, and again. Why? Because the writer cannot write. The plot (?) was an incoherent mess. The character development ... wasn't. .
In short, do NOT waste your money. |
I gave it a shot...but this is pretty bad.
|
| Review Date: June 29, 2009 |
| Reviewer: B. Day, Brookline, MA United States |
I wanted to like this book. I love scifi and I love time travel books so this seemed like a slam dunk. I forced myself to read the first quarter but just couldn't go on.
It's a little like a pulp novel was put in a blender with Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain" and "Timeline" and then seasoned with gang/mafia rackets and karate.
The plot is weak and the characters are annoying. I'm reluctant to be so harsh considering I didn't read the whole thing but so far it's just awful. |
Made for TV Move in Book Format
|
| Review Date: June 14, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Sean McCauliff, |
I could only read about half of the book. The characters and dialog are flat. The plot seems like it has been glued together from various movies. Parts where there are tension or action are quickly defused back into the hum drum of the rest of the book.
On the other hand this book is short, easy to read and uses a fairly large font. If made for TV movies are your thing then you might like this book. If you have tried to read science fiction books and disliked them then you might want to give this one a spin; it's not like any science fiction book I've read.
|
Great plot...terrible writing
|
| Review Date: June 11, 2009 |
| Reviewer: K S Kimmerman, |
I know this is a first-time, self published effort, for which I commend the author. However, the writing needs some work. While the plot was fantastic, the writing felt almost mechanical at points. It seemed as though the author was reaching to create unique characters but rather than show the reader through dialogue, we were told exactly how we were to think of the characters. And, at times, the attempts at dialogue were phony. Things were coming out of the characters' mouths that no one would say in reality. I suggest to the author that he read his dialogue out loud the next time to get a better feel for flow and believability. Plus 10 points for plot, negative 9 for technique.
|
Absolutely Appalling; A Bad Stargate epsiode meets Karate Kid
|
| Review Date: June 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Scott Hester, San Francisco (waiting for Comcast...again) |
This is in my top 5 worst books I have ever subjected myself to. As the title says, this was like a bad mash-up between a weak "Stargate" episode with "The Karate Kid".
Ridiculous leaps in logic, 2-dimensional characters, bad writing and "science" that makes no sense whatsoever.
No sooner do characters and "mutants" pop up for no reason, they are dispatched with little or no drama or logic.
Did I mention that part of this takes place on "Planet Peligroso" which is in another galaxy, millions of years in the past, heading for a black hole....and everyone speaks English! There's even a guy with Spanish name; Guerrero, which he helpfully explains means "warrior".
There's also pointless trips to Russia, a Kung Fu academy with a bad mob shake-down subplot, space bees, emails in space, stereotypical army bad guys sabotaging our heros for no real reason...too much ridiculous dreck to go into.
Seriously, this was the worst book I have read in ages and a complete disappointment. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY
|
Very poor execution of an interesting idea
|
| Review Date: April 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Andrew S. Goodrich, |
This book was "recommended" by Amazon because of another Time Travel book I had done a search on. It was almost free on the Kindle, so I gave it a shot...
...bad idea. The author spends a lot of time developing the primary character, John Richards, and I actually found that interesting. This was all long before "time travel" was even mentioned. Once the time travel part begins, the wheels come off the bus in so many ways...
...the time travelers travel to a planet they have named "Peligroso", and low and behold, the inhabitants speak English. And many have Spanish names as well. The writing is just plain HOKEY...when the helpful scientist keeps saying things like, "this is what I believe you call X" a number of times. This is supposed to be a book, not a 22 minute TV show where you have to have plot conveniences to move the story along.
...and then the primary character (John) runs from state to state in a fraction of a second, because he has "super human powers" from eating food on Peligroso and now he's like Superman. Then, suddenly, he spins a tornado, and lands on MARS, and then runs around Mars real fast, creates his own Time Vortex, and then spins in a tornado again and goes back to earth.
I can't even go on. I'd say the first 1/3 of this book was written with good character development, and the last 2/3 [...]. I almost stopped reading it a dozen different times, but I hate giving up on a book so I plowed on. As a matter of fact, I showed some passages to my 13 year old son, and he rolled his eyes at the cheese-factor.
[........] |
The worst thing I have ever finished reading.
|
| Review Date: May 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Lee Ragans, Atlanta, GA |
Keep in mind that I paid only 80 cents to read this on my kindle, but this is literally the worst piece of fiction I ever finished reading. There are lot problems: science problems, factual problems, and problems with depth of characters.
This author kills off characters with utter abandon and acts like it is expected in the course of military action. I can only think this is becuase of complete lack of involvement in the military.
I won't even get started with the problems of the science that is just magic in this novel. It is inconsistent with itself, which is the biggest problem.
I applaud the author for finishing the novel and having good grammar. Beyond that there is nothing here to praise. There is nowhere to go but up for him.
I would not give this novel as a joke gift. Please do not buy this type of garbage for your kids to read when there is plenty of good Heinlein and Asimov out there to read. |
Very simplistic book poorly written Sci-Fi book
|
| Review Date: April 22, 2009 |
| Reviewer: GrammatonClerick, |
[...]
I must say that this is a very simplistic book, very amateurish writing with virtually no edge of your seat moments. All of the edge of the seat moments are magically removed within 5 seconds, normally on the next page by introduction of let say SuperPowers, English as universal language, tornado in space and many "What the hell was the author thinking" moments.
[...]
If you like sci-fi then you can read this book, but if you are a fan of sci-fi then I would skip it, unless you want to cringe at the "events". The first 1/2 of the book is ok/good the rest is a cringe/cheesy fest.
[...] |
Not very good...sorry to say
|
| Review Date: April 26, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Taylor St.John, New York |
| I've read a lot of time travel/sci-fi books and each one tends to have a personality all it's own,which of course makes for interesting reads.But sometimes you come across one that defies all logic and sadly this is one of those.I gave it the good try and finished it when I really wanted to just let it go but I wanted to give it a fair chance since it got such mixed reviews.The plot is hard to follow in places,the writing is ameturish,obviously the first book and probably the last,but since it is a self published title...who knows. |
Remarkably Bad Book - Poorly Written, Critical Editing Missing
|
| Review Date: February 9, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Bookie69, New York City |
I LOVE time travel/time communication books. I would sell my first-born for a new novel by Connie Willis in the "To Say Nothing of the Dog" universe. But there isn't one (at least not yet in 2008). And so, here we are, with an unknown author book.
When will I learn not to buy random "time-travel" books by unknown authors on Amazon? Probably never, but this book will help me like nothing else would.
What can I say? This book is an unholy marriage between an actual book and an outline of a book. Some scenes are detailed, while others read almosy place-holders written by the author for the author so that he will not forget to insert something later. It does have a plot (not anything materially original that has not been seen in Analog at least a few times), but after a bit of character development, setting a stage, around the middle of a book it goes hog wild, inserting everything one could think of putting in a science fiction or fantasy book.
It's as though the author got tired of thinking about writing and just decided to put as many themes in there as he could.
I'm not going to cheat by referring back to the book for examples (or shall I say, the first two thirds of the book. It became so unbearable that even skimming did not help, and I really didn't care anymore about any of it or what happens in the end). So here's just by recollection:
A black hole? Sure, why not. Worth one or two sentences. A really, really big snake on an alien planet for no apparent reason? Again, why the heck not? Aliens that speak English? Of course. Moronic Presidential advisers, repeatedly exhibiting below room temperature IQ's? Check. A teenager traveling in a spaceship at 500,000 mph (sort of) deciding to grab some pure gold chunks of matter along the way? Ok. Aliens in the past (sort of) with terrifically advanced biological science knowledge but no airplanes? Yep. Eating some berry on an alien planet because you forgot everything is poisonous and got hungry? Check.
On the other hand, there are positive things. To wit, the picture on the cover appears both well-exposed and accurately focused. Also, there are numerous pages with mysterious empty white space that could have been used to accommodate more words. Wise decision. |
Unexpectedly bad
|
| Review Date: March 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Wunt, SF, CA |
I normally love time travel novels, but after enduring two hours of really really poor writing I simply had to give this up. [...] On the plus side, I am now motivated to figure out how to delete files off my Kindle reader.
Specific gripes: The writing is just astonishingly poor. Characters stretch credulity. Plot lags.
Good points: The author does introduce interesting ideas about xenobiology and his take on how the universe handles time travel paradox. As above though, the poor writing just kills the story. |
Utterly abysmal.
|
| Review Date: April 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: C. Michaud, Brooklyn, NY |
I don't think I've ever read anything as completely awful as this book. This utterly ham-handed effort at science-military-time travel-thriller fails to provide decent characters, dialogue, logic, pacing, description, or the slightest modicum of common sense. The "rules" of time travel are entirely nonsensical, and even the time machine itself is described in no greater detail than being "about the size of a large SUV," "nondescript," and "drab gray."
Honestly, I'm at a loss to explain how this book ever got published in the first place. Please, please, save your money -- this book is a waste of even the 80 cents being charged for it on the Kindle. |
The concept was good but.....
|
| Review Date: November 16, 2008 |
| Reviewer: SciFi Guy, New England |
| It took about half of the book to drag out the development of the characters and some semblance of a plot. Time travel and the Academy didn't even enter into the story until later in the book. When the action finally picked up, it wasn't a bad read. It was almost too little, too late. I suppose now that he has the basics laid out, subsequent books can start right out of the gate. |
|
No details are available for this product
No video reviews found for this product.
No comments yet