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wolfiegrrrl's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
The time travel element in this series is a watered down mix of Quantum Leap and Doctor Who, which I think is a pretty neat way to introduce kids to the sci-fi genre.
As the first book in a series, Time and Space does a pretty decent job of setting up the story arc. My one nitpick is how the writing isn't very engaging to me as an adult. The action scenes are pretty dull and a lot of the plot is just a series of events that happen to the kids seemingly by chance rather than their efforts to move the story forward. Even when the kids do get the opportunity to flex their thinking skills to solve a problem, the results are a little underwhelming. The first time they actually do anything involves using their talents to recruit a robot, which could have been really cool to see, but the story hardly lingers on it and the execution felt a bit anticlimactic. The suspense the scene needed just wasn't there for me and this wasn't helped by the fact that the robots in this book really are just MacGuffins to solve the main trio's problems for them. But given that they are 10-year-olds who realistically wouldn't be able to do any of the things an adult would need to do in order to solve this problem, it makes sense that they would be almost entirely dependent on others around them to get them out of dangerous situations.
That being said, the book is written for kids and I definitely would have been pretty into it as a kid! I remember reading and writing stories similar to this one, and being super invested in them.
I think the strong points of the story are the relationships between the main trio. The sibling dynamics between Tyler and Casey are sweet, especially during the character arc involving Steel, and it's clear that Tyler and Luis have a strong friendship that I think could really shine with more development that the series might offer them. The writer may have been a bit heavy-handed when establishing character traits, but it works for kids who have the same interests as their favorite character and want to see someone like themselves participating in the adventure, which may have been the intention behind it. Overall, it is certainly a book that encourages kids to exercise their imagination!
As the first book in a series, Time and Space does a pretty decent job of setting up the story arc. My one nitpick is how the writing isn't very engaging to me as an adult. The action scenes are pretty dull and a lot of the plot is just a series of events that happen to the kids seemingly by chance rather than their efforts to move the story forward. Even when the kids do get the opportunity to flex their thinking skills to solve a problem, the results are a little underwhelming. The first time they actually do anything involves using their talents to recruit a robot, which could have been really cool to see, but the story hardly lingers on it and the execution felt a bit anticlimactic. The suspense the scene needed just wasn't there for me and this wasn't helped by the fact that the robots in this book really are just MacGuffins to solve the main trio's problems for them. But given that they are 10-year-olds who realistically wouldn't be able to do any of the things an adult would need to do in order to solve this problem, it makes sense that they would be almost entirely dependent on others around them to get them out of dangerous situations.
That being said, the book is written for kids and I definitely would have been pretty into it as a kid! I remember reading and writing stories similar to this one, and being super invested in them.
I think the strong points of the story are the relationships between the main trio. The sibling dynamics between Tyler and Casey are sweet, especially during the character arc involving Steel, and it's clear that Tyler and Luis have a strong friendship that I think could really shine with more development that the series might offer them. The writer may have been a bit heavy-handed when establishing character traits, but it works for kids who have the same interests as their favorite character and want to see someone like themselves participating in the adventure, which may have been the intention behind it. Overall, it is certainly a book that encourages kids to exercise their imagination!
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