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A review by icallaci
The Rewind Files by Claire Willett
2.0
This was odd.
1. The pacing was all over the place, alternating from frantic activity to contemplative reminiscing about the importance of family and friends. And, omg, how much coffee can these people drink?
2. There were some editing blunders, such as the main character retrieving her bag of makeup and clothing from the dining table immediately after a Christmas dinner, presumably eaten at the same dining table. And there were some significant plot holes, such asthe son of a high official in the Time Travel Bureau remaining unrecognized simply because he wasn't in the company database, even though company (and enemy) security personnel knew him by sight.
3. The time travel aspects were confusing. Sometimes the time travellers went back to point A and restarted the mission if they got into trouble, while at other times that wasn't possible,so if someone died, they stayed dead, with no convincing explanation about why this time they couldn't go back and try again.
4. Except for time travel itself, the technology of the 22nd century was pretty standard late 20th-century stuff: cameras, computers with thumb drives, cell phones, etc. For example, the main character prints out files on paper--PAPER--and tapes the pages to her wall to read. Really? On the other hand, it's possible to make a phone call from 2112 to 1972 with hand-waving simplicity.
5. The characters made some pretty spectacular leaps of intuition about motives, objectives, identities, etc., without much evidence. They were rarely (if ever) wrong. This allowed them to be in the right place at the right time (so to speak), but their conclusions seemed more lucky than logical to me, with alternative explanations dismissed as unlikely. The assumptions they made were always correct, and the plans they implemented based on those assumptions always succeeded eventually.
All in all, it was cute and simple, so if that's what you're looking for, this book will fill the bill. I was hoping for more depth on what happened and why during the Watergate fiasco, but that's not really what this book is about. That's due to my own expectations, so I can't fault the author for not meeting them.
Final verdict: disappointingly predictable.
1. The pacing was all over the place, alternating from frantic activity to contemplative reminiscing about the importance of family and friends. And, omg, how much coffee can these people drink?
2. There were some editing blunders, such as the main character retrieving her bag of makeup and clothing from the dining table immediately after a Christmas dinner, presumably eaten at the same dining table. And there were some significant plot holes, such as
3. The time travel aspects were confusing. Sometimes the time travellers went back to point A and restarted the mission if they got into trouble, while at other times that wasn't possible,
4. Except for time travel itself, the technology of the 22nd century was pretty standard late 20th-century stuff: cameras, computers with thumb drives, cell phones, etc. For example, the main character prints out files on paper--PAPER--and tapes the pages to her wall to read. Really? On the other hand, it's possible to make a phone call from 2112 to 1972 with hand-waving simplicity.
5. The characters made some pretty spectacular leaps of intuition about motives, objectives, identities, etc., without much evidence. They were rarely (if ever) wrong. This allowed them to be in the right place at the right time (so to speak), but their conclusions seemed more lucky than logical to me, with alternative explanations dismissed as unlikely. The assumptions they made were always correct, and the plans they implemented based on those assumptions always succeeded eventually.
All in all, it was cute and simple, so if that's what you're looking for, this book will fill the bill. I was hoping for more depth on what happened and why during the Watergate fiasco, but that's not really what this book is about. That's due to my own expectations, so I can't fault the author for not meeting them.
Final verdict: disappointingly predictable.