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A review by nooralshanti
Quantum Time Theory: Journals of a Traveler Through Time (Nevertime Chronology Book 1) by Ned Huston
1.0
Quantum Time Theory is a sci-fi book that uses a unique experimental style to try and explore the idea of how time travelers messing with the past might make changes to the past that affect the lives of ordinary people. Each time the time travelers make some big change in the past the present world changes in a way, sometimes big and sometimes small. A new Reality is created. The concept is very, very intriguing and I was very much looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, the author's focus on using experimental styles comes in the way of exploring this interesting idea at all and instead leaves us with many pages of filler.
The book is written in the form of journals in which the main character is directly addressing the reader. He even talks about how he imagines the reader to be coming along with him on these adventures. So you'll have a couple of paragraphs of the characters trying to get somewhere in a hurry, for example, and then the main character will suddenly urge the reader to hurry or keep up. Sometimes in all caps as if he's yelling at the reader because of the urgency of the situation. At first this style, which is so different from anything I've seen before, made me gripped and turning the pages to see what happened. Unfortunately, after many, many pages where nothing happened even this device could not hold my attention.
The first third of the book is spent with an agonizing repetition of just how special and awesome the main character's many siblings are as they rush - over and over - to get to a safe house or space-ship to avoid getting caught in the storm that occurs when the time change happens and a new reality replaces the old one. Like I said before, this is really interesting, but we never get to actually see the new reality because the main character keeps stopping his journal entries just before the actual interesting stuff starts. It seems as though he is stopped by force or interrupted, but it doesn't matter why - it prevents me from seeing the time travel parts or their influence on the world for far too long and that's what I most looked forward to in this story!
When the effects on the character's life are finally shown they're only mentioned briefly without showing us in detail exactly how they affect the character's life. Instead of focusing on this and exploring it, we're just told over and over by the narrator things to the effect of "This sucks, reader. This is really messing up my life." Over and over and over. But it rings hollow because we never get to see the character's old life or his new one. This is interspersed with detailed musings about how awesome each of the siblings is and how well (or not) they're adjusting to the time changes and how the big brother seems to know everything about it/is involved in the government that's been set up for people who survived these changes.
The characters literally spend over 3/4 of the book either rushing to a safe-house, talking about rushing to a safe-house, or musing about the clothes everyone wears in each new reality and the clothes they will wear and the clothes they used to wear in their old or favorite realities. I think the problem is that the author had an interesting idea for maybe one super short book and then decided to dilute it and stretch it over a 10 part series instead of just telling it, so they had to fill the majority of these books with all this filler.
So the intriguing idea was effectively drowned.
I would love to one day see the author take this idea and condense it to a short form novella or something with all this fluff taken out. If you have ALOT more patience than me you might want to check this series out, but be prepared, you're going to have to read many books in the series before anything begins to happen.
The book is written in the form of journals in which the main character is directly addressing the reader. He even talks about how he imagines the reader to be coming along with him on these adventures. So you'll have a couple of paragraphs of the characters trying to get somewhere in a hurry, for example, and then the main character will suddenly urge the reader to hurry or keep up. Sometimes in all caps as if he's yelling at the reader because of the urgency of the situation. At first this style, which is so different from anything I've seen before, made me gripped and turning the pages to see what happened. Unfortunately, after many, many pages where nothing happened even this device could not hold my attention.
The first third of the book is spent with an agonizing repetition of just how special and awesome the main character's many siblings are as they rush - over and over - to get to a safe house or space-ship to avoid getting caught in the storm that occurs when the time change happens and a new reality replaces the old one. Like I said before, this is really interesting, but we never get to actually see the new reality because the main character keeps stopping his journal entries just before the actual interesting stuff starts. It seems as though he is stopped by force or interrupted, but it doesn't matter why - it prevents me from seeing the time travel parts or their influence on the world for far too long and that's what I most looked forward to in this story!
When the effects on the character's life are finally shown they're only mentioned briefly without showing us in detail exactly how they affect the character's life. Instead of focusing on this and exploring it, we're just told over and over by the narrator things to the effect of "This sucks, reader. This is really messing up my life." Over and over and over. But it rings hollow because we never get to see the character's old life or his new one. This is interspersed with detailed musings about how awesome each of the siblings is and how well (or not) they're adjusting to the time changes and how the big brother seems to know everything about it/is involved in the government that's been set up for people who survived these changes.
The characters literally spend over 3/4 of the book either rushing to a safe-house, talking about rushing to a safe-house, or musing about the clothes everyone wears in each new reality and the clothes they will wear and the clothes they used to wear in their old or favorite realities. I think the problem is that the author had an interesting idea for maybe one super short book and then decided to dilute it and stretch it over a 10 part series instead of just telling it, so they had to fill the majority of these books with all this filler.
So the intriguing idea was effectively drowned.
I would love to one day see the author take this idea and condense it to a short form novella or something with all this fluff taken out. If you have ALOT more patience than me you might want to check this series out, but be prepared, you're going to have to read many books in the series before anything begins to happen.