Boneyard Reviews Part 6

Timeline by Michael Crichton

I have seen a few Blake Crouch fans reference Michael Crichton as their favorite author and Blake replacing Michael as their favorite author. So I had put this on my radar, although I still haven’t seen any of the Jurassic Park movies. I came across Michael’s book, Timeline, a 441-page book, at the Goodwill (it was $3.95) about time travel. I’m down with time travel, and I picked it up. 

It starts out fine, and then came the multi-page passover of a helicopter of a site (I think they’re supposed to land?). It went on for pages, so I got a little antsy—I’m sure there’s a good reason for the lingering. 

Now, a couple of strange things happened all at once. First, this is a hardback book, so it's large, and I was taking a train ride toting it around. This got me thinking about an eReader I had purchased years ago. Upon returning home, I dusted off the eReader to see if I could get it working. 

During the writing of my book Sanctary, a beta reader had suggested The Last Act by Brad Parks, noting we had a similar humor. I do remember starting to read it, liking it, but something happened, and I was unable to finish it, which was very common for me back then.  

When I got the eReader working, I realized I could interface with my library and borrow ebooks. I didn’t know how I felt about using an eReader; up to now it was physical books. In the recesses of my mind, I was thinking that maybe that was the problem in the past—eBooks. Ebooks do have one huge advantage—the dictionary is one press of the finger away, and they are light and compact, and they are backlit so you can read without a book light. Okay, so there are plenty of good reasons to use an eReader.  

Getting the device working, I was assaulted with the ghost of the past—all the books I started and didn’t finish. The Last Act was there and wasn’t available, but Closer Than You Know (another Brad Parks book) was available. Besides, I’m only testing the device. 

I paused on the Timeline book (I didn’t throw it to the boneyard—I’m pausing) and read a few pages of Closer Than You Know. A funny thing happened on the way to the state fair, or is it the forum, or whatever that saying is. I started reading a story—this book is not one I would have necessarily picked up off the shelf. It’s about a woman losing her baby (the baby is taken by CPS), and she’s fighting to stay out of jail. I noticed all the things missing. Where was all the worldbuilding? The attempts to drown the reader in words? Where is the hammer of one or more thoughts over and over and over again? I was dumbfounded. A story? Really?

I found this book so compelling—I hated to put it down. Now, I’m not a fast reader, so it took me a week to get through the book, but I was behaving strangely. My earmarked time for reading in the morning was 8-10; I found myself picking up the book when I had any spare time—very odd. I could wait to get back to it. 

He wove a beautiful story of a couple who was adopting a baby, a serial rapist who was being hunted, the personalities of a district attorney's office, and this mother caught between these worlds. I thought it was all going to come crashing down at the end, but he held it together. 

At the end I was floored—a story—huh. I know numerous people love the worldbuilding and all the word salad they can get immersed in, and as I have stated before, I’m interested in finding a good story. This is one. Highly recommended.    

Now, I’ll see if I can find my way back to Timeline.    

Boneyard 10, No Recommendation 6, Recommend 5, Highly Recommend 4  

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson. 407pg

Working with my new e-reader and the Libby app (access to library books), I have always given reading priority to library books due to the fact they have a return date. Working my Gemini list and what is available through Libby (most books you have to request a hold.) This one was available (I’ve been hunting for it for a while). You can read a sample from the book, and she quotes Brian Greene, one of my favorite physicists. If you have seen What the Bleep??, a good deal of his work was used in that movie, which is how I got to know about him. So, Brian Greene quote, we’re off to a smashing start. This is about parallel worlds and how the characters in the book interact with and travel to and from them—a subject I love. 

A was confused at first, as it seemed to be about caste systems and how the upper-class abuses and uses the lower class—it seemed whiny. Worse, it seemed like an agenda book (a book about a subject you're very passionate about, and you cloak it as a story). There was also, in my mind, confusion as to why these people were visiting these worlds. They could see the activity, like they knew if the parallel person was alive or dead in that world. A person traveling between these would get bodily injuries. So they used trash people for this task (that’s my word, but as she describes them, that's what they were.) Very bleak, and I will “tell” you about it for the first half. Bleak, dark, and depressing is how the mood has been up to now. 

The second part shifts into show-versus-tell mode. Even though the style changed, the tone didn’t; in fact, it seemed to get more depressing. It felt like work reading it; I mean, you want to give the author a runway creating their vision. But I kept thinking, why am I reading this? I’m not enjoying it, and it was putting me in a bad mood. It felt, not like torture, but it certainly felt like work. I’m sure it was going somewhere glorious, but I didn’t care. So on page 102, to the boneyard.  

Now maybe I can get back to Michael Crichton’s Timeline. On my enthusiasm meter, it’s running about a 2 out of 10.  

Boneyard 11, No Recommendation 6, Recommend 5, Highly Recommend 4