Thunder of Time by James F. David

Thunder #2

by James F. David

Ten years ago, the prehistoric past collided with the present as time itself underwent a tremendous disruption, transporting huge swaths of the Cretaceous Period into the world of the twentieth century. Entire neighborhoods and cities were replaced by dense primeval jungles and modern humanity suddenly found itself sharing the earth with fierce dinosaurs. In the end, desperate measures were taken to halt the disruptions and the crisis appeared to be over.Until now.Slowly at first, but with increasing frequency, time begins to unravel once more. What's worse, Nick Paulson, Director of the newly-formed Office of Security Science, discovers that the time displacements are being manipulated by unknown parties, utilizing a mysterious new technology. Indeed, the very integrity of the space-time continuum appears to be at risk.To preserve both the future and the past, Nick and his allies must uncover the secrets hidden within in a lost temple at the center of a dino-infested jungle–and in an enigmatic structure on the surface of the moon. But they are not alone in their quest. A cult of ruthless fanatics is also intent on controlling the time waves, and they will stop at nothing to reshape history to their own design . . . .At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Dinosaurs, Thriller, Adventure, Action

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

James F. David has a Ph.D. from Ohio State University and is currently a professor of Psychology as George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. He is the author of the thrillers Footprints of Thunder, Ship of the Damned and Before the Cradle Falls. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Tigard, Oregon.

Reviews

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Time travel, multiple universes and rampaging dinosaurs—really what more could a reader ask for? I love a good time travel paradox and did I mention that there were herds of cool dinosaurs? Now, this novel is not going to be taught in universities any time soon, but as a speculative fiction thriller it was a very enjoyable romp. We catch up with some of the characters from the first book, Footprints of Thunder, and see how their lives have progressed. We meet a few new characters, including a psychopathic leader of an extreme animal rights group. (Actually, this is the second book I’ve read in just a short while that has used animal rights extremists as bad guys—is this a trend?) By the book’s end, everything seems calm—but I know there’s a third book, and although I have an idea or two about where Mr. David might go with the plot, I shall be interested to see if I have speculated correctly.

There were some minor issues with editing—wrong names used in several places in the last few chapters. It was like the editor just lost focus close to the end. Also some punctuation errors (which drive me to distraction and, as a library worker myself, I have to resist the urge to get out a pen and correct them in my borrowed book). Unlike the first book, the botany and dinosaur physiology were correct. Although in one of the opening quotes to one of the chapters, Oviraptor is still described as an egg thief, where we now know its name was a mistake. The original fossil was not stealing eggs, but guarding its nest. But those are minor quibbles.

Looking forward to reading book 3.

[Wendell · Rating 2 out of 5]

As truly mediocre writers go, James David is at the top of his field. He’s never met a modifier he couldn’t dangle; conjunctions and punctuation have no truck with one another in his world; and the difference between adverbs and adjectives is the kind of nit-picking he just doesn’t have time for. That pairs of characters stop for a moment—as their colleagues and friends are being devoured by velociraptors all around them—to “kiss deeply and promise never again to part” doesn’t strike David as a plotting problem. Nor does he shy away from giving his non-white characters “ethnic” speech and embarrassingly stereotyped behaviors, and his ability to write convincing dialogue is right up there with ... well, no, actually, he doesn’t have the ability to write convincing dialogue. What’s more, he knows just enough science to be dangerous (if you happen to know any more than him, this book will be a torture and it’d be better if you left it alone). In short, he’s a typical Tor writer. For all its apparent success as a supplier of genre fiction, Tor apparently doesn’t waste its money on editors. On the positive side, at least you always know what you’re getting with Tor’s thriller/sci-fi offerings—mega-action; abundant, gratuitous splatter; and prose in which the universe is often multidimensional but the characters never are. All of that said, I must grudgingly admit that most of Thunder of Time is a very fun ride (though David pretty much pulls the ending out of his butt)—good beach or before-bed reading, in particular, or at other periods in which your attention level is low enough that a lot of the foolishness just rolls off. I like books like that and—given the amount of stress we live with every day—at times I even need them. So good for David and good for Tor. I remain unclear why being a genre writer requires an author to treat the English language as though he were a T. rex and it was a medium-sized herbivore, but that’s a mystery I’m apparently going to have to take to the grave.

[MamaMary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writer seemed to have trouble keeping names straight but a good story. I didn't like it as much as the 1st. It took longer than expected to complete it because I wasn't as drawn into it as the 1st book. The story is taking some turns that have me questioning the storyline. We'll see how book 3 goes.

[Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Footprints of Thunder was a book I took a gamble on. I pretty much bought it and read it based on a few reviews and the fact that it had dinosaurs in it. And I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was so pleasantly surprised it's now one of my favorite books and I will certainly read it again at some point. It just gripped in a way that... very few books have. It was like it was tailored for me specifically.

I didn't really word the review I wrote back then very well but having had more time to digest the book, it keeps coming back to me and I think about certain things that it did or questions it asked. If I wrote the review today, I'd probably be a lot more lenient of it.

So this book had a lot to prove. My expectations, I admit, were pretty high and while I do try to keep my expectations low so as to not go into with preconceived notions, that simply wasn't a possibility here. When I finished the previous book by James F. David, I wanted more of his world. It was appealing, exciting and potentially very refreshing. So it is with some sadness that I admit that... this book didn't quite hit the spot for me. In fact, you may even go as far as to say I didn't like it. There are three things about this book that I'm gonna try to cover: the technical aspects of it, how it stands as its own book and how well it did as a sequel. And let's start with the more technical aspects of it.

This isn't something I typically highlight because, to me, the content of the book is vastly more important than how it's presented to me. But there are limits, some of the issues of this book simply interrupted the flow and pacing of the book that actively worked against the experience and content. There were a lot mistakes in this book, both spelling wise and names that were tossed around. Whether an issue with the editor, the author himself or whatever software it was written in, sometimes characters had conversations with themselves. This might be a problem with the software because I often noticed names were switched around mostly based on the first letter of their names. So Elizabeth and Eilene, Kenny and Kawabata, and so forth, which makes me wonder if it wasn't an issue with auto-completion. Although... did they have that back in 2006?
That's not the only issue neither, I found the book to be very patchy and not at all well put together. Some chapters stretched forever while others were mere footnotes in the grand scheme of things. This really interrupted the flow when I was reading it and didn't add anything to the experience. I'm not saying all chapters have to be the same length or anything like that but when a chapter is mere two paragraphs long and completely unnecessary, feeling more like padding, I can't help but to be annoyed by it.
And there's a lot of really weird sentences in there that made it turn about in my head. Basically, what I'm saying, I found there to be quite a few issues just in the technical aspects of the book itself, how it was written and edited, that just put me off. Now, I can get over a lot of this if the rest is okay or even good. So, let's move on to the contents of the book itself.

The books follows on from Footprints of Thunder but ten years into time, more or less correlating to the time it took David to write the sequel. In it we're briefly reintroduced to a world that had to come to terms with dinosaurs suddenly roaming the modern world. At least before it goes on a ripping adventure through time, bringing back some of the characters from the previous book and introducing a whole slew of new characters. With the world coming under threat again from these time distortions, heroes of old and new must join together to fight the blahblahblah, we've heard it all before. Basically, it's an incredibly stretched premise to get people to go shoot at and run from dinosaurs and even then the majority of antagonism and adventuring comes from people vs. people. This time around there's an organization that wants to cause more time distortions (because of course) and return to veritable Garden of Eden where humans live next to animals in harmony. Yawn, nothing new under the sun here then.
What follows is a pretty meandering plot that jumps around between different groups of people trying to, more or less, accomplish the same thing. There's nukes and there's terrorists and damsels in distress (no, seriously, this one irked me a lot) among dinosaurs and yet... it all felt incredibly "been there, done that". I'm a pretty big fan of shaking typical plots up with dinosaurs but here they're used so sparingly yet when they do show up it amounts to very little. The first book took a fairly unique approach to the dinosaurs suddenly existing, far more nuanced, so this comes across as falling more into line with what other dinosaur-related stories tend to do.
It also makes a lot of pretty extraordinary claims in an effort to speed up the plot rather building it up rapidly. Going to the moon is now something you can train for in a week and rather than the cumbersome, claustrophobic experience of traveling in what amounts to little more than a barrel of explosives with wings strapped to it, there's now a convenient, magical little airplane that's no harder to fly than any other airplane. All this to flesh out a plot point left dangling in the previous book that ultimately doesn't amount to anything. There's nothing spectacular about them being on the moon and they might as well not have been. The teased object from the future turned out to be entirely mundane.
And then the book really devolved as it tried to lay out some kind of discussion or philosophy about alternate universes and potential futures and timelines diverging and I couldn't help but to be entirely bored by it all. Was this what it was all building up to in the first book? Why do authors always need to complicate matters so much? There's themes and messages and then there's just intellectual posturing. Or attempts at it.

So, honestly, as a book it didn't engage me all that much. The focus was far too heavily on interpersonal relationships, romance and whatnot where the dinosaurs felt entirely superfluous. Unlike in the first book where the dinosaurs was a driving factor behind people's actions. Or at least the event that brought them to our time. And the author apparently read a book or two about "people's nature" cause there is a lot of internal monologue and justifications for actions that simply didn't feel necessary. And I really didn't care why the terrorist kept deteriorating mentally.
That doesn't mean there's no good parts at all, of course, even if a bit cliche and run of the mill, there were moments of actual excitement. Like when a group was ambushed by t-rexes or a dinosaur stampede. But the moments are few and far between. And dinosaurs make everything better and taking them out of their element can be interesting.

Which really just leaves me with how it stacks up as a sequel. Now, I already said that I expected a lot from it considering its lineage. So how it tied together with the first book, what characters it brought back and what plot points were going to influence the most was definitely a matter that I reflected on a lot during reading.
Unfortunately, I can't really say it's a decent sequel either. At least to me. I'm sure a lot of people were quite happy with it but I expected... something else. The first book was a lot about how the event impacted the world and the people in it. How people came to term with dinosaurs or... didn't come to terms with them. There was a fair bit of running and gunning from dinosaurs and people being killed but ultimately everyone had different experiences, different adventures. Whether it was the family stuck on a dinosaur out at sea, the old lady feeding an iguanadon with sugar or scientists trying to figure out what was going on, it was all an examination of how the world was impacted. I expected this to follow suit, to show ten years down the road how the world had adapted to this new existence. And to some degree it did, the first few chapters was all about this and there were little tidbits scattered about in the book that hinted at the new world.
And it brought back numerous characters from the first book, some minor, some major, but when it also introduced a number of new characters, the book quickly became crowded and new characters were treated more as fodder than anything. While old characters were almost revered, worshiped and practically bulletproof. And there was a strange obsession on making people couples. I get that under circumstances like these, bonds are forged but it was a bit weird some times just how quickly they were formed. And with whom.
I'll be honest, though, many of the characters they brought back, I had severe problems remembering. They were so minor (in some cases literally minors) in the first book and the book does so little to remind you of who they are that the author must've counted on people just having read the first book. There's no way you remember some of these characters otherwise. And for the most part, even they receive very thick plot armor. One guy is shot in the chest and somehow survives. I understand it's not impossible but come on...

So, all in all... I didn't think this was a very good book. Decent, sure, maybe, and perhaps if I didn't have the expectations from the previous book, I'd be significantly more lenient. But the truth is that it IS a sequel and therefor expectations are to be expected. What I loved about the first book was its focus on the world itself and its reaction to the events that transpired. To suddenly wake up in a world full of dinosaurs is fascinating and it was pretty well written. This, however, did away with that perspective and aimed almost exclusively for a generic adventure through time that just happened to have dinosaurs. It doesn't spend any time at all on the dinosaurs or how they'd adapted to humans or anything like that. Instead it's all like "LOL, dinosaurs on the moon, how lit." Or whatever kids say today.

I'm very glad this wasn't the first book I read in the series cause I'd never have picked up Footprints of Thunder then. As it stands, I'm still curious about the sequel, Dinosaur Thunder, but we'll see when I pick it up.

[MICHAEL A · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty bad. Made it about halfway through but then couldn't finish it. I managed to read the first novel in the series and was entertained enough by the silliness of the concept to give the second one a try. But this book is a failure. Bad writing, poor character development, overdone and gratuitous action scenes - and the worst thing of all is the "science" (or lack thereof) which is outrageously stupid. I certainly won't waste my time on more of this author's work.

[Gwen Veazey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jurassic Park meets time travel. A fine adventure story, well-done, but suffers from time travel convolutedness. Sometimes I think time travel is a way for science fiction to introduce magic into a story. This novel is the 2nd in a trilogy but enjoyable on its own. Love the dinosaurs.

[Jamieson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thunder of Time is the sequel to Footprints of Thunder and is set ten years after the previous book. In this novel, we have three main threads that all tie together. The first sees Nick Paulson leading a team to investigate a mysterious structure on the moon, the second sees John Roberts lead a team to investigate Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, and the third sees Elizabeth Hawthorne investigating a secret government project in Alaska. These all tie together surprisingly well with time travel, eco-terrorists and of course, dinosaurs thrown together into what turns out to be a fun sci-fi thriller. I found this a lot of fun and much faster paced than the previous book which was a bit slow in the middle. If you like time travel and dinosaurs then definitely check this out. Though, I would recommend the first book to better understand the world and characters.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another review for this book can be found at my blog. Scroll past the review for the first book, to see the review for this one:
The Real World According To Sam

My parents bought this book for me quite a while back and I was not able to read it because it turned out to be a sequel (it is a personal quirk of mine that I need to read boks in a series in order). After much questing, I finally found and read the first book: Footprints of Thunder. I have a review of that too for those interested.

Thunder of Time...I like the cover, dinosaurs and helicopters and some bright lights which could be an explosion or something. All together it makes for a very suspenseful feel. This book definitely delivers suspense. At first, I found I was able to be separated from the book very easily. Things could distract me and I'd be no worse for the wear. Yes, it was exciting, but I wasn't gripped. Not until around Chapter 36 of 82 did I find myself really into this and unable to put it down. Its a bit slow-going at first, but once its going, its gone!

I had a couple issues with the style David wrote it in, much like the first one. I feel however, that this is most likely a clever ploy used by many writers to keep the reader guessing. The movement from one group of characters to another suddenly, creating a minor cliffhanger. This I would compare to an action show stopping at a gripping moment to break for commercial, but instead of a commercial you get another bit of action occurring in a different area to different characters, and so it goes back and forth. In the end, there is certainly reason for all the switching between scenes. I just found it a bit frustrating to be left wondering what happened to the last group I read about and be held at suspense for a numerous amount of chapters. This however, I will put aside since all the action was so gripping and everything I can remember was answered and tied up neatly.

I eagerly look forward to seeing what David has in store for us in book 3.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

When James F. David sat down to outline this book, I wonder if he made a checklist of all of the things he loves and decided to throw it all together, mix it up, and see if what came out would work. Picture him sitting at his desk and saying: "Dinosaurs - check;" "Time travel - check;" "World destruction - check;" "Meddling government agencies - check;" and "Terrorists - check." Much to my surprise, much of it does, in fact, work. And work quiet excitingly!

The basic premise of the story is that present day Earth is experiencing areas where the past is showing up, namely dinosaurs are re-appearing in modern day cities due to time disruptions. The disruptions are beginning to occur more frequently and is beginning to look as if someone, something, or some group is manipulating the time quilts for their own advantage. I won't say anymore, but add that the story flies all over the place and rather speedily. There are basically three different story strands, each at times ending on a cliffhanger while the story shifts to the other strands. Towards the end, the strands come together, of course, but not necessarily as I thought they would.

It's this part that causes me to only give the book 3 stars. The science starts to get really wonky and the reader has to really pay attention has the time lines start jumping all over the place during the last 100 pages or so. At times, I had to go back to remind myself which time the characters were in. It all gets rather confusing as different times are introduced with characters leaping and jumping from time to time. My head hurt after some chapters as I was trying to keep everything straight. I almost had to make a flow chart.

Up to those last 100 pages, though, I was quite enjoying the story and what was happening. Who doesn't love dinosaurs chomping on screaming humans? I just wish everything had been a bit more clear and concise with the time lines, the shifting futures and pasts, and fates of characters. I still recommend this to fans of the science fiction genre.

[Delia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just have to start off this review by saying WOW, I mean really WOW. I picked this book up as a hardcover at the Dollar Tree (yes they do sell books) and I wasn't expecting much. Boy was I surprised. This was an amazing story, a fantastic cross between Jurassic Park and Timeline (two of my favorite books) Mr David has put just enough science in the story line to keep it both believable and just out of reach. The characters are well thought out and well developed.

Something else I really liked about this novel was that at the start of each chapter was a little excerpt that lead into the chapter. Often it was a quote for a "newspaper" or "Dinosaur textbook" that helped to add a bit a realism to the story line. The author even threw in a few quotes from famous scientists like Albert Einstein immersing the reader in the science of this science fiction.

Now I'm going to put some spoilers in here so look away if you haven't read the book, I don't want to ruin it for you. One of the main reasons I enjoyed this story was that I loved Davids use of time travel theory's as well as the multiverse theory. As we follow Nick, John and Elizabeth in different parts of the country we have no idea that Kenny is traveling back and forth between time and space shaping the world as we know it.

This is actually a sequel to the book "Footprints of Thunder" which I have no had the privilege of reading. The novel works well as a standalone but I will pick up Footprints if I happen upon it, and its on sale! Overall I really enjoyed Mr David's writing style. Once I hit page 200 I had a hard time putting the book down. He has built a world of suspense with twists and turns at every chapter. I have to say with the amount of novels I read, there are not many that I would give 5 stars to and this one deserves 5 stars in my opinion. I will be keeping my eye out for more books by James F David and I think you should too!

[Sarah B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thunder of Time is like a cross between Jurassic Park and Back to the Future with the fate of the entire world hanging by a thread. At first I was just excited to find a book about dinosaurs but I quickly realized that this book is a lot more. It's not just snapping jaws and wicked claws but complicated time travel science and alternate realities, it's confusing mazes and pyramids but it's also people: good people fighting to save the world the best they can while others try to destroy it. And none of it is easy, especially with curve balls being thrown into the plot. The various characters try to do the best they can but it's often a bloodbath. And not all of the spilled blood is from dinosaurs. I liked a lot of the characters and wondered what was going to happen to them. The story started out with action from the very beginning with a sled dog team and pretty much kept it up throughout the entire book.

The book's plot moves at a rapid pace. There's lots of action, scares, daring rescues and everything else that can satisfy you in an adventure story. The environments is vast, from the tropical jungle to the frozen vastness of Alaska and even to the airless moon.

This is hard sci-fi but the science is explained in a easy to understand way. It points out how complicated things can get...and dangerous. Some of it was also very unexpected! The one thing I had never even thought of before. The story is unpredictable enough that I was not able to guess what was going to happen.

This is the second book in a trilogy. I did not read the first one yet I was able to follow along easily. So yes, you can read this one without reading the first. I have the third book (Dinosaur Thunder) here and I plan on reading it next.

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I really like fiction novels and when i was a kid i was obssesed with dinosaurs so this was a great book for me. On top of this it was like a mystery because its really confusing since it goes from the present to the future and back. Its not one of those books that starts in the future and goes to the past. No this one is weird and you have to be into it to understand it at all. The main plot is that the present and dinosaur past have collided due to nuclear tests in the sixties and as a result whole cities are dissapearing and in their place there are jungles with dinosaurs in them. After the first few time ripples though it seems to the governments that the time ripples are being manipulated by some group and thats when lives start intercrossing and the real fun begins.

[Steven G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy book to read and would probably make a great "Jurassic Park" type movie. The book's premise is that rips have occurred in space-time on earth resulting in dinosaurs popping up all over the planet. The rips occurred from nuclear testing which setup small black-holes. Sub-plot includes the Russian's being blamed for setting off a nuclear explosion in Alaska which they were not responsible for and a radical anti-civilization group that is bent on sending the planet back to the dark ages.

Timelines and characters can be a little hard to follow but the author does a good job of setting each chapter up with a milestone so you know where and when you are in the story.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sequel to Footprints of Thunder. In both books chunks of earth from the dinosaur age replace their counterparts of the present time. A large part of Portland becomes a primeval forest. Portland goes - somewhere else. The characters have to fight off T-rexes and other mean and nasty beasts. The sequel has more of the same and also some desperate time travel action to try to restore some balance to the world. It gets more than a bit confusing at the end of book. But it is all a bunch of fun.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Good! I thought that it was a great sequel to Footprints of Thunder, which focused more on the fact that there were now dinosaurs in the 21st century. This book still had the factor of Dinos being alive when they should no longer exist, but it had more an element of time travel than the first book did. We find out what is really going on with the moon, And Kenny Randall sort of gets to come back as a real hero. People Fall in love so there was a touch of Romance but there is still a lot of mystery to be dealt with.

[Norman Howe · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the first book in this series"," portions of the Cretaceous Era have surfaced on the Earth due to nuclear explosions. This second novel takes place ten years later. Further temporal disruptions are occurring"," and may be caused by human intervention. This is a very suspenseful novel"," but there are far too many dinosaur attacks. It is entirely fitting that I am reading a time travel series IN THE WRONG ORDER!

[Threasa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot, but the technology was above my head. Mr. David has great talent in coming up with all the scenarios he did. I couldn't begin to think these up. This book is one wild ride from the beginning to end. It is thrilling to see dinosaurs living in the time of humans and how they cope. I would recommend both of these books by James F. David.

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

the first book was good... I read this and never really got into it.. found myself picking it back up every time I saw it in bedside table and then just now (about halfway through).. I decided "I'm not interested in what happens to these people". and chucked it to open up time in my life for something more to my taste

[Kerry Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of a pair of books, this being the second, about an overlapping time rift. Told with the enthusiasm of Jurassic Park; alot of fun and worth the read.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sequel to Footprints of Thunder

[Tasula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second book in series about a rift in time that allows dinosaurs into the modern world. Not everyone agrees this is a bad thing- so there is danger from people as well as dinosaurs.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool book and a nice change from the zombie porn I've been reading lately.

[Kris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author kept losing track of characters and using the wrong names in the different plot lines. Kinda sloppy.

[Cory Gwin]

It was an adequate sequel, the ending was alright, I would have hoped for a little more.

[Caron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard for me to keep up with. Loved the concept of "time quilts". So many characters and time switches I kinda lost track.

[Everette Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good... Didn't flow real well but overall good.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool sci-fi action adventure book with good characterizations and interesting theories. Recommend for anyone who's read Eric Flint's 1632 series.

[Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

very very very very very interesting

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the read although it was typocal of some sequals I have read.