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Quantum Time Theory: Journals of a Traveler Through Time
The invention of the Time Machine has created a veritable gold rush of greedy people bent on getting rich by Changing Time. Changing Time has been made illegal and so has Traveling to the Past without a permit, but Time Traveling criminals don’t care! They’re hell bent on using Time Machines to Travel to the recent Past so they can make a Change that will create a profit for them in the Present. The only problem is one change leads to another, so come the present, millions of things have changed, not just one. The entire human race has been Wiped Out again and again and replaced with a new slightly different population. The Time Travelers don’t care—so long as they’re getting rich. There are so many lawbreakers trying to get rich quick that they’ve had to form a Syndicate to coordinate their Changes, so now a Change comes every two to three weeks. The Central Time Authority has been created to arrest and punish lawbreakers, but greed and corruption have prevented it from bringing Traveling to an end. Law-abiding Longtimers avoid being Changed by getting into short-range Time Machines called Safe Houses and Traveling around the Changes in Time. They have created a Society of Suvivors who inhabit the Fourth Dimension and fight against Timecrime. Many of them live in Shawneetown, Illinois, a once great city made great again by a Change in Time. It is the second largest city in America and the headquarters of the Intertime Government and the Central Time Authority. It is also a hotbed of Timecrimers and Longtimers, the crossroads of Voiders, Pirates and the superrich Eloi. So when the brothers and sisters of the Vann family, Shawneetowners of Reality 250, are approached by their oldest brother Amos to enter the Timeflow, they don’t know what they’re getting into. They don’t want to be Time Travelers or Longtimers. They just want to lead their ordinary lives. Instead, they have to Adapt to the bizarre environments they find themselves in and make a new way of life in an ever-changing landscape. Dexter Vann is just an ordinary guy starting out in life, but he and his brothers and sisters find themselves constantly starting over. They have to battle the Seven Dangers of a Time Traveler’s life: Bystanders, Timecrimers, Time Changes, other Time Travelers, Time Travel itself, Bankruptcy, and Mental Stress. Dexter Vann wants to start a career, find love, and settle down, but there’s just one problem after another. Can he and his brothers and sisters Adapt? Can they Survive? Can they too become Longtimers? Don’t count on it, because the Timeflow is a Deathworld.
402 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 3, 2017
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 9, 2020
So - I am giving this a 3.5. I liked so many aspects of this book. First, it’s written like a journal. So there are small paragraphs of telling us what’s happening - I like that in a lot of chick lits and I enjoyed it in this time travel extravaganza. Secondly, I enjoyed how we were taken along during the journey. The author kept involving us - as readers and it kept my interest throughout. This is even a good read if you’d like to read something sci fi but would at the same time like something light.
And that’a where I think my issue was. The whole book was a journal. I would have liked a story that was happening but at the same time journaling out elements of the story.
But then again - that’s just for me. I’m sure there will be many readers who would like this book nevertheless!
And that’a where I think my issue was. The whole book was a journal. I would have liked a story that was happening but at the same time journaling out elements of the story.
But then again - that’s just for me. I’m sure there will be many readers who would like this book nevertheless!
January 14, 2020
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.
January 9, 2020
I feel like I'm the little kid pointing out the Emperor's New Clothes aren't there
There is precious little plot, and damned near no coherence to this story. It's like the characters are getting together to put on a play of who they want to be every so often.
I expect my sf to have somewhat accurate science - as in someone making a reasonable effort to bend plot about real science, not make up science that enables plot. That would be a comic book that does the latter, and I can count the number of comic books I haven't regretted reading on the fingers of one hand with spares. This is not one of them.
Too many of the scenes are essentially several incarnations of Snoopy simultaneously pretending to be the World Famous Banker, or World Famous Government Official, and sniping at cross purposes.
Approaching the end, we get a little bit of coherence and scientific realism, but it's like the author read it off a script someone handed him and promptly forgot all about it, allowing it to have no effect on the remainder of the story. Just like the ending was the author suddenly realized he'd written so many thousands of words, so he'd better do something that could pass for an ending.
Look, I don't like writing this sort of review. What I want is an enjoyable story I can turn other people on to. Normally, I let these sorts of books pass without reviewing but I gave my word that I would review this one, and review it honestly. The only reason I can find to read this is if you're the type of person who enjoys reading about characters you don't care about pretend their posturing is somehow not more painful than hacking your way through this morass.
There is precious little plot, and damned near no coherence to this story. It's like the characters are getting together to put on a play of who they want to be every so often.
I expect my sf to have somewhat accurate science - as in someone making a reasonable effort to bend plot about real science, not make up science that enables plot. That would be a comic book that does the latter, and I can count the number of comic books I haven't regretted reading on the fingers of one hand with spares. This is not one of them.
Too many of the scenes are essentially several incarnations of Snoopy simultaneously pretending to be the World Famous Banker, or World Famous Government Official, and sniping at cross purposes.
Approaching the end, we get a little bit of coherence and scientific realism, but it's like the author read it off a script someone handed him and promptly forgot all about it, allowing it to have no effect on the remainder of the story. Just like the ending was the author suddenly realized he'd written so many thousands of words, so he'd better do something that could pass for an ending.
Look, I don't like writing this sort of review. What I want is an enjoyable story I can turn other people on to. Normally, I let these sorts of books pass without reviewing but I gave my word that I would review this one, and review it honestly. The only reason I can find to read this is if you're the type of person who enjoys reading about characters you don't care about pretend their posturing is somehow not more painful than hacking your way through this morass.
March 22, 2017
I do not often read science fiction, but since I know this author, I gave this one a try. Unlike many time travel narratives that dwell on how history would change if we could go back and what the future might hold if we go forward, Quantum Time Theory explores far more interesting tensions: How do people react when someone else is changing time and they have no control over it? How would you deal with repeated, seemingly random time changes? What does it do to your psyche to have everything around you change every couple of weeks? How do you cope and how do your relationships with friends and family change?
We experience time change through the eyes of the Vann family as they combat the havoc that time changes are wreaking on their world. The characters are engaging; the plot is well paced, and questions raised by the narrative are intriguing to ponder. I look forward to the next installment of this multi-volume series!
We experience time change through the eyes of the Vann family as they combat the havoc that time changes are wreaking on their world. The characters are engaging; the plot is well paced, and questions raised by the narrative are intriguing to ponder. I look forward to the next installment of this multi-volume series!
January 9, 2020
A wild ride.
I wish I could create the connection with the reader when I write that this author accomplishes. He creates a sense of intimacy with the reader that is rare to find. He also manages to create a constant sense of urgency. I’m not so sure I liked that. The premise of the novel is great, the story is great, but it starts to feel repetitive after a few chapters. There is never time to relax and really get to know the characters, which I appreciate in the books I read. The drama of their lives is always different, but somehow the same. But if you like that constant danger, adrenaline rush, you should enjoy this book.
I wish I could create the connection with the reader when I write that this author accomplishes. He creates a sense of intimacy with the reader that is rare to find. He also manages to create a constant sense of urgency. I’m not so sure I liked that. The premise of the novel is great, the story is great, but it starts to feel repetitive after a few chapters. There is never time to relax and really get to know the characters, which I appreciate in the books I read. The drama of their lives is always different, but somehow the same. But if you like that constant danger, adrenaline rush, you should enjoy this book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews