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Throwback
A space cloud of unknown composition is on a collision course with Earth as the world holds its breath. The anomaly sails through the solar system and the International Space Station along with three astronauts and one cosmonaut are thrown back to the Cretaceous period where dinosaurs roam Earth hunting prey and great pterosaurs patrol the skies. Supplies on the station run low and desperation takes hold, but morale grows when the crew sees a bright multi-colored light blinking on the surface below. The astronauts decide to evacuate the station in the Soyuz escape capsule and investigate. As the adventurers struggle to survive in the primordial jungle, the party discovers artifacts of an ancient civilization that could help them find the light beacon. If they can stay alive long enough.
- GenresDinosaursScience Fiction
219 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 19, 2018
229 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
About the author
Edward J. McFadden III
66 books63 followersEd cut his teeth reading John Christopher, Tolkien, Poe, Brooks and Zelazny, and graduated to Joe Haldeman, Allen Steele, Arthur C. Clark and Jack Vance. For the last twenty years he’s done a deep dive on apocalyptic fiction, and he really enjoyed learning at the feet of Elmore Leonard, Philip K. Dick, Lawrence Block, Ray Bradbury, Carl Hiaasen, Stephen King, Joe Lansdale, and F. Paul Wilson. His recent publications include Hell Creek, Too Much Grit, The Cryptid Club, Keepers of the Flame, Quick Sands, Sandbagged, Dogs Get Ten Lives, Barracuda Swarm, Dinosaur Red, Drop Off, and Jurassic Ark. His sea thrillers, The Breach and Shadow of the Abyss were Amazon #1 Best Sellers and the audio version of The Breach was a #1 Hot New Release. His other novels include Throwback, Sea Tremors, Primeval Valley, AWAKE, The Black Death of Babylon, and HOAXERS. He lives on Long Island with his wife Dawn, and their daughter Samantha.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
November 26, 2023
This was a mix if a few things, Sci Fi, survival in a dinosaur filled word, time travel and bit of suspense. I enjoyed the audio and found mys3lf to be very intruiged by the story but I wanted a bit more from it and would be great if it came out a sequel that gave more answers and such.
March 28, 2019
This book is a good excuse for a dinosaur romp. Three astronauts (or as the author KEEPS saying, two astronauts and one cosmonaut) are living in the International Space Station when it's hit by a mysterious cloud and are somehow time-shifted back about 75 million years, to the cretaceous period. They escape in a Soyuz lander and begin a battle against T. rex and a multitude of other things trying to eat or poison them. They have guns which were smuggled onto the ISS, which obviously turn out to be very helpful for survival. They have a goal - having briefly seen a mysterious pulsating light from space, they must travel several hundred miles across hostile terrain to reach the anachronistic beacon.
This book is very 'visual' and descriptive of the action (I could see it being a film). Characterisation is better than expected. The plot starts well, with quite an original idea, but tails off into dino-fights with many narrow escapes.
I'm only giving it three stars because (apart from the continuous and irritating repetition of 'da' and 'ja' from the Russian and German characters) the book stops at a pivotal point, with no hint of a follow-up. Also, I really wanted to know what happened to all the people on Earth after the mysterious cloud enveloped the planet. Was everyone thrown back in time?
Basically it was a fairly good read but ultimately very unsatisfying.
This book is very 'visual' and descriptive of the action (I could see it being a film). Characterisation is better than expected. The plot starts well, with quite an original idea, but tails off into dino-fights with many narrow escapes.
I'm only giving it three stars because (apart from the continuous and irritating repetition of 'da' and 'ja' from the Russian and German characters) the book stops at a pivotal point, with no hint of a follow-up. Also, I really wanted to know what happened to all the people on Earth after the mysterious cloud enveloped the planet. Was everyone thrown back in time?
Basically it was a fairly good read but ultimately very unsatisfying.
April 14, 2024
Chances are, the T-Rex would see you before you saw it. Now T-Rex needs a toothpick to remove you from its teeth.
Some space jockeys doing their thing on the ISS see a dark gas cloud comin’ their way. After they pass all that gas (ahh, that feels better), they look out the window and see that Earth has changed. Pangea lies below them! Seems they’ve indulged in a wee bit of time travel. They also see a bright flashy light thingy on the surface. Hmm. Something serious is wrong with our clock too. Let’s hop in that escape capsule and drop on down near that flashy light thingy. They miss by a few hundred miles.
Yikes! They drop right into a T-Rex lair…of course. Oh, and by the way, T-Rex’s teeth weren’t 5’ long. They were 1’ long…which is still big enough to scare most dentists…but…you know…check your facts mr author. So, with nothing much else to do other than survive, they make their way towards the flashy light. Most of this book is about that journey. Many of the scenarios are repetitive and unlikely. Methinks this is a lot of padding.
The book is way too long, and the journey description, was frankly, dull, interspersed with small moments of mild interest. I skipped a few chapters here and there, and like Days of Our Lives, didn’t miss much. The ending: well that was atrocious. I thought it might be a lead-in to another book, but I can’t find one.
I was hoping this book was better than the last one I read from this author. Nope. It was a good concept, poorly executed, and could lose a bit of weight…like me. It needed a WAY better ending too. What a waste of my precious reading time.
Some space jockeys doing their thing on the ISS see a dark gas cloud comin’ their way. After they pass all that gas (ahh, that feels better), they look out the window and see that Earth has changed. Pangea lies below them! Seems they’ve indulged in a wee bit of time travel. They also see a bright flashy light thingy on the surface. Hmm. Something serious is wrong with our clock too. Let’s hop in that escape capsule and drop on down near that flashy light thingy. They miss by a few hundred miles.
Yikes! They drop right into a T-Rex lair…of course. Oh, and by the way, T-Rex’s teeth weren’t 5’ long. They were 1’ long…which is still big enough to scare most dentists…but…you know…check your facts mr author. So, with nothing much else to do other than survive, they make their way towards the flashy light. Most of this book is about that journey. Many of the scenarios are repetitive and unlikely. Methinks this is a lot of padding.
The book is way too long, and the journey description, was frankly, dull, interspersed with small moments of mild interest. I skipped a few chapters here and there, and like Days of Our Lives, didn’t miss much. The ending: well that was atrocious. I thought it might be a lead-in to another book, but I can’t find one.
I was hoping this book was better than the last one I read from this author. Nope. It was a good concept, poorly executed, and could lose a bit of weight…like me. It needed a WAY better ending too. What a waste of my precious reading time.
November 7, 2019
Si fuera por la primera mitad, le daría cuatro o hasta cinco estrellas (tengo debilidad por las novelas de dinosaurios). Pero la segunda mitad es floja, con unos giros argumentales que no entiendo y un final malo y abrupto. Al final se queda en tres.
ENGLISH
If it were for the first half, I would give it four or even five stars (I have a weakness for dinosaur novels). But the second half is lame, with some plot turns I don't understand and a bad, abrupt ending. In the end it stays in three stars.
ENGLISH
If it were for the first half, I would give it four or even five stars (I have a weakness for dinosaur novels). But the second half is lame, with some plot turns I don't understand and a bad, abrupt ending. In the end it stays in three stars.
November 4, 2019
A Time Travel/Space/Dino Thriller
First and foremost – McFadden does not shy away from action. We’re given basically a chapter to realize that Earth has a giant cloud about to cover it. In the next chapter we realize what has happened to the crew. The action started right away and didn’t let up until the very end.
McFadden was able to write an interesting story that I didn’t see coming. He wrote a book that felt familiar but also completely different. It had the feel of Land of the Lost combined with other “lost in space” type books. The crew of the ISS is taken what they assume is back in time, but once they arrive here, there are eerie and interesting artifacts that they didn’t expect.
The crew (two astronauts and one cosmonaut) set in motion a search for the mysterious beacon and along the way they are face to face with predators that have been extinct for millions of years.
The story itself flew by because of all the action. When McFadden slowed it down to have more heart-to-heart moment it wasn’t as perfect. It just felt a little clunky and not as well-paced as the action. I thought that utilizing the native language version of “yes” for the different people was a nice touch and added to the story instead of taking away like another reviewer suggested.
Overall, an interesting time travel/space/dino thriller story with both and old and new feeling to it.
First and foremost – McFadden does not shy away from action. We’re given basically a chapter to realize that Earth has a giant cloud about to cover it. In the next chapter we realize what has happened to the crew. The action started right away and didn’t let up until the very end.
McFadden was able to write an interesting story that I didn’t see coming. He wrote a book that felt familiar but also completely different. It had the feel of Land of the Lost combined with other “lost in space” type books. The crew of the ISS is taken what they assume is back in time, but once they arrive here, there are eerie and interesting artifacts that they didn’t expect.
The crew (two astronauts and one cosmonaut) set in motion a search for the mysterious beacon and along the way they are face to face with predators that have been extinct for millions of years.
The story itself flew by because of all the action. When McFadden slowed it down to have more heart-to-heart moment it wasn’t as perfect. It just felt a little clunky and not as well-paced as the action. I thought that utilizing the native language version of “yes” for the different people was a nice touch and added to the story instead of taking away like another reviewer suggested.
Overall, an interesting time travel/space/dino thriller story with both and old and new feeling to it.
February 7, 2021
I’m not sure
The story almost seems to drag on and on with no actual solution or culmination. If there was a follow up book maybe this one would be ok? But this story seems to only be about the humans ways of dealing with stress and depression with dinosaurs thrown in to try and add interest. It is almost as if the author finally got tired of trying to progress the story so just decided to end it WITHOUT ANY ending of Any kind!
That said it was still an interesting read but I do not recommend this book to others unless you have nothing better to do than read an unfinished book that was published for some warped reason.
The story almost seems to drag on and on with no actual solution or culmination. If there was a follow up book maybe this one would be ok? But this story seems to only be about the humans ways of dealing with stress and depression with dinosaurs thrown in to try and add interest. It is almost as if the author finally got tired of trying to progress the story so just decided to end it WITHOUT ANY ending of Any kind!
That said it was still an interesting read but I do not recommend this book to others unless you have nothing better to do than read an unfinished book that was published for some warped reason.
December 28, 2018
Edge of your seat story!
I could not stop reading. To the spacefarers, it seemed they had been thrown back in time when dinosaurs roamed by the mysterious space cloud. Yet, a bright beam they had seen radiating from Earth while in space gave them hope of returning to their own time. But, where they crash landed was miles and miles from the beam's origin and they have to trek through dangerous territory and predators to get there. The ending was not what I expected and I hope the author is working on a sequel. All in all, this was an exciting read!
I could not stop reading. To the spacefarers, it seemed they had been thrown back in time when dinosaurs roamed by the mysterious space cloud. Yet, a bright beam they had seen radiating from Earth while in space gave them hope of returning to their own time. But, where they crash landed was miles and miles from the beam's origin and they have to trek through dangerous territory and predators to get there. The ending was not what I expected and I hope the author is working on a sequel. All in all, this was an exciting read!
February 20, 2019
Thrown into the past spoiler alert
A bit different idea which made it interesting but i think i would of enjoyed it with more a better finale. It's to simplistic, they land and decide to head to the light and along the way there's dinosaurs who want a taste. They get to the light decide it belongs to aliens and destroy it in hopes the alien repair crew might come and rescue them.
A bit different idea which made it interesting but i think i would of enjoyed it with more a better finale. It's to simplistic, they land and decide to head to the light and along the way there's dinosaurs who want a taste. They get to the light decide it belongs to aliens and destroy it in hopes the alien repair crew might come and rescue them.
November 28, 2023
3 Stars
For the most part this book was good. Four astronauts in the International Space Station are hit by a mysterious cloud that transports them back in time to the age of the dinosaurs. Decending to Earth the two remaining astronauts and one cosmonaut struggle to survive. This book was a five star all the way through until the end bad ending. I'll give it a 3.
For the most part this book was good. Four astronauts in the International Space Station are hit by a mysterious cloud that transports them back in time to the age of the dinosaurs. Decending to Earth the two remaining astronauts and one cosmonaut struggle to survive. This book was a five star all the way through until the end bad ending. I'll give it a 3.
September 3, 2019
A very good dino romp but the ending was a bit flat.
January 9, 2025
Originally published on the book blog Creatures From the Book Lagoon.
Astronauts plus dinosaurs? Sounds right up my alley!! I could not wait to read this book. The cover is so eye catching. How exciting it looks, right?
I wanted to like Throwback so bad. The plot blurb sounded perfect. But there was kind of a big problem… for a dinosaur story, there was not a lot of dinosaur action! 😮 How do you have a dino book with so few dinos?? I expect more from Severed Press dinosaur horror titles!
The plot blurb also made it sound like there would be a lot of ancient civilization artifacts to add mystery to the story. There was also a slight lack of this! Some in the beginning and some at the end, but not as much as the blurb made it sound!
This felt more like a book of survival. That’s fine, if that was what the plot blurb made it sound like. I think because the astronauts are in a prehistoric time period, I just assumed there would be more dinosaurs. Instead it was more Swiss Family Robinson vibe. All the survival stuff felt a little repetitive at times. Sometimes it got a little bit boring. D:
The ending was something else… 90% and we finally get to ancient civilization artifacts. About time! But we don’t learn anything. :/ The very end is unsatisfactory. Is Throwback a set up for a book #2? I’m not sure….?
Throwback is ok. It is more of a survive without modern life sort of story instead of dinosaur horror. I wanted more dino action, less survival skills stuff. Too much walking, not enough action. The ending felt abrupt and anti-climatic. Not much is really explained. It feels like a set up for a book # 2, but I don’t think there is one. :/
Astronauts plus dinosaurs? Sounds right up my alley!! I could not wait to read this book. The cover is so eye catching. How exciting it looks, right?
I wanted to like Throwback so bad. The plot blurb sounded perfect. But there was kind of a big problem… for a dinosaur story, there was not a lot of dinosaur action! 😮 How do you have a dino book with so few dinos?? I expect more from Severed Press dinosaur horror titles!
The plot blurb also made it sound like there would be a lot of ancient civilization artifacts to add mystery to the story. There was also a slight lack of this! Some in the beginning and some at the end, but not as much as the blurb made it sound!
This felt more like a book of survival. That’s fine, if that was what the plot blurb made it sound like. I think because the astronauts are in a prehistoric time period, I just assumed there would be more dinosaurs. Instead it was more Swiss Family Robinson vibe. All the survival stuff felt a little repetitive at times. Sometimes it got a little bit boring. D:
The ending was something else… 90% and we finally get to ancient civilization artifacts. About time! But we don’t learn anything. :/ The very end is unsatisfactory. Is Throwback a set up for a book #2? I’m not sure….?
Throwback is ok. It is more of a survive without modern life sort of story instead of dinosaur horror. I wanted more dino action, less survival skills stuff. Too much walking, not enough action. The ending felt abrupt and anti-climatic. Not much is really explained. It feels like a set up for a book # 2, but I don’t think there is one. :/
November 26, 2024
Minus one full star for the ending with no follow-up book in sight. Entertaining. Finished it in one evening. The book was an interesting (to me) approach to the humans living with dinosaurs stories. Loved that they started on the ISS. Especially loved that all 3 lived for more than 10 minutes after arriving on the planet! I enjoyed the characters although Hawk was bit too much of a manly man cliché. Svetlana could have used a bit of fleshing out. I hated how it was all "Ja" and "Da" like neither her nor Max had a bigger vocabulary.
Please write a sequel because I'd love to know if destroying the beacon pad brought help to the rescue.
Please write a sequel because I'd love to know if destroying the beacon pad brought help to the rescue.
April 3, 2022
Not always good to be an astronaut
This shows that it is not always a good thing to be an astronaut. But, the story is interesting and I do hope there is a follow up book to explain what happens to the characters next. There is a lot of action, some surprises and a lot of fun reading. I recommend this book.
This shows that it is not always a good thing to be an astronaut. But, the story is interesting and I do hope there is a follow up book to explain what happens to the characters next. There is a lot of action, some surprises and a lot of fun reading. I recommend this book.
November 28, 2018
Throwback
There was plenty of Dino action in this book and the beginning really had me excited. The was a fair amount of character development. There has to be a second book because the ending was just inconclusive. Bummer.
There was plenty of Dino action in this book and the beginning really had me excited. The was a fair amount of character development. There has to be a second book because the ending was just inconclusive. Bummer.
January 10, 2019
Standout dinosaur yarn
A well written book about dinosaurs, when it's getting hard to come up with something new. But you did the job just fine. Very glad I read this book. Can't wait to read more of your books. Tim.
A well written book about dinosaurs, when it's getting hard to come up with something new. But you did the job just fine. Very glad I read this book. Can't wait to read more of your books. Tim.
May 14, 2019
Absorbing
Exciting unputdownable narrative. Strong story good characters interesting situation. I would have liked a better ending. Who made the beacon? Did they get back to their time if not into their space station.
Highly recommended
Exciting unputdownable narrative. Strong story good characters interesting situation. I would have liked a better ending. Who made the beacon? Did they get back to their time if not into their space station.
Highly recommended
July 8, 2019
Okay Time Travel TALe With Dinosaurs
I enjoyed this book but couldn't really get into the characters very much. It's a good story with some tantalizing hints of prehistoric alien visitors. Has one of those annoyingly abrupt endings leading to a sequel.
I enjoyed this book but couldn't really get into the characters very much. It's a good story with some tantalizing hints of prehistoric alien visitors. Has one of those annoyingly abrupt endings leading to a sequel.
October 27, 2020
Quick read
I did not know what the Author was trying to convey
. What happened and why it happened were never really a concern of the characters. It kept my interest and read quickly.
I did not know what the Author was trying to convey
. What happened and why it happened were never really a concern of the characters. It kept my interest and read quickly.
February 26, 2022
Different
This was a pretty good story. The plot was really interesting. It ended sooner than I would have liked. But if they don't end you would never get a new book. Keep the good stories coming.
This was a pretty good story. The plot was really interesting. It ended sooner than I would have liked. But if they don't end you would never get a new book. Keep the good stories coming.
September 12, 2022
What the hell
One of the worst endings I have ever read. It was bad enough that the story dragged on and on but then to hit me with that ending is ridiculous. I will never read this author again.
One of the worst endings I have ever read. It was bad enough that the story dragged on and on but then to hit me with that ending is ridiculous. I will never read this author again.
March 22, 2019
Great read! No mention of sequel which is to bad. Leaves us with bad vibes.
October 27, 2019
Ending disappointing
The writing in general was very enjoyable but the story seemed very predictable. The ending was extremely disappointing and left you saying wth!
The writing in general was very enjoyable but the story seemed very predictable. The ending was extremely disappointing and left you saying wth!
October 29, 2019
Not bad but ends abruptly
Reasonable story line and competently handled but the ending spoils it. Unresolved. Characters are a little too stylised as well.
Reasonable story line and competently handled but the ending spoils it. Unresolved. Characters are a little too stylised as well.
May 28, 2020
Liked it
I enjoyed the book and liked it. I did not like the ending unless there is a sequel in progress. But that is just me. Nice job.
I enjoyed the book and liked it. I did not like the ending unless there is a sequel in progress. But that is just me. Nice job.
June 8, 2020
The book started off good. Interesting premise. But it had no ending, and no sequel.
June 18, 2020
Ending was terrible. No conclusion.
March 3, 2021
The book was very good all the way up till the end
Read
July 18, 2021Just amazing, loved that
March 8, 2022
Leaves you hanging
Good book, great premise, needs a sequel. Leaves you hanging at what should be the beginning of a new adventure.
Good book, great premise, needs a sequel. Leaves you hanging at what should be the beginning of a new adventure.
March 15, 2022
This was an alright read. Author had repetitive phrases such as "suck air". The characters were bland and felt like cardboard. Loved the dinosaur descriptions and action though.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews