The Time Portal

by David B. Smith

“You can’t change the Big Thing.” All time-travel tales inevitably succumb to this established dictum governing good science fiction. 9/11 tragedies and Auschwitz can’t be overruled without the “butterfly effect” causing even greater havoc. When high school senior Jordan Wickam gets a mysterious bootleg iPod that flips back his calendar exactly seven days, he piles up a greedy fortune betting on horse-racing exactas. Then on the night of the senior prom, he’s abruptly forced to Do I play God? A baseball teammate’s date is killed in a DUI car crash; should he scoot back a week and rewrite the glittery event? But his digital toy also hides an unexpected menu erasing whole centuries at a time. Four additional thrill rides beckon with their promises of adventure and romantic temptation. Jordan suddenly has a front-row seat for presidential assassinations and a deck chair on the world’s unluckiest ship. As tension escalates, Jordan slowly begins to comprehend why he was chosen. “The Time Portal” blends fiction with true details, using some of the most appealing historical stories ever enjoyed by large audiences. Each adventure places the reader squarely in the arena of a crippled Kirk Gibson prepares to face the Oakland A’s untouchable Dennis Eckersly with Jordan and his unsuspecting youthful dad in Dodger Stadium’s loge section. 1865 is equally accessible. His heart in his throat, Jordan buys a ticket for the April 14 performance of “Our American Cousin,” knowing there are no White House guards on alert to protect a vulnerable Abe Lincoln. Jordan also scoots back to another April 14 with an icy wind blowing across the top deck of Titanic as an alien passenger from Long Beach realizes he must not, dare not shriek a warning at the tower lookouts. “Dead ahead! Iceberg!” In Vol. 1 of a sci-fi trilogy, David B. Smith (“Rachel Marie Series”) has crafted a thriller wrestling with questions of fate and God’s intervention (or lack thereof) in the slow unveiling of a divine blueprint. One reviewer’s “‘The Time Portal’ is a young adult science-fantasy with a Christian message. The novel isn’t really interested in the scientific aspects of time travel, but it is an opportunity to consider fate, the problem of suffering, and the nature of God’s plan. Jordan is a high school student whose new iPod has a time traveling feature. Jordan uses the device selfishly at first to win money, but then uses it to avert a local tragedy. Emboldened by that success, he travels further back in time to key events and learns some lessons (as one might expect). As with Smith’s more adult novels, this has certain a treatment of questions and issues Christians face, a respect for non-Christians (even while pushing for conversion), and wholesome yet fairly believable characters. Real moral and theological questions are treated with seriousness. And real world issues are engaged, including things one might not expect in a YA Christian novel, like pre-marital sex. There are no real shocks here, and the tension is set on low for a good deal of the novel, even at pivotal moments in the various time-traveling adventures. Parents looking for Christian-oriented reading for their teens might find this a good option instead of many of the YA novels out there today –apocalyptic and dystopian, filled with acts of violence (even if at times to defend right) and other morally suspect acts or the equally problematic saccharine novels about teens dying of cancer trying to find a date. While this novel recognizes that bad things happen and not everyone makes the correct choices, there is a sense of faith and hope while avoiding the sentimental by being grounded (despite its fantasy concept) in more or less recogniza

394 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 7, 2019

About the author

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Reviews

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic!!! This is a great Christian fiction book that I definitely recommend. There is a sequel, which I hope to read, but this book is complete on its own. Read it, you won't regret it!