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So You Had to Build a Time Machine
Skid doesn’t believe in ghosts or time travel or any of that nonsense. A circus runaway-turned-bouncer, she believes in hard work, self-defense, and good strong coffee. Then one day an annoying theoretical physicist named Dave pops into the seat next to her at her least favorite Kansas City bar and disappears into thin air when she punches him (he totally deserved it).
Now, street names are changing, Skid’s favorite muffins are swapping frosting flavors, Dave keeps reappearing in odd places like the old Sanderson murder house—and that’s only the start of her problems.
Something has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Absolutely *$&ed up.
Someone has the nastiest versions of every conceivable reality at their fingertips, and they're not afraid to smash them together. With the help of a smooth-talking haunted house owner and a linebacker-sized Dungeons and Dragons-loving baker, Skid and Dave set out to save the world from whatever scientific experiment has sent them all dimension-hopping against their will.
It probably means the world is screwed.
Now, street names are changing, Skid’s favorite muffins are swapping frosting flavors, Dave keeps reappearing in odd places like the old Sanderson murder house—and that’s only the start of her problems.
Something has gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Absolutely *$&ed up.
Someone has the nastiest versions of every conceivable reality at their fingertips, and they're not afraid to smash them together. With the help of a smooth-talking haunted house owner and a linebacker-sized Dungeons and Dragons-loving baker, Skid and Dave set out to save the world from whatever scientific experiment has sent them all dimension-hopping against their will.
It probably means the world is screwed.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published July 21, 2020
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629 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
July 18, 2020
“Skid lay on her stomach, her head turned toward the light. I broke it. I broke my ankle. How the hell am I supposed to save the universe with a broken ankle?”
So You Had To Build A Time Machine is the fifth novel by American author, Jason Offutt. It all starts one Friday night when Skid punches the guy who is trying to chat her up at Slap Happy’s Dance Club, and he disappears before her eyes. Dave says he is a theoretical physicist, and apparently works for a government lab. So maybe it actually started before then?
Brick is on a blind date with a woman who’s not returned from the bathroom (not again!) when he sees the scientist guy fall out of nowhere into the bathroom corridor: he’s dirty, smelly and injured, and shouts a warning before vanishing into thin air. Trouble is, that’s BEFORE he sees Skid punch the same guy, much cleaner, at the bar.
Cordrey Bellamy is leading a ghost tour at the Sanderson Murder House when Dave Collison materialises out of thin air into the hall, right on the spot where Delbert Sanderson murdered his son, Tommy back in 1984. So while his ghost tours are all tricks and con, this is a bonus he is delighted to accept, especially when one of the group identifies him as Tommy Sanderson.
These are not the only strange things they observe, and soon Skid, Brick and Cord are comparing notes until they catch up with Dave, who lays the blame at the door of his boss. Before long, they are heading for that lab: “I can’t believe that with a scientist, a baker and a—” he paused and looked at Skid in the rearview mirror “— a potentially dangerous felon, that I’m the voice of reason. And I cheat honest, hard -working suckers for a living. In no way should we be doing this.”
From there, a rollercoaster ride takes the reader through multiple worlds and times. If it becomes too convoluted to keep straight in the head, the best advice is to go with the flow and enjoy a fun ride that includes orcs, enormous sentient insects, nine-foot-tall non-human primates, fire-breathing radioactive dinosaurs, Klingons, ghosts (maybe), Nazi soldiers, a zombie circus master, alien people-eating mushrooms and a great, horned lizard or two.
Offutt’s characters include an ex-circus knife-thrower, a mad scientist and a former bricklayer who bakes muffins, is a Dungeons and Dragons fan and comes extremely well-prepared for a quest. Hugely entertaining.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and CamCat Publishing.
So You Had To Build A Time Machine is the fifth novel by American author, Jason Offutt. It all starts one Friday night when Skid punches the guy who is trying to chat her up at Slap Happy’s Dance Club, and he disappears before her eyes. Dave says he is a theoretical physicist, and apparently works for a government lab. So maybe it actually started before then?
Brick is on a blind date with a woman who’s not returned from the bathroom (not again!) when he sees the scientist guy fall out of nowhere into the bathroom corridor: he’s dirty, smelly and injured, and shouts a warning before vanishing into thin air. Trouble is, that’s BEFORE he sees Skid punch the same guy, much cleaner, at the bar.
Cordrey Bellamy is leading a ghost tour at the Sanderson Murder House when Dave Collison materialises out of thin air into the hall, right on the spot where Delbert Sanderson murdered his son, Tommy back in 1984. So while his ghost tours are all tricks and con, this is a bonus he is delighted to accept, especially when one of the group identifies him as Tommy Sanderson.
These are not the only strange things they observe, and soon Skid, Brick and Cord are comparing notes until they catch up with Dave, who lays the blame at the door of his boss. Before long, they are heading for that lab: “I can’t believe that with a scientist, a baker and a—” he paused and looked at Skid in the rearview mirror “— a potentially dangerous felon, that I’m the voice of reason. And I cheat honest, hard -working suckers for a living. In no way should we be doing this.”
From there, a rollercoaster ride takes the reader through multiple worlds and times. If it becomes too convoluted to keep straight in the head, the best advice is to go with the flow and enjoy a fun ride that includes orcs, enormous sentient insects, nine-foot-tall non-human primates, fire-breathing radioactive dinosaurs, Klingons, ghosts (maybe), Nazi soldiers, a zombie circus master, alien people-eating mushrooms and a great, horned lizard or two.
Offutt’s characters include an ex-circus knife-thrower, a mad scientist and a former bricklayer who bakes muffins, is a Dungeons and Dragons fan and comes extremely well-prepared for a quest. Hugely entertaining.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and CamCat Publishing.
July 7, 2020
So You Had to Build a Time Machine is an humorous sci-fi adventure book by author Jason Offutt.
A girl is at a nightclub bar. A guy sits besides her, orders a Bud Light, and starts hitting on her. Girl punches guy. Guy disappears into thin air. Poof.
Turns out Bud Light Dave is a scientist working on quantum shenanigans in a secret government facility. His boss launched the experiment by himself, in spite of Dave having warned him about an error in his calculations. This results in small changes in the world as the waves from the collider washes upon it. Then, the changes become more and more threatening. It’s up to Bud Light Dave, the girl (a circus brat named Skid), a former bricklayer owning a muffin shop, and a conman owning an haunted house to save the multiverse in a time and dimension hopping epic adventure. Sometimes together, sometimes separated. Why them ? Because the aforementioned quantum shenanigans decided it.
This book is a gem. A perfect blend of sci-fi and light humor. This review will be short, as it would be hard to write a longer one without getting spoilery.
The writing flows painlessly, making this novel difficult to put down. The story starts at a slow pace, then accelerates in rhythm with the collider’s waves. The characters are fun and well defined. We follow their different point of views as required, depending on the events unfolding. In spite of the intricacies of time and dimension travelling and mashing up (at one point, three different versions of characters are in the same place and time, and don’t get me started on key items...), the author expertly makes it so the reader can follow the events at all times, without having to flip back pages. Jason Offutt doesn’t get lost either as, by the end of the book, everything that happened during the story makes sense. Some of them resolving at the very end.
The author is a fellow nerd, and cultural nods abound. However, they are always relevant, and he took great care in picking timeless works, ensuring his book would be as well.
The book is close ended and doesn’t seem to be part of a series, but I sure would like to see more of the characters. I will seek out Jason Offutt’s other works and, if that isn’t praise, I don’t know what is.
Thanks to Netgalley and CamCat Publishing for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.
A girl is at a nightclub bar. A guy sits besides her, orders a Bud Light, and starts hitting on her. Girl punches guy. Guy disappears into thin air. Poof.
Turns out Bud Light Dave is a scientist working on quantum shenanigans in a secret government facility. His boss launched the experiment by himself, in spite of Dave having warned him about an error in his calculations. This results in small changes in the world as the waves from the collider washes upon it. Then, the changes become more and more threatening. It’s up to Bud Light Dave, the girl (a circus brat named Skid), a former bricklayer owning a muffin shop, and a conman owning an haunted house to save the multiverse in a time and dimension hopping epic adventure. Sometimes together, sometimes separated. Why them ? Because the aforementioned quantum shenanigans decided it.
This book is a gem. A perfect blend of sci-fi and light humor. This review will be short, as it would be hard to write a longer one without getting spoilery.
The writing flows painlessly, making this novel difficult to put down. The story starts at a slow pace, then accelerates in rhythm with the collider’s waves. The characters are fun and well defined. We follow their different point of views as required, depending on the events unfolding. In spite of the intricacies of time and dimension travelling and mashing up (at one point, three different versions of characters are in the same place and time, and don’t get me started on key items...), the author expertly makes it so the reader can follow the events at all times, without having to flip back pages. Jason Offutt doesn’t get lost either as, by the end of the book, everything that happened during the story makes sense. Some of them resolving at the very end.
The author is a fellow nerd, and cultural nods abound. However, they are always relevant, and he took great care in picking timeless works, ensuring his book would be as well.
The book is close ended and doesn’t seem to be part of a series, but I sure would like to see more of the characters. I will seek out Jason Offutt’s other works and, if that isn’t praise, I don’t know what is.
Thanks to Netgalley and CamCat Publishing for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.
July 20, 2020
When I started reading this book I was captivated by the style, the writing, the unpredictable nature of the story, and the characters. I enjoyed the fast past, even as I struggled to accept that I didn’t know where it was going next or what might happen. It was so unpredictable, I stopped trying to make any guesses and simply sat down to enjoy the ride.
The writing is excellent in that it pulls you along through the story and is clear enough and vivid enough to allow you to paint pictures in your head of all the action as it happens. The characters are unique for the most part, with depth, back stories that have brought them to this event, and patterns of behavior which help determine how they will cope with any given situation.
Coping is a major issue for all the characters in the book. It is a wild ride, with them being swept from one time period to another, one location to another, and one challenge to another; all at unexpected intervals and absolutely no control over what will happen next. All they know is they are on the equivalent of a quest to save the world as a scientist has unleashed a machine that can travel through time and multiple dimensions without giving full consideration to the end effect on the world as we know it.
The characters are each equipped with their own particular skill that aids them in this quest. There’s Skid, who was brought up in the circus and who is physically top notch with a finely honed skill at knife throwing. Then there’s Brick, a giant of a man who is as gentle as they come; that is until he is faced with a real life combination of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. Then he becomes a master at leading the troops and battling strange creatures. Finally, there’s Bud-Lite Dave, a scientist who realizes his co-worker has unleashed this deadly machine on the world and believes it is up to him and his merry band to stop it before the world is torn apart.
There are other characters as well who play less central parts but who are also essential to the story. They come in and out of the group’s activities as the story moves forward through increasingly frantic, desperate times and situations. This is where I had the most difficulty. About three-fourths of the way through the book I began wondering when it was going to reach its conclusion. I saw a movie once that would build to what seemed like a climax only to start the cycle all over again. There was an element of that in this book, and by the end I was thinking I would have liked it better if it had ended at about the eighty percent mark. This was compounded by the fact that it came to an abrupt end, and the group of adventurers went back to normal lives, as if nothing had ever happened. I would have liked to have some hint at the changes they experienced as a result of their adventures, if only just enough to let me fill in the rest.
My thanks to CamCat Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital read copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If a reader is looking for a wild, unpredictable ride and doesn’t mind some rather graphic battle scenes with non-humans, this might be worth a look for them.
The writing is excellent in that it pulls you along through the story and is clear enough and vivid enough to allow you to paint pictures in your head of all the action as it happens. The characters are unique for the most part, with depth, back stories that have brought them to this event, and patterns of behavior which help determine how they will cope with any given situation.
Coping is a major issue for all the characters in the book. It is a wild ride, with them being swept from one time period to another, one location to another, and one challenge to another; all at unexpected intervals and absolutely no control over what will happen next. All they know is they are on the equivalent of a quest to save the world as a scientist has unleashed a machine that can travel through time and multiple dimensions without giving full consideration to the end effect on the world as we know it.
The characters are each equipped with their own particular skill that aids them in this quest. There’s Skid, who was brought up in the circus and who is physically top notch with a finely honed skill at knife throwing. Then there’s Brick, a giant of a man who is as gentle as they come; that is until he is faced with a real life combination of Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons. Then he becomes a master at leading the troops and battling strange creatures. Finally, there’s Bud-Lite Dave, a scientist who realizes his co-worker has unleashed this deadly machine on the world and believes it is up to him and his merry band to stop it before the world is torn apart.
There are other characters as well who play less central parts but who are also essential to the story. They come in and out of the group’s activities as the story moves forward through increasingly frantic, desperate times and situations. This is where I had the most difficulty. About three-fourths of the way through the book I began wondering when it was going to reach its conclusion. I saw a movie once that would build to what seemed like a climax only to start the cycle all over again. There was an element of that in this book, and by the end I was thinking I would have liked it better if it had ended at about the eighty percent mark. This was compounded by the fact that it came to an abrupt end, and the group of adventurers went back to normal lives, as if nothing had ever happened. I would have liked to have some hint at the changes they experienced as a result of their adventures, if only just enough to let me fill in the rest.
My thanks to CamCat Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital read copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If a reader is looking for a wild, unpredictable ride and doesn’t mind some rather graphic battle scenes with non-humans, this might be worth a look for them.
October 15, 2020
I had to throw in the towel for this one at 36%.
I passionately love time travel novels, and all things science fiction. However, my focus and adoration falls mainly on the science of the fiction, and this novel delivered very little of this.
So You Had to Build a Time Machine read more like a Scooby-Doo comic book than it did like a novel. It was funny and kind of fun, but mostly it was silly and nonsensical in an unenjoyable way. The banter was a bit childish and the antics were goofy. I can't put my finger on why it didn't add up to something rip-roaring and fun, but alas, it just didn't.
Not every novel is a winner and that's totally okay. This one didn't strike the right chord for me, but perhaps it will for others who enjoy light-hearted and easy-to-read time travel adventures.
I passionately love time travel novels, and all things science fiction. However, my focus and adoration falls mainly on the science of the fiction, and this novel delivered very little of this.
So You Had to Build a Time Machine read more like a Scooby-Doo comic book than it did like a novel. It was funny and kind of fun, but mostly it was silly and nonsensical in an unenjoyable way. The banter was a bit childish and the antics were goofy. I can't put my finger on why it didn't add up to something rip-roaring and fun, but alas, it just didn't.
Not every novel is a winner and that's totally okay. This one didn't strike the right chord for me, but perhaps it will for others who enjoy light-hearted and easy-to-read time travel adventures.
September 19, 2020
This was a heck of a ride! Interdimensional time-travel horror comedy with some very genre savvy characters (who know that the real treasure is the friends you made along the way). The villains are a bit stupid at times for being such smart guys (genre savvy again?) and the end is a bit too quick but in general this was a fun read. And it did nothing to make me like cornfields or preying mantises more.
**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
April 19, 2020
“Meh” really does kind of sum up my reaction to this book. There wasn’t anything outright bad about it. I didn’t have any trouble reading it, and it never particularly annoyed me the way that some bad books do. There was nothing offensive about it. But it passed through me and left very little impression. I kind of expect in a few months I’ll have forgotten all about it.
It starts out ok, with people jumping through time and into alternate dimensions because of a science experiment gone wrong. I was hopeful for the first quarter or so of the book. It was startlingly non-linear, in that characters would run into other characters and no one (reader included) would know how off-sync they were, time-wise. “Am I talking to the you I was just talking to, or am I talking to you a week from now?” kind of thing.
(Most time travel stories, I realized in thinking about this, are very linear. Marty McFly might see his past self shredding Johnny B Goode, and he might run into Doc Brown in his 1955, 1985, and 1985+ versions, but we’re always seeing the story from the perspective of Prime Marty. The entire trilogy follows a very memorable few days in his life, but even though the temporal settings change, it’s a linear story with one day following the next, and that which has already happened remains having had happened, while that which is going to have happened can be prevented from being about to have happened. Ugh, I hate time travel story grammar.)
(To share one of my favorite quotes ever, from Red Dwarf: : “We don’t exist here anymore!” : “Actually sir, we don't ever have existed here anymore, but this is hardly the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past impossible never tense!”)
Anyway, to get away from questions of grammar, the book starts out somewhat interesting, and then goes completely off the rails. It’s kind of supposed to, in that you have multiple realities crashing together in unpredictable ways, but it doesn’t work in a way that makes sense to me. At all. And then at the same time, characters who had been sensibly seem to suddenly completely lose their minds and start behaving like idiot man-children. Throw in some very cliche villains, and it’s all just … meh.
Bingo categories: nothing in particular, beyond being published in 2020.
It starts out ok, with people jumping through time and into alternate dimensions because of a science experiment gone wrong. I was hopeful for the first quarter or so of the book. It was startlingly non-linear, in that characters would run into other characters and no one (reader included) would know how off-sync they were, time-wise. “Am I talking to the you I was just talking to, or am I talking to you a week from now?” kind of thing.
(Most time travel stories, I realized in thinking about this, are very linear. Marty McFly might see his past self shredding Johnny B Goode, and he might run into Doc Brown in his 1955, 1985, and 1985+ versions, but we’re always seeing the story from the perspective of Prime Marty. The entire trilogy follows a very memorable few days in his life, but even though the temporal settings change, it’s a linear story with one day following the next, and that which has already happened remains having had happened, while that which is going to have happened can be prevented from being about to have happened. Ugh, I hate time travel story grammar.)
(To share one of my favorite quotes ever, from Red Dwarf: : “We don’t exist here anymore!” : “Actually sir, we don't ever have existed here anymore, but this is hardly the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past impossible never tense!”)
Anyway, to get away from questions of grammar, the book starts out somewhat interesting, and then goes completely off the rails. It’s kind of supposed to, in that you have multiple realities crashing together in unpredictable ways, but it doesn’t work in a way that makes sense to me. At all. And then at the same time, characters who had been sensibly seem to suddenly completely lose their minds and start behaving like idiot man-children. Throw in some very cliche villains, and it’s all just … meh.
Bingo categories: nothing in particular, beyond being published in 2020.
October 3, 2020
“Skid lay on her stomach, her head turned toward the light. I broke it. I broke my ankle. How the hell am I supposed to save the universe with a broken ankle?”
So You Had To Build A Time Machine is the fifth novel by American author, Jason Offutt. The audio version is narrated by Emily O'Brien. It all starts one Friday night when Skid punches the guy who is trying to chat her up at Slap Happy’s Dance Club, and he disappears before her eyes. Dave says he is a theoretical physicist, and apparently works for a government lab. So maybe it actually started before then?
Brick is on a blind date with a woman who’s not returned from the bathroom (not again!) when he sees the scientist guy fall out of nowhere into the bathroom corridor: he’s dirty, smelly and injured, and shouts a warning before vanishing into thin air. Trouble is, that’s BEFORE he sees Skid punch the same guy, much cleaner, at the bar.
Cordrey Bellamy is leading a ghost tour at the Sanderson Murder House when Dave Collison materialises out of thin air into the hall, right on the spot where Delbert Sanderson murdered his son, Tommy back in 1984. So while his ghost tours are all tricks and con, this is a bonus he is delighted to accept, especially when one of the group identifies him as Tommy Sanderson.
These are not the only strange things they observe, and soon Skid, Brick and Cord are comparing notes until they catch up with Dave, who lays the blame at the door of his boss. Before long, they are heading for that lab: “I can’t believe that with a scientist, a baker and a—” he paused and looked at Skid in the rearview mirror “— a potentially dangerous felon, that I’m the voice of reason. And I cheat honest, hard -working suckers for a living. In no way should we be doing this.”
From there, a rollercoaster ride takes the reader through multiple worlds and times. If it becomes too convoluted to keep straight in the head, the best advice is to go with the flow and enjoy a fun ride that includes orcs, enormous sentient insects, nine-foot-tall non-human primates, fire-breathing radioactive dinosaurs, Klingons, ghosts (maybe), Nazi soldiers, a zombie circus master, alien people-eating mushrooms and a great, horned lizard or two.
Offutt’s characters include an ex-circus knife-thrower, a mad scientist and a former bricklayer who bakes muffins, is a Dungeons and Dragons fan and comes extremely well-prepared for a quest. Hugely entertaining.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and CamCat Publishing.
So You Had To Build A Time Machine is the fifth novel by American author, Jason Offutt. The audio version is narrated by Emily O'Brien. It all starts one Friday night when Skid punches the guy who is trying to chat her up at Slap Happy’s Dance Club, and he disappears before her eyes. Dave says he is a theoretical physicist, and apparently works for a government lab. So maybe it actually started before then?
Brick is on a blind date with a woman who’s not returned from the bathroom (not again!) when he sees the scientist guy fall out of nowhere into the bathroom corridor: he’s dirty, smelly and injured, and shouts a warning before vanishing into thin air. Trouble is, that’s BEFORE he sees Skid punch the same guy, much cleaner, at the bar.
Cordrey Bellamy is leading a ghost tour at the Sanderson Murder House when Dave Collison materialises out of thin air into the hall, right on the spot where Delbert Sanderson murdered his son, Tommy back in 1984. So while his ghost tours are all tricks and con, this is a bonus he is delighted to accept, especially when one of the group identifies him as Tommy Sanderson.
These are not the only strange things they observe, and soon Skid, Brick and Cord are comparing notes until they catch up with Dave, who lays the blame at the door of his boss. Before long, they are heading for that lab: “I can’t believe that with a scientist, a baker and a—” he paused and looked at Skid in the rearview mirror “— a potentially dangerous felon, that I’m the voice of reason. And I cheat honest, hard -working suckers for a living. In no way should we be doing this.”
From there, a rollercoaster ride takes the reader through multiple worlds and times. If it becomes too convoluted to keep straight in the head, the best advice is to go with the flow and enjoy a fun ride that includes orcs, enormous sentient insects, nine-foot-tall non-human primates, fire-breathing radioactive dinosaurs, Klingons, ghosts (maybe), Nazi soldiers, a zombie circus master, alien people-eating mushrooms and a great, horned lizard or two.
Offutt’s characters include an ex-circus knife-thrower, a mad scientist and a former bricklayer who bakes muffins, is a Dungeons and Dragons fan and comes extremely well-prepared for a quest. Hugely entertaining.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and CamCat Publishing.
November 22, 2020
I wanted to listen to something light during the festive season of Diwali, so I selected "So You Had to Build a Time Machine" by Jason Offutt, after checking its blurb. I selected the book based on the title and blurb, as the cover design has only a title with cockroaches (later on, I came to know why cockroaches were portrayed). As per the blurb, the book was a comedy based on time-travel, so I thought of having a different experience this time.
Though the blurb says about time traveling, it doesn't say much about narration style. There are 5 main characters in the story, four of them are on the good side, and one of them on the bad side. Skid, David, and Brick took a major role, their time-traveling scenes were given in different sequences, initially, I found them too random and haphazard but later on, I understood that it was done to keep the interesting quotient intact.
The author has taken the liberty and used the style of a scary movie to make the book a light-hearted comedy. In the scary movie, you find comic scenes based on different movies, here the author has taken plot-based characters from various fantasy books. You will find dinosaurs, golems, mantis, ogres, giant cockroaches, and whatnot. Things will pop out at unexpected corners and make you laugh.
An enjoyable book. But it could have been better.
I am giving 3.25 out of 5 to this book.
Though the blurb says about time traveling, it doesn't say much about narration style. There are 5 main characters in the story, four of them are on the good side, and one of them on the bad side. Skid, David, and Brick took a major role, their time-traveling scenes were given in different sequences, initially, I found them too random and haphazard but later on, I understood that it was done to keep the interesting quotient intact.
The author has taken the liberty and used the style of a scary movie to make the book a light-hearted comedy. In the scary movie, you find comic scenes based on different movies, here the author has taken plot-based characters from various fantasy books. You will find dinosaurs, golems, mantis, ogres, giant cockroaches, and whatnot. Things will pop out at unexpected corners and make you laugh.
An enjoyable book. But it could have been better.
I am giving 3.25 out of 5 to this book.
September 23, 2020
Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Hear all my thoughts in my August 28, 2020 Friday Reads video.
This did not work for me. The characters were uninteresting. The pop culture references felt forced and overdone. The writing was cringy. It felt like the author had situations he wanted to make and created a ridiculous narrative to make those situations happen.
This was worse than All Our Wrong Todays; that was at least entertaining.
Hear all my thoughts in my August 28, 2020 Friday Reads video.
This did not work for me. The characters were uninteresting. The pop culture references felt forced and overdone. The writing was cringy. It felt like the author had situations he wanted to make and created a ridiculous narrative to make those situations happen.
This was worse than All Our Wrong Todays; that was at least entertaining.
July 20, 2021
The blurb sounded interesting enough but 75% through I couldn't tell you the plot without looking at the blurb. Did not in any shape or form interest me.
March 14, 2021
I think most of us can agree that 2020 was a soul-sucking snoozefest. Because the pandemic is still with us in 2021, I decided to claw my way out of a Covid-induced rut by expanding my literary horizons.
With its quirky title and cover, I considered So You Had to Build a Time Machine the perfect choice. How can one go wrong given the promise of multidimensional time travel, mammoth praying mantes, gargantuan cockroaches, which in their true dimension make up, of all things, the HR Department. Toss in some colorful characters like Skid—a badass female protagonist with circus daddy issues, Brick—a big, loveable teddy bear who seems better suited for bricklaying rather than muffin baking, and Cord—a conman who is willing to stoop so low he’s never challenged to a game of Limbo, and you’re in for one wild ride.
Sci-fi is about as alien to me as, well, Aliens, but Offutt does not disappoint, taking his readers on a hair-raising adventure with creepy, sometimes confusing, and always entertaining twists and turns. Some may find the ending a bit rushed, but as an author myself, I say Bravo, Mr. Offutt! You gotta leave them wanting more.
With its quirky title and cover, I considered So You Had to Build a Time Machine the perfect choice. How can one go wrong given the promise of multidimensional time travel, mammoth praying mantes, gargantuan cockroaches, which in their true dimension make up, of all things, the HR Department. Toss in some colorful characters like Skid—a badass female protagonist with circus daddy issues, Brick—a big, loveable teddy bear who seems better suited for bricklaying rather than muffin baking, and Cord—a conman who is willing to stoop so low he’s never challenged to a game of Limbo, and you’re in for one wild ride.
Sci-fi is about as alien to me as, well, Aliens, but Offutt does not disappoint, taking his readers on a hair-raising adventure with creepy, sometimes confusing, and always entertaining twists and turns. Some may find the ending a bit rushed, but as an author myself, I say Bravo, Mr. Offutt! You gotta leave them wanting more.
October 19, 2020
I know I'm not too far into this, but I find the first few characters to be highly irritating and I cannot get into this book. The first character Skid....seems too pretentious and annoying. I love me a time travel story but so far this concept hasn't been introduced and I don't have the patience for characters I don't like. DNFed. Maybe this is someone else's idea of a great book but not for me.
February 19, 2022
I wanted to like this more than I did. In the end it was a light, uneven parallel dimension romp that has tons of stuff in it, but doesn't really hold together that well.
Also it is more about alternate universes than time travel, so the title is sort of a fib, too. :P
On the plus side, the smirking, sarcastic tone is carried off well. The characters all seem to know how ridiculous everything is and more or less roll with it. This does mean that "serious" character moments tend to come off as maudlin or out of place. As the "Miller waves" that prompt shifts in time and space grow more frequent, the changes grow more dramatic, from small stuff like street names changing to Earth being overrun by orcs. Apparently.
And this is also where the story lost me. Look, I don't expect hard science fiction in a work that is clearly filled with gonzo tech and lots of hand-waving on how or why it works, but I still felt there was no coherence and the author just started throwing in weird stuff for the sake of being weird, with one character, a hulking bakery owner known as Brick, tossing off a line about how maybe worlds filled with dragons and such actually exist because writers aren't imagining them, but are somehow tapping into the cosmos and really seeing them. Sure. So this means you get (spoilers, sorry):
- Dinosaurs
- Orcs
- Zombies
- Giant insects
- The Devil (?)
All of these could still work, I just felt the explanation for them was too glib to buy in, and it hurt the story.
I also felt the characters were treated strangely. I swear Brick starts out as one character and ends as another entirely. Skid, the purported hero of the tale, is an ex-circus performer who specializes in throwing knives. She uses this skill in the story, which is good! But her character seems almost emotionally defective and needs to be bailed out by brick, like a powerless princess. I wanted to see her kick ass, and she does kick some asses, but (heh heh) the number of asses felt too low. Other characters disappeared for long periods of time, only to resurface later without explanation (or to any real effect), possibly to signal the randomness of all this parallel universe stuff, but it just didn't click.
Finally, the ending was strangely anti-climactic. It just happened and was done. It literally involved pushing a button. You could make pushing a button exciting. This was not exciting.
Still, I do appreciate that the author went for something a bit tonally different from your usual alternate dimension fare, and I admire both that and the fairly consistent wise ass tone that is carried throughout (though it should be noted that if this tone is something that would grate on you, stay far, far away).
Overall, I can neither recommend the book, nor warn anyone away from it. It's not bad, just flawed and falls short of what it could have been.
Also it is more about alternate universes than time travel, so the title is sort of a fib, too. :P
On the plus side, the smirking, sarcastic tone is carried off well. The characters all seem to know how ridiculous everything is and more or less roll with it. This does mean that "serious" character moments tend to come off as maudlin or out of place. As the "Miller waves" that prompt shifts in time and space grow more frequent, the changes grow more dramatic, from small stuff like street names changing to Earth being overrun by orcs. Apparently.
And this is also where the story lost me. Look, I don't expect hard science fiction in a work that is clearly filled with gonzo tech and lots of hand-waving on how or why it works, but I still felt there was no coherence and the author just started throwing in weird stuff for the sake of being weird, with one character, a hulking bakery owner known as Brick, tossing off a line about how maybe worlds filled with dragons and such actually exist because writers aren't imagining them, but are somehow tapping into the cosmos and really seeing them. Sure. So this means you get (spoilers, sorry):
- Dinosaurs
- Orcs
- Zombies
- Giant insects
- The Devil (?)
All of these could still work, I just felt the explanation for them was too glib to buy in, and it hurt the story.
I also felt the characters were treated strangely. I swear Brick starts out as one character and ends as another entirely. Skid, the purported hero of the tale, is an ex-circus performer who specializes in throwing knives. She uses this skill in the story, which is good! But her character seems almost emotionally defective and needs to be bailed out by brick, like a powerless princess. I wanted to see her kick ass, and she does kick some asses, but (heh heh) the number of asses felt too low. Other characters disappeared for long periods of time, only to resurface later without explanation (or to any real effect), possibly to signal the randomness of all this parallel universe stuff, but it just didn't click.
Finally, the ending was strangely anti-climactic. It just happened and was done. It literally involved pushing a button. You could make pushing a button exciting. This was not exciting.
Still, I do appreciate that the author went for something a bit tonally different from your usual alternate dimension fare, and I admire both that and the fairly consistent wise ass tone that is carried throughout (though it should be noted that if this tone is something that would grate on you, stay far, far away).
Overall, I can neither recommend the book, nor warn anyone away from it. It's not bad, just flawed and falls short of what it could have been.
June 5, 2023
Quantum Leap meets Dirk Gently in this truly original take on time travel and alternate dimensions.
October 16, 2020
I usually find tme travel stories to be really well done or the worst story ever, there isn't a middle ground for me. This was incredibly well done. I enjoyed the references to different bands throughout the various time periods. Thanks to Netgalley for the chsnce to read and review this book!
October 8, 2020
My thanks to CamCat Publishing for making available a review copy via NetGalley of the unabridged audiobook of ‘So You Had to Build a Time Machine’ by Jason Offutt. It is narrated by Emily O'Brien and has a running time of 11 hours 22 minutes at 1x speed.
This was new territory as I hadn’t heard of Jason Offutt or Emily O'Brien before listening to this quirky science fiction time travel adventure.
Circus runaway-turned-bouncer, Skid, doesn’t believe in ghosts or time travel or any of that nonsense. Then one day an annoying theoretical physicist named Dave pops into the bar seat next to her and promptly disappears into thin air when she punches him. Then Skid notes that street names are changing and her favourite muffins are swapping frosting flavours....oh and Dave keeps popping up in odd places like the local murder house.
This is just the start of this time travel romp in which reality becomes seriously weird. Skid and Dave are joined by Brick, the muffin baker, and Cordrey, the smooth-talking haunted house owner, in a dimension hopping race to save the world. They face orcs out of Mordor, giant insects (praying mantis and scary cockroaches), radioactive dinosaurs and even Klingons. Oh and alien mushrooms.
This is the kind of science fiction comedy that is packed with pop culture references, in-jokes and the like. Sometimes I felt a little lost in terms of the strange reality jumps and timeline. With a story like this I like to have the print edition to hand in order to be able to check back. Still, it wasn’t a barrier to my enjoyment and I just went with the ride.
I felt that Emily O’Brien did a sterling job reading it. She is an established actor in film and television and over the last seven years has also voiced a number of video game characters. While this is my first experience of Jason Offutt’s writing, I likely will be looking at his other works.
Overall, I found it very clever and entertaining.
This was new territory as I hadn’t heard of Jason Offutt or Emily O'Brien before listening to this quirky science fiction time travel adventure.
Circus runaway-turned-bouncer, Skid, doesn’t believe in ghosts or time travel or any of that nonsense. Then one day an annoying theoretical physicist named Dave pops into the bar seat next to her and promptly disappears into thin air when she punches him. Then Skid notes that street names are changing and her favourite muffins are swapping frosting flavours....oh and Dave keeps popping up in odd places like the local murder house.
This is just the start of this time travel romp in which reality becomes seriously weird. Skid and Dave are joined by Brick, the muffin baker, and Cordrey, the smooth-talking haunted house owner, in a dimension hopping race to save the world. They face orcs out of Mordor, giant insects (praying mantis and scary cockroaches), radioactive dinosaurs and even Klingons. Oh and alien mushrooms.
This is the kind of science fiction comedy that is packed with pop culture references, in-jokes and the like. Sometimes I felt a little lost in terms of the strange reality jumps and timeline. With a story like this I like to have the print edition to hand in order to be able to check back. Still, it wasn’t a barrier to my enjoyment and I just went with the ride.
I felt that Emily O’Brien did a sterling job reading it. She is an established actor in film and television and over the last seven years has also voiced a number of video game characters. While this is my first experience of Jason Offutt’s writing, I likely will be looking at his other works.
Overall, I found it very clever and entertaining.
May 12, 2022
Skid meets a guy at a bar, and gives him a slap in the face for hitting on her. He then falls, but disappears just before he hits the floor, to reappear stumbling out of the bathroom, only it is not exactly him, because he is bleeding and his clothes are covered in oil. Afterwards, names of streets change, frosting flavours change, and that is just the beginning of utter chaos.
The team of people accidentally at the center of this, Skid, Brick the muffin-man, Dave the Bud Light guy and some others, set out on a quest to set things right.
Finally a book that makes messing with time look realistic. I mean, I love Dr Who, but would everything really resolve so neatly, after digging around in the past/future/other dimensions? Of course not.
Some parts of this book actually manage to get a bit boring, but the overall chaos and jokes make up for it.
The team of people accidentally at the center of this, Skid, Brick the muffin-man, Dave the Bud Light guy and some others, set out on a quest to set things right.
Finally a book that makes messing with time look realistic. I mean, I love Dr Who, but would everything really resolve so neatly, after digging around in the past/future/other dimensions? Of course not.
Some parts of this book actually manage to get a bit boring, but the overall chaos and jokes make up for it.
Read
May 21, 2020Picking up a sci-fi book from an author you've never read before is always a gamble. Especially if you don't normally gravitate towards the genre.
Thankfully, in this case, So You Had to Build a Time Machine lives up to the quirkiness promised by the bold cover and title. The plot is action-packed and full of twists. From the moment that Skid punches the man trying to hit on her in a bar and she sees him disappear before her eyes, nothing is predictable.
The book was a quick read. I enjoyed the characters so much that I would have loved to read more about them, especially Brick, the intimidating-looking man who owns a muffin shop and who is a softy.
The ending did seem a little abrupt. Maybe I somehow missed out on a vital piece of the plot, but I was confused about how the conflict was resolved. Despite this, the story was fun and entertaining overall.
I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thankfully, in this case, So You Had to Build a Time Machine lives up to the quirkiness promised by the bold cover and title. The plot is action-packed and full of twists. From the moment that Skid punches the man trying to hit on her in a bar and she sees him disappear before her eyes, nothing is predictable.
The book was a quick read. I enjoyed the characters so much that I would have loved to read more about them, especially Brick, the intimidating-looking man who owns a muffin shop and who is a softy.
The ending did seem a little abrupt. Maybe I somehow missed out on a vital piece of the plot, but I was confused about how the conflict was resolved. Despite this, the story was fun and entertaining overall.
I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 9, 2020
This book is one wild ride. Time travel, other dimensions, a haunted house, a megalomaniac, and dinosaurs...what more could you ask for? Actually, there's more than that here, too. Did I mention the circus?
Skid is the main protagonist here. She's rather adept at knife-throwing. Brick is, well, big (but a softie). And Cord is a bit of a huckster (he offers haunted house tours). Dave is the scientist; he knows what's happening and is trying to stop it. Together they make an interesting ensemble as they race to save the world as they know (or knew?) it.
I enjoyed the dialogue between the characters. The relationship between Skid and Brick matures throughout the novel (the story is not just about the technology and the monsters). The ending was amusing (I always enjoy being given a little extra twist at the end of a novel).
Fans of Douglas Adams or of the Dr. Who universe might particularly enjoy this one.
[Note: not for those who don't like human/cockroach violence.]
Skid is the main protagonist here. She's rather adept at knife-throwing. Brick is, well, big (but a softie). And Cord is a bit of a huckster (he offers haunted house tours). Dave is the scientist; he knows what's happening and is trying to stop it. Together they make an interesting ensemble as they race to save the world as they know (or knew?) it.
I enjoyed the dialogue between the characters. The relationship between Skid and Brick matures throughout the novel (the story is not just about the technology and the monsters). The ending was amusing (I always enjoy being given a little extra twist at the end of a novel).
Fans of Douglas Adams or of the Dr. Who universe might particularly enjoy this one.
[Note: not for those who don't like human/cockroach violence.]
October 18, 2020
This is a hard book to review without giving too many spoilers away! It’s a sci fi, with quite a bit of humour, a fast paced storyline with plenty of twists and turns along the way. I think this is one of those books you just have to go with to really get into without trying to guess too much what is going on. The audiobook version was brilliant with the narrator having an easy to listen to voice. Perfect book for people who are a bit nerdy as there’s quite a lot of references you might not get otherwise.
Thanks so NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks so NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
August 22, 2021
Best. Ok I have read in years.
Loved this. Couldn’t put it down. I laughed until I cried. Well written and crazy as hell. My kind of book.
Loved this. Couldn’t put it down. I laughed until I cried. Well written and crazy as hell. My kind of book.
March 23, 2022
Excellent story with great characters and world building. Loved it!
May 5, 2024
Starts off okay, then goes completely off the rails and makes no sense whatsoever (even though it's a humorous time travel novel it needs to make a little bit of sense) and became a bit of a slog. Then, it all abruptly ends with no explanation. It's almost like he wrote it with an idea of how the special effects would look on screen (which tbf would probably be great) and didn't bother much about the story. It gets 2 stars because he beginning was good, and I did want to see how it ended. The ending wasn't great, so I wouldn't bother.
March 29, 2021
This book grabs your attention right away as, within the first few pages, a guy gets punched and disappears before he hits the floor. There are loads of wtf moments in this novel, exactly what you might expect from a story detailing a time and dimensional travel experiment gone wrong. I haven't read this author before, but I like how he tells a story. The plot (and characters) are always progressing and there are clever pop culture references scattered throughout.
August 10, 2020
Quantum Sweet Spot
When it comes to quantum science-garble adventuring I don't care too much about the plot as such, or its sciencey plausibility. I think the sweet spot involves a few characters you get a kick out of, lots of snappy banter, assured writing, geek culture shoutouts, and fast paced weirdness, with just the right touch of bizarro. That's this book in spades.
Some books go in way too hard on explaining, ("sci-splaining"), what's going on. Give me a Schrodinger reference, (preferably a funny one), a nod to Higgs, and some pop-up universes, and maybe a roiling purple cloud of cosmic confusion, and I'm good. That's what you get here.
You also get four interesting and distinct protagonists, so you can root for the solid practical guy, the tough chick, the science guy, or the con man. They're all good, and I think it was wise to make Skid, the tough jaded female, the center of the action. She has the style and substance to hold your attention and to make everything else work. She's also the center of the slow burn start to the book that teases you along until the serious action starts.
On top of all that you get clever tough guy patter, deadpan throwaway lines, and lots of sly jokes and bits slipped in around the edges. Some people go for the antic and freewheeling time travel and dislocation. I appreciate that, and there's plenty of good stuff along those lines here. Mostly, though, I like that because it allows for, heck it almost requires, lots of deadpan comedy and tough guy one-liners. And you get that here too.
So, this is smart, entertaining, fast paced, and well written. It's confusing, of course, but in a good way, not a throw the book against the wall way. I had a good time.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
When it comes to quantum science-garble adventuring I don't care too much about the plot as such, or its sciencey plausibility. I think the sweet spot involves a few characters you get a kick out of, lots of snappy banter, assured writing, geek culture shoutouts, and fast paced weirdness, with just the right touch of bizarro. That's this book in spades.
Some books go in way too hard on explaining, ("sci-splaining"), what's going on. Give me a Schrodinger reference, (preferably a funny one), a nod to Higgs, and some pop-up universes, and maybe a roiling purple cloud of cosmic confusion, and I'm good. That's what you get here.
You also get four interesting and distinct protagonists, so you can root for the solid practical guy, the tough chick, the science guy, or the con man. They're all good, and I think it was wise to make Skid, the tough jaded female, the center of the action. She has the style and substance to hold your attention and to make everything else work. She's also the center of the slow burn start to the book that teases you along until the serious action starts.
On top of all that you get clever tough guy patter, deadpan throwaway lines, and lots of sly jokes and bits slipped in around the edges. Some people go for the antic and freewheeling time travel and dislocation. I appreciate that, and there's plenty of good stuff along those lines here. Mostly, though, I like that because it allows for, heck it almost requires, lots of deadpan comedy and tough guy one-liners. And you get that here too.
So, this is smart, entertaining, fast paced, and well written. It's confusing, of course, but in a good way, not a throw the book against the wall way. I had a good time.
(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
June 7, 2024
Get ready for a pretty wild ride!
When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. As soon as I got far enough to really get the premise and where we were likely going (about chapter 3), I found myself in a page-turner I stayed up too late on multiple nights to read.
Sure, there's some fast-and-lose glossing over of things we're trained to be wary of by other Sci-Fi sources (Dr. Who, anyone?): don't change the time line, don't interact with the you of the future, past, or even the you of another parallel universe, but that's part of why this book is fun.
Somewhere about 3/4 of the way through I was just certain that the author had to have been on an LSD trip when he wrote it - it's that creative and out there. Again, making it more fun.
He does a good job of sneaking right up to too gory or too graphic, but at least for (squeamish) me, he managed to stay on the correct side of the line there.
Characters are developed for the entire book: we're learning about what makes them tick all the way up to the end, which is interesting and keeps your attention. I liked them all (appropriately, which means disliking the bad guy while feeling sorry for him).
It's a good read and makes me want to seek out more books by this author, which is about the highest recommendation one can give. I took one star off just because there were parts that I thought were a struggle to follow, but once I realized that I was supposed to give in and just hope it all became clear later (which it did) it was easier to just let things go.
Read it. :)
When I first started reading this book, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. As soon as I got far enough to really get the premise and where we were likely going (about chapter 3), I found myself in a page-turner I stayed up too late on multiple nights to read.
Sure, there's some fast-and-lose glossing over of things we're trained to be wary of by other Sci-Fi sources (Dr. Who, anyone?): don't change the time line, don't interact with the you of the future, past, or even the you of another parallel universe, but that's part of why this book is fun.
Somewhere about 3/4 of the way through I was just certain that the author had to have been on an LSD trip when he wrote it - it's that creative and out there. Again, making it more fun.
He does a good job of sneaking right up to too gory or too graphic, but at least for (squeamish) me, he managed to stay on the correct side of the line there.
Characters are developed for the entire book: we're learning about what makes them tick all the way up to the end, which is interesting and keeps your attention. I liked them all (appropriately, which means disliking the bad guy while feeling sorry for him).
It's a good read and makes me want to seek out more books by this author, which is about the highest recommendation one can give. I took one star off just because there were parts that I thought were a struggle to follow, but once I realized that I was supposed to give in and just hope it all became clear later (which it did) it was easier to just let things go.
Read it. :)
October 25, 2020
Thanks to CamCat Publishing and NetGalley for making the audiobook of “So You Had to Build a Time Machine” by Jason Offutt available to me. The book is narrated by Emily O'Brien and has a running time of 11 hours 22 minutes.
Imagine a mashup of Douglas Adams and Jasper Fforde with a heavy dose of pop culture references. If that zany type of tale sounds like your cup of tea, then “So You Had to Build a Time Machine” is right up your alley. Unlike so many time traveling books where the time travel is smoothly calculated, the characters of “So You Had…” must instead deal with a variety of unexpected timelines and dimensions. Each one they find themselves thrown into, at first seemingly at random, is a strange new world where anything from monstrous praying mantises to circus zombies may be waiting for them.
Practical Skid is looking for a quiet drink when she visits her favorite bar, but that is not in the plans as she notices things going weird – such as longstanding street names changing at random. Dave, an annoying theoretical physicist she just met disappears. Right in front of her. Skid must team up with an unlikely band of heroes to go on a strange and dangerous quest to fix the timeline before it’s too late.
Like when I dived into Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy” or Fforde’s “Early Riser”, I had to let myself accept the zany premise, allow myself to be a bit confused with the different timelines, knowing things would be reveals along the way. Once I figure that out, I was able to relax and enjoy the wild ride that is “So You Had to Build a Time Machine” by Jason Offutt.
Imagine a mashup of Douglas Adams and Jasper Fforde with a heavy dose of pop culture references. If that zany type of tale sounds like your cup of tea, then “So You Had to Build a Time Machine” is right up your alley. Unlike so many time traveling books where the time travel is smoothly calculated, the characters of “So You Had…” must instead deal with a variety of unexpected timelines and dimensions. Each one they find themselves thrown into, at first seemingly at random, is a strange new world where anything from monstrous praying mantises to circus zombies may be waiting for them.
Practical Skid is looking for a quiet drink when she visits her favorite bar, but that is not in the plans as she notices things going weird – such as longstanding street names changing at random. Dave, an annoying theoretical physicist she just met disappears. Right in front of her. Skid must team up with an unlikely band of heroes to go on a strange and dangerous quest to fix the timeline before it’s too late.
Like when I dived into Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy” or Fforde’s “Early Riser”, I had to let myself accept the zany premise, allow myself to be a bit confused with the different timelines, knowing things would be reveals along the way. Once I figure that out, I was able to relax and enjoy the wild ride that is “So You Had to Build a Time Machine” by Jason Offutt.
March 30, 2020
I would rate this more of a 2.5⭐️. I was looking for something light to read while being cooped up in the house on a rainy day, during a pandemic. I came across this title in the Read Now section and thought it sounded interesting.
It lightened my mood and entertained me; so it did its job. However, I was taken out of it with the Orc-like creatures, the giant cockroaches, the praying mantis doctor and the guy that kept saying, "I don't have any bars." Well, of course you don't son - you're back in 1980 whatever. The first time it was humorous. The second time it was annoying.
It got repetitive early on. I understand that that's part of the time travel aspect. Repetition as a literary device to move the story forward or 'help' the reader make connections can be necessary; but, whew, I could have done with a little less of it. And it started early. Chapter 1 early. It did help pull things together and make connections easier and faster. For me,
I wasn't particularly vested in any of the characters, but having said that I did like them. Cord was definitely an obnoxious pain in the arse, Brick, the gentle giant was an interesting character as was Skid and Dave - well Dave was Dave. There were sarcastic quips that I had a laugh out loud moment like "it was hot enough for all the concert goers to sweet Geritol" or "He often wondered if children secreted slime."
The biggest complaint I have is I felt like I read it before. And, I did in a way when I read Recursion by Blake Crouch.
It lightened my mood and entertained me; so it did its job. However, I was taken out of it with the Orc-like creatures, the giant cockroaches, the praying mantis doctor and the guy that kept saying, "I don't have any bars." Well, of course you don't son - you're back in 1980 whatever. The first time it was humorous. The second time it was annoying.
It got repetitive early on. I understand that that's part of the time travel aspect. Repetition as a literary device to move the story forward or 'help' the reader make connections can be necessary; but, whew, I could have done with a little less of it. And it started early. Chapter 1 early. It did help pull things together and make connections easier and faster. For me,
I wasn't particularly vested in any of the characters, but having said that I did like them. Cord was definitely an obnoxious pain in the arse, Brick, the gentle giant was an interesting character as was Skid and Dave - well Dave was Dave. There were sarcastic quips that I had a laugh out loud moment like "it was hot enough for all the concert goers to sweet Geritol" or "He often wondered if children secreted slime."
The biggest complaint I have is I felt like I read it before. And, I did in a way when I read Recursion by Blake Crouch.
January 24, 2024
A propulsive, interesting, funny read, this book is about all sorts of time travel shenanigans. I really enjoyed unraveling the in-universe physics behind what was going on, and the characters really popped.
The pop culture references, made off-handedly throughout the book, also were a delight. They were done deftly but also on the nose, so I could appreciate them along with the characters.
One thing that probably only I will also appreciate: the true crime aspect. One of the early settings of the story is a murder house. As someone who enjoys a good true crime book or documentary, I appreciated all the discussion around this, how creepy it is to monetize the scene of an unspeakable tragedy. But, at the same time, I enjoyed the shout-out to the Villisca murders as well. Another tragedy which became fascinating when I read The Man From the Train.
The pop culture references, made off-handedly throughout the book, also were a delight. They were done deftly but also on the nose, so I could appreciate them along with the characters.
One thing that probably only I will also appreciate: the true crime aspect. One of the early settings of the story is a murder house. As someone who enjoys a good true crime book or documentary, I appreciated all the discussion around this, how creepy it is to monetize the scene of an unspeakable tragedy. But, at the same time, I enjoyed the shout-out to the Villisca murders as well. Another tragedy which became fascinating when I read The Man From the Train.
July 20, 2020
Unfortunately, I didn't feel that this sci-fi/time travel romp properly hung together. It's tough to make sure everything actually works when writing wibbly=wobbly timey-wimey stuff, and although I'm no physicist, there definitely seemed to be some gaps and loopholes. On the positive side, I liked the lighthearted Robert Rankin-esque style and nerd culture references to Dungeons & Dragons, Lord of The Rings, and so on.
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