Yestertime

Yestertime #1

by Andrew Cunningham

Alternative cover edition of ASIN B08MZ7WQBW

"I'm going to die a hundred years before I was born..."

The handwritten note was in a dusty trunk that sat in a cave untouched for 150 years. What did the words mean? When journalist Ray Burton finds the trunk near the Arizona ghost town of Hollow Rock, his life changes in an instant.

Something in the trunk shouldn’t be there.

This begins a dangerous journey of discovery bordering on the impossible. A discovery that will affect the past, the present, and the future.

Genres: Time Travel, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Ebooks, Thriller

315 pages, ebook

First published November 6, 2020

About the author

Andrew Cunningham is an Amazon bestselling author of 22 novels, including The Alaska Thrillers (Wisdom Spring, Nowhere Alone, The 7th Passenger, and Lost Passage); the "Lies" Mystery Series (All Lies, Fatal Lies, Vegas Lies, Secrets & Lies, Blood Lies, Buried Lies, Sea of Lies, and Maui Lies); the terrorist/disaster thriller Deadly Shore; the Yestertime Time Travel Series (Yestertime, The Yestertime Effect, The Yestertime Warning, and The Yestertime Shift); and the post-apocalyptic Eden Rising Series (Eden Rising, Eden Lost, Eden's Legacy, Eden’s Survival, and Eden's Fury). As A.R. Cunningham, he has written a series of 5 humorous children's mysteries in the Arthur MacArthur series for middle-readers. Formerly an interpreter for the deaf, an independent bookseller, and a freelance writer and copy editor, Andrew was a long-time resident of Cape Cod. He and his wife now live in Florida. Visit his website at www.arcnovels.com, and his Facebook Page (Author Andrew Cunningham).

Reviews

[David Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a time when I was addicted to the time travel genre and then when they all seemed to seem the same, I moved on to other genres. By chance I saw Yestertime in a promotion and borrowed a copy through Kindle Unlimited. I’m sure glad I did. Yestertime takes a different approach to delivering a time travel story and I found it to be very enjoyable. I’m already looking for more of Mr. Cunningham’s stories.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading lots of great reviews here and on Kindle, I downloaded this from KU.

I enjoyed the plot - and that's about it. I managed to read the whole thing but nearly gave up twice - wish I had. The writing was awful with little character development. Repetitive and simple (words like sad and nice). I read the worst sentence I've ever read in a book - We had a nice meal. Too much telling and hardly any showing. Sentences like I was tired. I was sad.

I could forgive it if it was written for children but it didn't state it was for the younger reader.

[Sophia Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Engaging plot; interesting ideas. Without these, I couldn’t have finished this book. The characters are dismally predictable and barely even one-dimensional. The writing is firmly adolescent, and merely explanatory. I wish someone else had written this book.

[Kim Megahee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot. I write time travel novels myself, and I'm always interested in approaches by other authors. Cunningham took an interesting approach that I had not seen before. I won't elaborate because I don't want to put any spoilers in the review.
The story was interesting, the dialogue was good, but maybe most importantly, he created a sizable cast of characters that you could keep up with without problems. IMHO, this only happens when your characters are pretty well defined and act consistently with what you expect from them.
He also does a nice job at dropping new information into the story that raises questions. When you are thinking, "I wonder what that means?", you're not going to put the book down until that question is answered. A skilled story teller drops new information in your lap at just the right moment. I had some stuff to do, so I couldn't read it in one sitting, but I would have if not for priorities.
Nice book, sir. I'm a stranger to your work, but I will be checking out some of your other stories.
Cheers.

[Mike Nyberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was terrible. Had to skim read to finish. Nothing new in the plot and the writing was mechanical. Dialog unconvincing.

[Glenn Armstrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yestertime is a book that I flew through in a day. I thought it was a great story. A time travel story with a unique spin on it. I love a good time travel story and I thought this one was well constructed. Stories involving different time dimensions can often become confusing but that was never the case with this book. It didn’t get bogged down in technical science jargon which I appreciated. I also liked how each chapter followed on from the previous one. It was easy to stay in the story without flashbacks or sudden changes to alternate character perspectives. The writing was simple and straightforward which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If I had to choose between great writing or a great story, I would choose a great story every day of the week. This was a super fast and entertaining time travel story. If this is a genre you enjoy then I would recommend reading this book.

[Linda Branham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great time travel story

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Never have I ever hated a time-travel book but this one comes close. The plot is a fun one but the writing is mediocre (at best) and tells without ever showing a single detail (I may be exaggerating but not by much). There seems to have been close to zero research – or, at least, zero research evident – given that anything pertinent to a time period was explained along the lines of "he bought clothes that would fit the period," without any further elaboration. Tell me you phoned it in without telling me that you phoned it in.

Overall, this read like a Western-lover's unresearched wet dream. Most of the characters were flat and without nuance but the women? Oh, the women. They were both weepy damsels in distress, willing to fall in love with their "rescuers." And don't get me started on Natalie, who loathed one man because he killed someone who put the entire world's future in danger, but then immediately falls in love with another who guns down not one, not two, but three men in quick succession.

Ok, I guess I hated it. I really wish someone else had written it because again, it's a fun take on time travel. But I am absolutely flummoxed by the Goodreads rating.

[Hippy Chap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another time travel book?

I love the genre of time travel and have read extensively on the subject, so I do feel like I have a right to give my penny's worth. I thoroughly enjoyed this tale, without giving anything away, suffice it to say I found it refreshing and original. Mr Cunningham tells a story where the characters are believable and with sufficient depth, the science is unimportant and it comes with a sense of mystery. I hope he writes another, either way I shall be looking at his other novels.

[Yvonne Lockett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the time travel genre and this book did not disappoint. The main character decided to settle in the exact era that I would, if indeed, time travel were possible.

[Vicki Scullion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicely thought-out time travel adventure. Short on science, but I was okay with that. Interesting story.

[Daniel Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had been meaning to read this for quite some time. Its an interesting story but the writing is a little clunky. Maybe stilted is the right term, there is also a lot of over repetition of phrases after its been said you do not need to repeat it, especially word for word. Other than these minor literary style complaints its a good story, enough so that I will read the sequel. Hopefully the author continues to improve his craft and gets a little better at the prose.

#timetravel

[Pamela Aidan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it enough to read whole thing, but hasn't inspired me to read more by this author.

[Bonnye Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kindle Unlimited
Yestertime is an excellent time traveler novel. The story is crisp, the protagonists very human, and the places and time passages are true to life. I have very much enjoyed Andrew Cunningham's 'Lies' series, but his trip into yesteryears is just as compelling, just as fascinating. You can't go wrong, on these cold winter nights, to taking a trip with Cunningham.

Reviewed on December 28, 2021, at Goodreads and AmazonSmile. Not available on B&N, BookBub, Kobo, orGooglePlay.

[Millennial Book Review · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yestertime is a book that’s probably not going to stand out in my memory. The plot was enjoyable and engaging, but the characters and the writing fell flat for me. Reading it was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, but it’s not a book I’ll go out of my way to read a second time.

My full review can be found here

[Pedro Bedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good story with a hero and damsel in distress. Some of the things about time travel portals and how they would work really baffle me but I don't think it gets in the way of the plot.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I am typically a big fan of time travel but found this novel quite disappointing. My thoughts were that this must be an author's first book, but to my surprise, I learned that he has written over 20. The progression of events was so convenient it was unbelievable for me as the reader. I also felt that the characters' motivations were poorly developed and far-fetched. I will not be reading onward in this series.

[Tom Steele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very amateur writing

This is a mildly interesting time travel novel, but it suffers from very two dimensional characters and a lack of tension or direction.

The author spends far too much time telling us things rather than showing them. This means that there is never any excitement about what is going to happen next. Even the idea that time travel is “dangerous” is never shown to be true. Despite the fact that Stan Hooper has been traveling in several different time periods, and breaking ALL the rules, nothing has come of it and we are never shown why it is dangerous.

But the true failing is the dry, immature characters. To call them stereotypes or hackneyed would be too kind. We have a semi-“somebody” bachelor who is in love with an actress who happens to be the only famous actress on earth who is actually down to earth and looking to abandon Hollywood and the privileged lifestyle of a rich movie star just so she can settle down with the 50 year old, never had a real girlfriend before, hero of our story who is just the perfect knight in shining armor.

There are NO flaws in either of their characters (other than him being a hermetic recluse) and they were clearly going to live happily ever after the moment he saw his chance to save her.

It reminds me of my 5th grade self thinking that relationships were all perfect and there was never any disagreement. Everything was flowers and butterflies all the time for people who were in love.

There is also the instant trust (which of course is warranted because all of the good guys are pure as driven snow) that the hero gives to a character he meets and can tell that the character is a good person right away. And also the bad guy is bat guano crazy and not just selfish or up to no good, he’s full-goose-bozo with no nuance or rationality at all.

Oh yeah, and the NSA is both inept but also deadly. They often ignore the guy who could lead them to the answers they have been seeking for ten years and while they play by the rules (and even way nicer than makes any sense) but turn into killing machines at the moment it is needed to add some artificial tension for a moment.

I made it to the end out of mild curiosity, but I won’t be reading any more. It’s just not good writing. I cannot recommend this. I give it 1.5 stars, but I always round up because I am a nice guy! ;-)

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Random book about time travel, not much happens but it was good. Bit slow and hard to get through at times because like nothing happens

[Sandra Herrmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Novel Time Novel

I have been a fan of time travel stories for 50 years, and this one is worthy of a place in my library. Andrew Cunningham kept me up to the wee, small hours of the morning with some questions I've seen only two other authors -- Stephen King (in his superlative 11/22/63 A Novel) and Jack Finney (in Time after Time).
In 11/22/63, King pondered what damage we might do to the universe as a whole by repeated trips to the past; with each trip rending time/space a little more, making the fabric less cohesive. Jack Finney's hero began to realize that the experiment of time travel has been hijacked to deliberately change the past -- and thereby, our present and future.
Cunningham takes a slightly different perspective, wondering not about the toll on time/space, but on the people who are traveling. The devastation wrought on the people doing the traveling, both physically and psychologically, creeps up almost undetected.
Those of us who love time travel stories usually have an element of wishing to repair the present by upending events in the past. As Cunningham's hero, Ray, says, "To go back and kill Hitler and so save millions of lives." Is it even possible to interfere in an assassination? And what would be the consequences of changing such a huge movement as Nazism? Even Jack Finney's hero succumbs to changing the past, as his hero distracts the grandfather of the man who invented a system to travel to the past at a key moment in his life to prevent others from making the same journey.
Cunningham's past is gritty, and his analysis of what happens to a person from one era living in a previous time shows deep insight into our need to connect with at least one other person in a deep way. Being an outsider with secrets undermines us in ways that are too subtle to grasp until the damage is done. All of this is contained in a great thriller, with characters who ring true and dangers unforeseen. I highly recommend setting aside a weekend to read this book.

[Stephanie Dial · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yestertime: a novel

Finished this a few minutes ago and must say I really enjoyed it. This is a book about time travel which is one of my most favorite genres to read. I've been reading time travel novels since I was a pre-teen only in those I always learned something about the time periods the hero(ine) would find themselves in. This book is different, though, in this we follow Ray, a former wartime journalist, who accidentally discovers an 1870s steamer trunk when he takes shelter during a rainstorm in an Arizona cave. Left behind by a traveler named Stan, inside the trunk are both items from 1870 and, strangely enough, a modern day camera with two memory cards full of in color photos of life in the Old West. At first, Ray is convinced this is someone's idea of a prank, a very elaborate one, but still a joke, right?

I found this take on time travel to be be very entertaining, though I felt it lacked something by not including more about the past and how the people survived back then. I would've liked to have gotten to know some of the past life characters more, but even without this it's still a book I recommend. I didn't find out it was part of a trilogy until I'd finished it though, so if you're not interested in a trilogy, pass this one by. However, if you enjoy a well at old story and time travel, you should give this a try. I'm glad I did even with the added books surprise.

[Daniel Rosenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate writing bad reviews but this book was such a bummer. It had a cool premise but the dialogue was so, SO bad, and got worse as the novel went on.

I only gave it a 2 star rating because I like time travel stories, but otherwise the dialogue made me want to tear the pages out and the author obviously inserted himself into the character. You could tell an old dude who has only worked in the writing world wrote this because he does not present a lot of depth or diversity with the characters. Also it’s obvious that the author inserted his fantasies into this story writing into it old men having love affairs with significantly younger women. Ugh.

[Karma Kimeleon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled to get through this because I found the writing style very juvenile. It reminded me of the writing my (albeit talented) children do. I stuck with it because I was interested in where it would go, but for me there was no real payoff. It doesn’t help that I was simultaneously reading the latest installment of Rysa Walker’s time travel series, who’s plot is infinitely more complex and interesting.

[Michael Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yestertime by Andrew Cunningham is the first in a series of novels about time travel. Ray Burton, the novel's lead character, is a famous journalist burned out and traumatized by facing death in dangerous places one too many times now just passing time writing uninteresting freelance stories. In Yestertime, Burton falls into the story of his lifetime.

Upon the death of a childhood friend in Flagstaff, AZ, Burton travels into the desert to scatter his friend's ashes in an old ghost town. His task completed, Burton is forced to seek cover when a dangerous flash flood hits the town. Hold up in a small cave waiting for the storm to pass, Burton discovers a trunk that appears to be very old. Inside the trunk he discovers a newspaper dated September 7, 1870, and a note with saying "Funny that I'm going to die a hundred years before I was born..." and strangest of all, a bag containing a small digital camera, two memory cards and a modern driver's license.

Thinking it all a hoax, but intrigued by the conundrum, Burton takes the trunk and begins an investigation that ultimately leads him to a small group of time traveling scientists from the future, one rogue time traveler, a series of mysterious and hidden time travel portals and several people who had mysteriously disappeared from the present.

Burton's investigations trigger a visit by a special division of the NSA and ultimately, he must escape into the past both to avoid being killed by the NSA, and to stop the rogue time traveler from altering history.

It's an interesting set up for a story (particularly if you like time travel stories like I do) but doesn't prove to be as engaging as it sounds. Like other series I've read, the first book in this Yestertime series is mostly a set development piece. By that I mean, it devotes most of it's time to introducing characters and setting the stage for the books that will follow. Characters are introduced and used as throwaway pieces for story development which means that many tend to be shallow and lightly developed giving the story a feeling of incompleteness.

The story becomes more interesting in the last third of the book when Burton actually dives into time travel. He goes back to the 1870's wild west, joins up with one of the mysteriously missing persons from the 21st century and then jumps to London during WWII, San Francisco in the late 1960's, until finally "settling" in a quite British town in the late 1950's unable to get back to his own time (but able to communicate with a contact in the 21st century by leaving notes in the time travel portal).

The book ends with an interesting twist and sets up the next story in the series and while this introductory book was moderately good, the story set up has me hoping for a stronger second entry in the series.

If you have the patience to read this set up story, the books that follow could lead to more interesting territory. I'll report back when I know more!

[Lunnaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more reviews please visit https://awindowtomysoul.com/

Ray Burton is a fifty-year-old man that used to work as a war reporter or for dangerous missions. The last one got him too traumatized and he changed his life to a more “boring” one, in which he wrote small news way less adrenaline.

His former lifestyle meant he didn’t have anyone in his life. Harry, who was probably his best friend, was diagnosed with cancer, so he went to accompany him in his last moments. Harry was cremated and Ray decides he would like the idea to be tossed in a ghost town, so he went to Holly Rocks. The thing is that there was literally nothing left of the town, but a pouring rain caught him and he was forced to seek refuge in a cave. Here he found a trunk with things that suggested some guy named “Stan Hooper” had time traveled. This was obviously impossible and nothing but a bad joke. Except the things got more and more complicated, and once the NCIS got involved, Rey knew this time travel thing may not be as impossible as he thought in the beginning.

I really enjoyed how the story is told. We start with Rey’s POV and he explains how h got to Hollow Rocks for his friend, and ended up in a giant mess. But once we get to meet more characters that are, one way or another involved in this time travel thing, we get more points of view in very different times and places.

I won’t spoil things, so I’ll just say that the time-travel here is taken in a full scientific way, so we get some logical information about how this may work and how much they actually know about it. I also enjoyed the endless questions about whether the past could be changed or not.
I’m a sucker for time travel and this philosophical questions. Is the past written in stone?

I heard the audiobook and it always takes me one or two chapters to adapt to a new narrator and in this book it worried me I may not like it, but Greg does a nice job telling the story sort of “light”. Even when the things got heavier, the feeling of the book was of a light nice read, but that gives you A LOT to think about.

Sci-fi is not my usual style of books, but I do enjoy some o them and this one was an impressive discovery for me. Actually, I was super impressed because, even though time travel is the main theme, the relationships between the characters are super developed. I didn’t expect I would find romance in this story, it’s not focused on it, but it’s important to the story.

The only reason I don’t give this book 5 stars is because I expected the end to blow my mind and it didn’t. But it was a really good end though. Totally recommended, whether it is the book or audio.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of an above-average four-volume time-travel series, though it’s set mostly in the present day. There’s a strong government-conspiracy-action-thriller element, too. For fifty-year-old freelance journalist Ray Burton of New York, it all starts when he’s scattering the ashes of a recently deceased good friend in the vicinity of the ghost town of Hollow Rock, near Flagstaff, Arizona, and gets caught in a sudden thunderstorm. He ducks into a small cave on a hillside above the few remains of the town to wait it out and stumbles on a dust-covered trunk that has obviously been there a very long time. Inside are some 19th-century period clothes, an old handgun, and bunch of papers. “Neat,” he thinks. But then, at the very bottom of the trunk are a driver’s license, a small camera and some memory cards. And there’s a note to the finder from someone calling himself Stan Hooper, saying he was born in 1970 and “will die here” in 1870. What the hell?

Ray’s disappointed to find the modern stuff, . . . but the trunk obviously has been there a long time. And he’s an investigator by nature and habit, so he hauls the trunk out of the cave and back to his car. And at his motel, he slips the memory cards into his laptop and discovers more than a thousand photos of very authentic-seeming scenes of the busy town and its inhabitants 150 years earlier.

Huh. There’s a mystery here, obviously. Maybe a good story, too. He’s gotten rather bored with the things he’s been writing since retiring from his earlier career as a noted war correspondent in the danger zones of the world, and this find is tiring up his old sense of excitement and curiosity. But on his long drive back to the east coast, he can’t shake the feeling that he’s being tracked, that someone is taking an interest in his find, and that automatically makes him nervous.

Ray has been in some very tight spots before, and he’s used to taking care of himself. And two of the people he sees in those photos of Hollow Rock are of famously missing people -- a mystery author from the 1920s and a young actress from only a few years before the present. What are they doing in what appears to be 1870? I’m not familiar with this author, but he has a lot of other books under his belt and I’m a sucker for time travel yarns, and this is a well written one with a twisty plot and credible characters. The action is pretty much continuous from the very beginning, with the author skillfully weaving the background tech into the narrative. A very enjoyable read.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Yestertime: A Novel of Time Travel” by Andrew Cunningham is an entertaining and thrilling read that will leave readers hooked from beginning to end. It follows the story of Ray Burton, a journalist who stumbles upon a mysterious trunk near the ghost town of Hollow Rock in Arizona. This trunk leads him on an adventure of a lifetime as he discovers that it holds the key to time travel.

The plot of the book is fast-paced and full of unexpected twists and turns that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Cunningham does an excellent job of building suspense and keeping the reader guessing as to what will happen next. The time travel element of the story is well-written and adds an exciting layer to the plot. The author does a great job of explaining the mechanics of time travel without getting too bogged down in technical jargon.

The characters in the book are well-developed and interesting. Ray Burton is a relatable protagonist who readers will root for throughout the story. The supporting cast of characters, including the enigmatic time traveler Peter and the villainous Doctor Packer, are also well-written and add depth to the story. The relationships between the characters are believable and help to drive the plot forward.

One of the strengths of the book is Cunningham's ability to create vivid and detailed settings. From the desolate ghost town of Hollow Rock to the bustling streets of 1920s New York, the author transports the reader to different times and places with ease. The historical accuracy of the book is also impressive, and readers will appreciate the attention to detail that Cunningham has put into researching the different eras depicted in the story.

Overall, “Yestertime: A Novel of Time Travel” is an excellent read that is sure to entertain fans of science fiction, adventure, and historical fiction. The book is well-written and full of action, suspense, and drama. The characters are engaging, and the settings are vivid and detailed. Cunningham's attention to detail and research is impressive, and it shows in the accuracy of the historical elements of the story. This book is a must-read for anyone who enjoys a good time travel adventure.

However, the biggest down side to the audiobook is the narrator, who I found to be a bit too wooden. With a good narrator like Ray Porter or Travis Baldree, the characters and story (in my opinion) would have come alive a lot more.

[Ted Waterfall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ray Burton was visiting Hollow Rock, a ghost town in Arizona when a sudden storm forced him to seek shelter in a nearby cave as his car was parked a full mile away. While waiting the storm to abate he finds an old chest which he opens. Inside the chest he discovers several mid 19th Century artifacts including a revolver, newspapers, money, and a smart phone with badly corroded batteries and a hand written note from Stan Hooper, born in 1970 but who later went missing, that says, “Funny that I’m going to die a hundred years before I was born.” Ray views this as an elaborate hoax, of course, but he takes the items anyway. He recovers the photos on the phone and still doesn’t believe anything may be amiss until he recognizes a photo of his great great great grandfather as a young man. He is the visited by some very serious men from the National Security Agency inquiring about a Stan Hooper.

As the story evolves it becomes evident that the cave he had sought shelter in contained one of several one-way time portals, this one to within a few months of 1870. Other portals existed and could be found with the assistance of Portal Finders but some went backwards in time, others forward, but none into the actual future of the original starting point in the 21st Century. It is possible, therefore, for someone who hit the portal in 2012 to arrive in Hollow Rock before someone who entered the portal in 1933.

An interesting spin to time travel novels. I truly enjoyed this one. Volume 1 of a 4 volume series, if you enjoy Science Fiction and want a slightly different theme, you might try this one out.

[Felicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

After saying goodbye to a dying friend, freelance journalist Ray Burton’s trip into the Arizona desert to spread his ashes leaves him stranded in a cave during a sudden storm. Inside the cave, he stumbles across an old trunk filled with items, including a newspaper dated 1870. Ray’s excited about his find until he finds an item in the trunk that’s out of place, obviously not from 1870.

His investigative skills come in handy as Ray tries to make sense of his new finds.

Researching some of the names found in the trunk will lead Ray on a journey that begins with a missing man, includes several run-ins with the NSA, missing celebrities, and the possibility of time travel.

Burton is a great protagonist. Highly respected and much-awarded, the journalist traveled the world for his stories. But while writing a story on the blood diamond trade in Africa, the assignment nearly ended with his death and he walked away from his adventurous career. Now he writes soft stories and fluff pieces. However, the thought that time travel could be real and is being covered up by a shadowy agency in the government spurs Ray on and back into old form.

As Ray gets closer to the truth, he also may be close to something he never thought he’d have… love.

Once again, the winning combination of Andrew Cunningham’s writing with the narration of Greg Hernandez delivers another stellar audiobook.

Enjoy!

[Ashwin Dongre]

In Chapter 2 I already thought I knew who the mysterious time traveller was and what the overall plot wass. I just hope it is not just one journey and back with whole lot of life in between.
Well, I'm glad that i was wrong on both account, especially the later. There is more time travel involved than just one journey. Not only that, but the plot revolves around it and builds with it.
One thing that always irritates me a little about time travel novels, is that the authors use the time travel as plot device but use it's science and logic incorrectly. This book avoids it most of the time, except one concept. The time travel controls society here is trying to stop people from going in and changing the past. For example here the original time traveller whose book is found in the cave, is known, or later found to try and change the past. Hence the protagonist and others want to stop that from happening. . But what the author fails to get it or at least does not put it in the story is that in their past he has already tried and failed to do so. People took him for a lunatic. While you know about his attempts to change the past, you also know that they failed. Why worry about him at all?
Anyways, it's not a big deal. The rest of the story makes up for this one hitch.
It's a good story, all in all.