eARC Review: Time Forward Series by J.L. Yarrow
Release date: 23 July 2024 (Originally 4 June 2024 for Future Unfolds)/14 March 2023 for Future’s Dark Past
Composite Rating: 4.5/5
Synopses:
Future’s Dark Past
Centuries after an apocalyptic war, life on Earth remains grim, especially for Kristen Winters. In a bold move, she flees brutal captivity, but is caught sneaking into a domed city. She's forced to join a controversial group in deep space. They use a time wormhole to send clandestine teams back to alter historical events, hoping to save humanity. Little does Kristen know, but the fate of the world will soon depend on her.
She endures the grueling genetic modifications to become a time traveler. In her first mission briefing, she finds out the anomaly is unstable and shrinking. The race is on to finish their quest before the opportunity is gone forever.
Kristen's partner is assassinated during their jump to the past. She's inexplicably linked with Hunter Coburn, a hotshot AI scientist from the early 21st century. Yanked from his privileged life, he's thrust into dangerous, dimensional jumps that reveal the horrors to come.
The duo must rise to their destinies. They risk everything to fight destructive forces across the continuum. Time is running out for them, in more ways than one. If they fail, all is lost.
Future Unfolds
Generations from now, the future of humanity is grim. To save their fate, the Time Forward Project pins their hopes on their force-of-nature time agent, Kristen Winters. She's sent on missions into the past through an unstable wormhole in deep space, attempting to change historical events.
The group determines that the bombing of the Masjid Alahmari Mosque in Manhattan is the trigger to a nuclear conflict on Earth that leads to the post-apocalyptic predicament they inherited. Kristen and her partner, present-day hotshot AI scientist Hunter Coburn, embark on a last-ditch effort to prevent the destruction. The duo is drawn into the Dark Void, a tantalizingly dangerous augmented reality, risking Hunter's powerful AI, Comperi. They plow through nearly insurmountable odds but are astounded to come face-to-face with an even more formidable foe.
Review
Readers who love a great sci-fi time travel plot with twists, turns, and breakneck pacing will take instantly to this gripping series. Whether it’s in fantasy or science fiction, time travel plots fascinate me. I love seeing how different authors come up with rules for time travel, and the plot twists and turns can get complicated enough to keep my attention. Yarrow’s series, which has a third book coming out as well, goes on my list of favorite time travel books.
If you’ve ever watched Universal Soldier or Time Cop, the Time Forward books will be a trip of nostalgia for you. Kristen Winters escapes brutality and ends up trading her freedom to become an enhanced, time-hopping soldier. The stakes are high—the fate of the world, of course—and no matter what Kristen does, the old “you can’t change past events” conundrum keeps popping up. Kristen keeps kicking against the goad, though, and winds up teaming up with an AI scientist around which all of the impending doom revolves. Oh, and they’re connected in more ways than they know.
The plot in these books moves at breakneck speed, which kept me glued to them until they were over. Despite the intricacies of the time travel and the myriad of characters to keep up with, I didn’t find it at all difficult to match my grasp with the story’s pace (it also helps that the chapters have the time stamp at the start). I love non-linear plots, and the action and intrigue really made for an engaging read. Both books take readers, put them in a bottle of human history, and shake them vigorously until the end of the book.
I really can’t wait to read the conclusion for the series—I have some theories I want to see if I’m correct on, and that future won’t save itself.
My thanks to J.L. Yarrow for the eARC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.
Yorumlar