Alex Scarrow - Timeriders - Book Review

Mr Ripley's Book Review

A new big series is being published next year by Alex Scarrow. The graphic artist has now turned his hand to writing adventure books for the younger reader. This novel takes you on a journey to the past blending factual, historical events such as the assassination of president Kennedy. The detail used makes for an engaging and thought-provoking read. The actual plot revolves around three teenagers, who have been saved from sudden death to prevent time travel destroying the world and to protect us, in doing so. It's a roller-coaster of a ride right to the end keeping you on your toes. I love the idea of time travel and  the fun you can have as a writer but also as a reader, as I was transported to the start of the book and to the end of the book in an array of cosmic flashes. The action is well developed making the book particularly fast paced, and yet the writer still enables the reader to develop a bond with the characters which enables the story to be maximised. The best part of the book for me, was the character of Bob, who plays the role of  a 'Terminator-like-creature,' who has grown from engineered human genetic data. He starts out life as a mush of human foetus in a perspex cylinder - enough said, I think! It's a really enjoyable read making way for more great encounters of epic time travelling proportions. This book will appeal to many different readers, so it should do well when it is published. This book gets four out of five - so much more to come, I believe. If you want to read it now you can borrow my time machine - book published by Puffin, out 7 February 2010.

Synopsis
Liam O’Connor should have died at sea in 1912. Maddy Carter should have died on a plane in 2010. Sal Vikram should have died in a fire in 2029. Yet moments before death, someone mysteriously appeared and said, ‘Take my hand . . .’ But Liam, Maddy and Sal aren’t rescued. They are recruited by an agency that no one knows exists, with only one purpose – to fix broken history. Because time travel is here, and there are those who would go back in time and change the past. That’s why the TimeRiders exist: to protect us. To stop time travel from destroying the world . . .