The Flight of the Silvers

December 2, 2013
Marked from youth, six people are saved from the destruction of their world by the smugly superior Pelletiers, casually lethal superhumans from a distant future. Transported to a universe where history played out differently, the six “Silvers” are dumped into an isolationist but technologically advanced America. Each of them has some special power, such as super-speed or precognition; this makes them useful in the grand machinations of the Pelletiers, but marks them as targets for the government and an existential threat to the secretive Gothams. Then a seventh Silver appears: Evan Rander, a murderous stalker whose unique talent is his ability to rewind time. The first installment in the ambitiously titled Silvers Saga serves to introduce the cast and their situation, one part Crisis on Infinite Earths to one part Runaways, but little more. Price (Slick) has some talent with prose, but the “ends justify the means” moral structure, the largely unlovable characters, and the derivative plot are disappointing. Agent: Stu Miller, Stuart M. Miller Co.

Starred review from February 15, 2014
Both the innovative and the enjoyably familiar mark this hefty, intriguing introduction to a multivolume, multiversal saga. An apparently omniscient, oddly threatening trio place silver bracelets on a small group of people in San Diego; the jewelry protects these "Silvers" as the sky comes crashing down and our world is utterly destroyed. The Silvers find themselves in an alternate San Diego in an isolationist America, where scientists have gained mechanical control over some of the forces of time--cars fly, and serious injuries can be instantly healed, but the Internet isn't nearly as cool a place. Oncology nurse Amanda and her actress sister Hannah, sardonic comic-book artist Zach, awkward teen Mia, burnt-out genius Theo, and dangerously precocious, possibly sociopathic David don't know why they were saved, but it all becomes somewhat clearer when they begin displaying their own personal abilities to control time. They're forced to hone those powers quickly when they face threats from a rival group of chronokinetic adepts, a vengeful stranger from our world, government authorities and an even greater danger that they only gradually come to understand. It all reads like a better-written combination of the defunct TV series Sliders, The Fugitive and the novel Escape to Witch Mountain, plus a healthy pinch of an exotically conceived vision of time travel and its implications. Usually, stories of this kind involve a search for the way home, but that possibility is apparently eliminated within the first 30 pages, adding a nice, dark jolt to a well-established trope. Price (Slick, 2004) is occasionally guilty of some inappropriate word choices ("leer" doesn't quite mean what he thinks it does), but on the whole, he provides an absorbing adventure with a fresh take on both the parallel-universe and the paranormal subgenres. You'll get pulled in.

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Starred review from February 15, 2014

Moments before the world ends in a crush of white and chaos, six Americans are saved by mysterious strangers who clamp silver bracelets on their wrists. Though they witness the horror of the apocalypse, the survivors are protected by their jewelry and transported to an alternate America. In this new reality, the six "Silvers," so called for their bracelets, find that they have strange powers to manipulate time. Now the six--an actress, her widowed sister, two teenagers, an artist, and a homeless ex-prodigy--must figure out why they were saved by the frightening and elusive Pelletiers. As the Silvers bond into a new family, they discover that they are not the only humans with power over time, and some of those others are gunning for the Silvers. Now the race is on, not only to escape their enemies but to figure out the motives of the Pelletiers and to prevent another coming apocalypse. VERDICT This first volume in a planned trilogy is fascinating sf; Price's (Slick) strong, engaging characters and fast-moving plot will keep readers on their toes. Highly recommended for fans of apocalyptic and dystopian fiction.--Jennifer Beach, Cumberland Cty. P.L., VA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2013
In this first installment of a projected series (The Silvers Saga), two sisters in their twenties, Amanda and Hannah, are inexplicably transported to an alternate realitya sort of faux San Diegoafter their own world comes (quite literally) crashing down around them. Together with other people from their world, each of them, like Hannah and Amanda, wearing a mysterious silver bracelet, the sisters wind up at a scientific research compound, where Sterling Quint, a temporal physicist, tries to figure out how they got here. The cast is engaging (it includes a 16-year-old Australian boy, a girl who's been separated from her entire family, and an affable cartoonist), and the author has created an alternate-reality world that is both bewilderingly different and reassuringly familiar. Much of the book is devoted to introducing the characters, their new world, and the strange time-affecting abilities they seem to possess, but there's also a good story here, as our small group of Silvers start an adventure that will, they hope, lead them to an understanding of what has happened to them. A highly imaginative exercise in world building that also features characters it's very easy to care about.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)