Day of the Predator

August 15, 2011

Time travel can be unpredictable.

In this sequel, a TimeRiders team intends to travel back several decades to prevent an event that would throw everyone into the "wrong" future. But things really go awry when Maddy mistakenly opens the wrong window, throwing them (along with everyone around them) back several millennia. It's up to Liam and his robotic support unit Becks to protect the group from carnivorous and all-too-crafty dinosaurs, while devising a way to send a message back to the future. Meanwhile, locked in New York City in a never-ending loop of September 10-11, 2001, Maddy and Sal work feverishly to conserve enough energy to open another window for a rescue, but they face the challenge of a secret government agency that waits for the day that Liam's message, discovered in the 1940s, can be delivered. The agency wants the secret of time travel for itself, spelling disaster for the future. But what could be worse than the survival of a previously unknown breed of dinosaur that has actually learned how to adapt, just by watching Liam and Becks in the past? It's another wild ride through time, with the team always aware that changing one minor event can have devastating consequences to the future. Scarrow blends adventure with history in a way that goes down painlessly.

Readers will be intrigued, puzzled—and ready for the next one. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

December 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-Liam, introduced in TimeRiders (Walker, 2010) as a teenage boy rescued from imminent death on the Titanic to become a time traveler, is accidentally sent back to the Cretaceous period with a group of high school students and his artificial-intelligence support unit, Becks. Their rescue takes up most of the book, with the action alternating between their adventures in dinosaur land and repeated attempts to bring them back by Sal and Maddy, two TimeRiders from the first book who live in a time bubble surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Within this framework there is an interesting, in-depth exploration of the implications of time travel and its effect on reality. Contamination of the past can have drastic effects on the future, a problem highlighted when Liam and his companions accidentally cause the evolution of a race of hominid reptiles. The author also explores the question of whether the artificial-intelligence units, developed simply as computers inside a cloned human body, actually possess some level of humanity. The juxtaposition of time travel and dinosaurs will appeal to many readers, but be forewarned, the body count is high and the deaths are often gruesome.-Eliza Langhans, Hatfield Public Library, MA

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