The Diversity Brigade would actually like this book...
...if they weren't such glaring bigots as core tenet of their ideology.
There’s probably a joke that starts with “a Jew and a Mormon walk into a bar” but my money’s on it being a bad joke. Although there is a ghost town in California called “Mormon Bar.” But I digress.
Today’s book is a collab written by two guys who I know through the greater Utah writing community: Dave Butler and Mike Rothman. They both use their initials for their pen names, so when they teamed up to write TIME TRIALS, there was some nice synchronicity on the cover.
In order to appreciate the brainpower behind this book, you need to know a little bit about Mike and Dave. I feel comfortable calling Butler “Dave” but I’ve never actually met Mike in person, it’s mainly through the WriterDojo that we’re acquainted. Nevertheless he friended me on FB, so here we are.
Mike is an actual sooper astrophysicist smart science guy. He was an inventor for a long time and he also wrote a novel called PRIMORDIAL THREAT (you can find my review on Upstream) about a genius astrophysicist who discovered that a mobile black hole was on a collision course with Earth. A lot of the science in that book goes over my head, but in a very Crichton-like way he made it sound credible, and that’s key with hard sci-fi. Mike also posts funny and random pieces of history on social media that make it worthwhile to follow him.
Dave’s day job is in the legal field, and he’s also an acquisitions editor for Baen Books. In addition to being largely huge/hugely large, he’s got a lot of brainpower between his ears and he uses it to embed esoteric historical knowledge deep in his cortex, along with an above-average familiarity with a wide array of languages. No joke, he might be the only guy I know not from my mission who can speak any Catalan. He takes up new languages on his treadmill for fun while guys like me are trying to psych ourselves up for the next set of pushups.
Both men are accomplished sci-fi/fantasy writers, and I’ve read multiple books from both of them (Dave more than Mike.)
Thus, when they announced a collab I figured it would be really good, and I was right. Larry Correia himself did a cover blurb invoking the aforementioned Crichton, and while I think the comparison is apt, the book sits comfortably around four stars for me: it didn’t rock my socks off but it was better than a lot of other stuff I’ve read lately.
Our protagonist is a fortysomething man named Martin Cohen who sounds Jewish but looks Asian, so you’re already getting double diversity points, but not in the IN YO FACE!!! way that so often happens in mainstream storytelling. His background makes it clear as to why, and he’s made different parts of both cultures a key to his character. The fact that he practices kung fu forms on the regular will especially be helpful in the story ahead.
Marty is a former Yale fellow who got punted off the staff when he punched a fellow professor over an inappropriate accusation. Now he runs his own business selling furniture and he needs to make payroll, so when a wealthy client flakes, he jumps at the chance to make a few grand from an old friend. Only the old friend doesn’t need furniture, he needs Marty’s expertise in ancient Egyptian.
Turns out there’s a rich Frenchman digging up stuff in Egypt and he found something nobody has found in five thousand years, and he needs Marty to translate the stuff in writing. When Marty arrives, he finds some glyphs that he wrote when he was a child, in a language he made up exclusively for himself, and never shared with anyone. And the glyphs are five thousand years old.
Right there you’re getting a small sampling of Crichton’s TIMELINE novel, but what happens next is its own thing. Marty and the dig crew stumble through a portal that sends them backward in time five thousand years, where they have to battle the minions of the ancient god Seth, and Marty is the key to navigating this strange old world, since he knows a ton about Egyptian history.
To make things even more intriguing, Marty and the others in the crew start to get what can only be called mutant super powers. Strength, agility, healing, combat prowess, and more. There are some generalities that they all share, as well as specifics that they each contribute to the team effort. Marty gets visions of the future with a countdown in his head, telling him that whatever the team is moving toward, they have about six weeks before they get to it and then something Big And Bad will happen.
From there you get a classic quest-style fantasy, interrupted by battles, visits to ancient cities and villages, and conversations between the main characters as they keep trying to wrap their heads around what this all means. The secret under it all is that Marty & Co. have been selected as champions to fight in a contest spanning millennia and across the stars, and if they fail, humanity takes a giant kick to the nuts.
It’s certainly Crichton-esque in its blend of explanations and action, wrapped around a slightly gonzo but very cool concept, blurring the lines between science and fantasy along the way. It’s also the first in a series, that much is clear, so be prepared to wrap up the battle as you start the war, so to speak.
All in all I thought it was fun and smart, two things that don’t surprise me from these men. It’ll stand up to multiple readings, which makes me glad I bought the hardcover when it came out in March. Hopefully it hits Audible soon, in a language I can understand, instead of in German.
Anyway, get back to work.