James F. David (1) (1952–)

This is a sequel to the books Footprints of Thunder and Thunder of Time. Action takes place 10 years after the "time quilt" when small openings into the past are again permitting dinosaurs to enter our "present". Extreme measures must be taken to preserve our timeline. Meanwhile in Florida a woman is raising a brood of velociraptors and in the past the survivors of the previous disaster in Portland are observing a remarkably bright comet.
I find the author's explanation of "time waves" caused by atomic experiments of the 50s and 60s extremely thin and some other science aspects of the story are bluntly incorrect. There is a huge cast of characters, some of whom serve no purpose in the story and none of the characters are well developed. There are lots of dinosaurs but it is interesting that no other life-forms seem to get through the holes. Lots of action scenes do not help obscure an implausible plot.… (altro)

You know that guy—you're talking about some great Indian place, and he interrupts with some spiel about how awful it is, it's inauthentic, it's some crap Westernized version of Indian food, and you must have awfully low standards if you can stomach it? Well, I'm that guy, and this book is that restaurant.

I've seen other reviews where readers referred to the characters as thin, or not particularly fleshed-out. People, c'mon. There's thin, and then there's "behaving like no adult human every did or would." The book really reminded me of some of my fiction in my teens, when (despite writing well for a teenager) I was fairly certain I didn't have a clue how grown-ups really acted around each other, and I was probably safest not exploring topics like "The White House," or "marriage," or "Business meeting." Mr. David had some fine descriptive passages, a few moments of interesting activity, but the moment he had characters speak, think, or decide to do something, I cringed. (I'm calling him Mr. David to be polite, but I suspect he's about 13, especially since he seems to think it's marvelous to not get woken up by Mommy--sorry, I meant "by his Chief of Staff," unless it's really really really really important).

I made it a third of the way through, but eventually (after checking other reviews) I realised this collection of unbelievable named-people weren't going to coalesce into interesting, believable people. I like dinosaurs as much as the next guy, but this isn't worth it. I am flabbergasted this got onto anyone's list of best sf.

I don't have time to list all the many things that irked me, beginning with the "Dramatis Personae" at the beginning (beginning with the ridiculous description of Kenny Randall as "student at Oregon Institute of Technology, and a member of the group," but that's a great place to start, if you're wondering about reading this. By the time you get to "Rita Watkins, stranded motorist" you will know if this is the book for you.

P.S. As a Canadian, sometimes the attitude that America is the only important place in the world particularly grates. And I get it, you write about what you know (hopefully). But when you are writing about a world-changing event, it seems particularly parochial to only write about Americans in America.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve!… (altro)

Set about a decade on from 'Footprints of Thunder', the quilts have been stabilised and the world has had to come to terms with the disruptions caused by the original quilting but to those on the President's advisory council, it has become clear that the last decade had been a hiatus rather than a final state and a number of characters from the earlier book come together in order to investigate the renewed threat. This time, the investigations covertly take us to Alaska where a secret government project is looking to exploit the quilt effect for its energy properties, to the Moon where a clearly artificial artefact had been intriguing Dr Paulson ever since the original quilts, though he hadn't expected to be going along on the mission, and finally, but most definitely not least, a mission to Central America where a temple with strange properties was rumoured to be sending out strange energy readings. As the members of each team reach their destinations, they find that the three sites are interlinked to each other, and the survival of the world in ways they hadn't imagined.

When I first read this, I didn't particularly like it and while I still don't rate it as highly as the first book, I did enjoy it more that at its first reading… (altro)