Time Travelers Never Die, Do They?

I like time travel stories and this one is mildly entertaining but not particularly fulfilling.  Call it time travel light.

The plot centers around Adrian Shelburne and David Dryden who cavort to their favorite places in history after Shel (Adrian’s nickname) discovers his father created a time machine.  Shel’s father, Michael, has disappeared and leaves Shel a rather interesting electronic gadget with instructions to destroy it.  Through curiosity, which almost gets Shel in trouble throughout the novel, he discovers the device allows one to travel through time and space.  Shel and David go in search of Shel’s father, visiting their favorite’s places and times in history along the way.  And that, mostly, is the entire plot.  Almost.

The novel does have its strong points.  There are subplot elements throughout the novel that are interesting, but there is also quite a bit of what I would call “filler” material that is not.  The most compelling cliffhanger is the novel opens with Shel’s funeral and then he suddenly returns to visit David after the funeral. Finding out what was going on with that scene concludes the book with an interesting twist.

Overall, I’d say I enjoyed the novel but it wasn’t great.  You won’t miss anything if you skip this one.