Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Fractured Time by Michael D'Amrosio ::
by William the Bloody
Billy Brock is flying from Boston to Philadelphia for business, but all the recent reports in the news about earthquakes in unusual places is making him nervous about it. His line of work calls for frequent travel, which he normally likes, but these quakes and the company suddenly insisting he take an engineer with him have all served to make him wary of the trip. After meeting his new partner on the plane, Penny Nichols, and finding out she was something of a spaz, but cute, he relaxed a little. Perhaps a little too soon. Just as the plane was coming in for a landing in Philadelphia, something bizarre starts to happen to the world outside. There was horribly jarring turbulence as something weird happened to the world. The plane managed to land, but the terminal? It was destroyed, partially sunken into the ground even, and around it was something of a jungle. Luckily, on board this plane was Dr. Robert Smith, one of a handful of scientist who had been studying the odd earthquakes and other phenomena worldwide. Dr. Smith hypothesizes that what has happened, where they all are now, is a place in "fractured time", where lost places, people and civilizations throughout time all coexist in a patchwork, splintered world. This not only means that there are jungles, mountains and other geographically anomalies, but also living creatures such as dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and other deadly beasts. But what happened and how? Are there other people out there? Will the passengers on the plane be able to survive in a world rampant with unbelievable monsters?
The Good: The whole "fractured time" idea is an interesting one to me. The thought that "lost" civilizations did indeed just vanish off the face of the Earth to all coexist within their own "dimension" is kind of cool, and ripe with possibilities. The author does explore the possibility of not only prehistoric monsters like dinosaurs and cave men, but there are also some hyper-evolved creatures, likely from a distant future.
The Bad: Sigh. A lot. Billy Brock? The lead character? I hate him. He is so awful. Also, Penny, the cute somewhat spazzy girl, is a zillion times more awful. She whines and cries about everything, especially everything Billy does, but she wants the two of them to be a serious couple. Really, lady? The world has fallen apart and THIS is your priority? Maybe if your personality weren't a that of a blubbery, bipolar bitch he'd WANT to be in a relationship with you. I dunno. "Billy, you want to run off and save a bunch of people from disaster?! YOU SELFISH JERK! What about ME worrying about you?!" Okay, so that isn't an actual line of dialogue, but that about sums up her character. Setting aside my dislike for the characters, the way this thing is written is terrible. I feel like I could have written this in high school and done a better job of it. There really isn't any sort of ongoing plot that I can discern. The world changes out from under them, and then it's action sequence after action sequence. It reads like it's trying to be a television series from the 1980s. I mean, the point of view changes frequently for brief snippets, and I can totally see it TRYING to be set up for an action adventure visual medium, where major mood and setting decisions are left up to the director and not the writer. When I read a book in an alien land, I want it to paint a picture, but I just got a bunch of vague stuff, so that when he actually DID write some specifics about certain things it felt waaaay out of place. Additionally, he sometimes shifts the writing from dialogue and description to internal monologues for some reason. Most of that stuff he could have easily summarized in third person omniscient description text and it would have flowed much smoother. There was no "grace" or "craft" to this writing style. He repeated words and phrases often, some of his dialogue comes off as out-of-place campy, and it was mostly just simple events laid out on the page. Finally, the author kind of lost me part way through the book with the "fractured time" concept. The way he explained it as pieces of civilizations disappearing into this fractured realm was great, but then the plane survivors are able to radio Washington DC? What? I could understand if it was just Philadelphia sucked into this strange world, but what is he getting at? The WHOLE world? That doesn't make sense under his own theory!
Overall, this book was written as to go from event to event without very much in between, especially character development. There are about six main characters and we know the basics about them, and that's where they stay. They don't really grow or learn from their experiences (the ONLY concession I would make to that is at the end of the book Billy accepts Penny. Yes, it takes him the whole damn book and I still didn't understand WHY, seeing as to how she is CRAZY). The book does lay the ground work of building up to the catastrophe through time well, but then it's all one stupid action scene after another. Some people may like it if they enjoy stories about people fighting monsters all the time with not much else happening and a VERY simple writing style. This book is part one to a series. I don't think I'll read the rest.
D+
