The Time Travel Journals
Three years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing both of Marlene Dotterer’s Time Travel Journal novels, Shipbuilder and Bridgebuilders for Big Al’s Books and Pals. I enjoyed those time travel YA books so much, I want to resurrect the reviews for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. -Pop
Casey Wilson, a coed at Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland, takes a shortcut back to her dorm room when she bumps into physicist, Dr. Sam Altair. Sam’s time travel research is about to lose funding, so he feels pressure to perform one last unauthorized experiment to prove his theory. The unexpected rendezvous in the Botanic Garden leads to an accident transporting Casey and Sam 100 years back in time to 1906, six years before the launching of the Titanic.
Marlene Dotterer immediately engages her reader in this marvelous historical novel about the Titanic shipbuilders of Belfast, Ireland. Since her female protagonist, Casey, is 20-years-old, sexagenarian Sam takes her under his wing as his ward in this male dominated early 19th Century society. They concoct a believable backstory and begin to live in a culture about to explode over Catholic/Protestant differences.
Sam and Casey decide to write journals in a hope to change history for the better. When they meet Tom Andrews, a shipbuilder destined to help design and build the Titanic, the duo take it upon themselves to save lives.
The Time Travel Journals: Shipbuilder is one book you will hate to put down. It’s engaging characters, fascinating premise, and well-researched storyline will keep pages turning until its satisfying conclusion. The only negative about Dotterer’s book is that it ended. Fortunately, the sequel, The Time Travel Journals: Bridgebuilders is reviewed below.
In 1977 Sam Altair, fresh out of graduate school, learns he has inherited the life work of Dr. Sam Altair, an older version of himself. The older Sam transported back in time in 2006 with Casey, a young coed, to 1906. It was a physics experiment gone awry, and it created a new universe. From the older Sam’s notes, the help of Jamie, and Sarah Andrews, Casey’s descendants, Sam constructs a bridge back to the future and the original Sam’s universe.
In this exciting sequel to The Time Travel Journals: Shipbuilder, Marlene Dotterer brings us its sequel, The Time Travel Journals: Bridgebuilders. In an easy reading fluid style we learn how Casey and Sam affected their new universe in positive ways. The universe they left behind is ruled, in 2080, by an oligarchy headed by the Sun Consortium. The earth is dying, individual freedom is but a memory, and many of its citizens work secretly to overthrow the shackles of their government’s tyranny. To add to the mess, scientists uncover neutrinos, a signature that a race of beings may be invading their world.
The invaders are Sam and Sarah testing their invention, but when they crossover to the First Universe a hundred years in the future, they are in for an unwanted surprise.
Weather you read Dotterer’s first novel in this series or not, this Bridgebuilders is a wonderful science fiction thriller revealing the evils of religious zealotry, the affects of global warming, and the triumph of reason over fear.
About the Author
Author, geologist, chef, and frustrated gardener, Marlene Dotterer writes “to silence the voices” due to her obsession of other worlds and other times. Born in Tucson, Arizona, she migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1990 with her five children. Besides the Time Travel Journals, Dotterer’s writings include Moon Over Donamorgh, Worlds Apart and the futuristic Christmas short story, “The Farm.”
Pop’s rating for both books:
I think historical novels are great.