TimeRiders 6: City of Shadows by Alex Scarrow

Publisher: Puffin
Pages: 432
Year: 2012 (2 August)
Buy: Paperback, Kindle
Source: Bought copy

Review
What a series! TimeRiders is without doubt my favourite series of novels. The bookshops may put the books on the shelves for teens or younger readers but make no mistake – Alex Scarrow’s TimeRiders series is ageless in its appeal and is scifi at its best. The reasons for this are simple: brilliant plotting, fine writing, an utterly intriguing premise and a bunch of teens that you cannot help but fall in love with.

Here is my brief synopsis of the premise from my tribute to TimeRiders on My Favourite Books: ‘Three teens are given a choice in the seconds before their death – choose life and become a member of an agency so secret no-one knows its name or die for sure. But this is no normal life that they’re offered. All three will live locked within a time bubble, lodged under an arch in New York City during the two days of 10 and 11 September 2001. Their job is to watch for timewaves and ripples; evidence that something has happened to alter the past and so change the present. When that occurs, they must go back in time and fix it. So Liam (Titanic 1912), Maddy (plane crash 2010) and Sal (fire 2029) are recruited by the old man Foster and joined by a seven-foot support unit, Bob, an artificial intelligence and a killing machine that they have grown in a tube within their bubble.’

There would be no sense in reading City of Shadows if you have not read the others first. There are threads of story that have twisted their way through the timeweaving plots since the beginning and now, as we reach the sixth book in a series that will number nine in total, we have reached a crucial point. Maddy, Liam and Sal are now beginning to have just an inkling of the significance of what has happened to them while we, the spellbound reader, is starting to understand the meaning of some of the events and characters that we have met through the novels.

It would be impossible to say much about City of Shadows without giving anything away. At this point of the series everything matters. To be brief and careful then, this novel picks up immediately from Gates of Rome and Maddy, Liam, Sal and Bob (as well as a couple of new additions to the team) are on the run. The difference in this book from the others is that for most of it the team are not trying to fix altered time, instead there is much more explanation of the reasons for the Agency as well as the motives of its creator. It is no less exciting and gripping for that. Adventures are many but now much of the drama is internalised inside our young and brave friends.

There is, though, a timeleap and this time we’re sent back to Holborn, London in 1888. Dangers walk these streets.

As you’d expect from Alex Scarrow, he can breathe life and thrills into every time period – whether we’re back fighting World War II, walking with dinosaurs, in Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood, in the American Civil War or scaring the wits out of ancient Romans, every page smells and tastes of the time. The dark, frightening and impoverished streets of the late Victorian East End are no less brilliantly described in City of Shadows. There are also vivid glimpses of future times. The past and future are always present in the TimeRiders novels.

But the main strength of City of Shadows, as it is in all the others, is the huge appeal of the brave and warm teens and their fiercely loyal bodyguard and friend Bob. After six novels we care very much. When this novel ends there is some comfort knowing that the next is just six months or so away. Time to start preparing myself for the end of the ninth…

You can find here reviews of:
TimeRiders 2: Day of the Predator
TimeRiders 3: The Doomsday Code
TimeRiders 4: The Eternal War.
TimeRiders 5: Gates of Rome

Other Alex Scarrow novels:
October Skies
The Candle Man

Meeting the Scarrows.

TimeRiders 5: Gates of Rome by Alex Scarrow

Publisher: Puffin
Pages: 438
Year: 2012
Buy: Paperback, Kindle
Source: Bought Collectors Edition

Review
It is no secret that I am a huge fan of Alex Scarrow, in particular his TimeRiders series, which might in theory be a Young Adult series but in reality is a series that is ageless in its appeal. I look forward to few books as much as these and I am so pleased, but not at all surprised, to find that the fifth TimeRiders novel, Gates of Rome, is quite possibly the best.

The premise of the TimeRiders series is fantastic (with apologies for quoting myself from my overview of the series for My Favourite Books): ‘Three teens are given a choice in the seconds before their death – choose life and become a member of an agency so secret no-one knows its name or die for sure. But this is no normal life that they’re offered. All three will live locked within a time bubble, lodged under an arch in New York City during the two days of 10 and 11 September 2001. Their job is to watch for timewaves and ripples; evidence that something has happened to alter the past and so change the present. When that occurs, they must go back in time and fix it. So Liam (Titanic 1912), Maddy (plane crash 2010) and Sal (fire 2029) are recruited by the old man Foster and joined by a seven-foot support unit, Bob, an artificial intelligence and a killing machine that they have grown in a tube within their bubble.’

Each novel takes the TimeRiders on adventures into a misshaped past but there is another story that travels through the books, becoming both more mysterious and clearer with each one – the secrets behind the creation of the agency and what ‘the end’ really means. And so the novels combine brilliantly imagined new stories in different periods of the past (dinosaurs, Robin Hood, American Civil War for example) with glimpses of the future, while elaborating on mysteries and characters in which we have developed a close interest and fascination. By the end of this fifth novel, some questions have been answered but even more have been raised.

Without giving anything away, TimeRiders 5 takes Liam, Maddy and Sal, along with Bob, back to Rome in AD54. Caligula should have been dead for years but he is very much alive, living the belief that he is a god. This has been ingrained into him by the arrival of a group of Visitors 17 years before, accompanied by hovercraft, fierce giant soldiers and Bruce Springsteen (on record if not in person). This major transgression into the past from an unknown future causes a time wave that our young heroes must repel while also fighting for their lives against another set of visitors into their own 2001 time bubble. It is clear that the future is beginning to catch up with Liam, Maddy and Sal.

There is an added excitement in Gates of Rome thanks to the appearance of Macro and Cato, familiar and much loved figures from the popular Roman series by Alex Scarrow’s brother Simon. And then there’s Caligula, surely the most notorious of all Romans. Alex Scarrow depicts the horror of this Rome perfectly – this series is for teens not children and so there is violence, blood, torture and death and even worse, all presented with the most enormous and riveting skill. Above it all, though, are Liam, Maddy, Sal and Bob.

Alex Scarrow is a wonderful writer, expert at combining pace, drama, emotion and imagination with characters it’s hard not to care for. I’m looking forward to his next Adult Fiction novel – The Candle Man (Jack the Ripper on the Titanic – irresistible) but I am very glad that the TimeRiders series continues to go from strength to strength. Long may it continue!

You can find here reviews of:
TimeRiders 2: Day of the Predator
TimeRiders 3: The Doomsday Code
TimeRiders 4: The Eternal War.

TimeRiders 5: Gates of Rome is published on 2 February.

TimeRiders 4: The Eternal War by Alex Scarrow

Publisher: Puffin
Pages: 416
Year: 2011
Buy: Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
When a series of book is as good as Alex Scarrow’s TimeRiders set of novels, it seems almost irrelevant where the’re placed in a bookshop. No doubt, you’ll find them on the Young Adult or Teenager shelves. I may or may not be a teenager but I am sure of one thing: the TimeRiders novels make perfect reading for anyone, whatever the number of grey hairs on their head, of if they have none at all.

They have everything going for them, whether it’s the fantastic idea behind them, the brave and likeable characters, the incredible situations  in which they find themselves, or the superb writing. Alex Scarrow knows exactly where he’s going with what will be a set of nine novels and that confidence and conviction shines through every page-turning page.

At this stage, I would suggest that you read my overview of Alex Scarrows’ TimeRiders novels over at My Favourite Books. My enthusiasm for them was such that I was kindly invited to say a few words, words that grew and grew in number such was my eagerness to spread the word about these wonderful stories. The kind of story you stay up until midnight on the night of its release so that you can find it on your kindle within an instant of its publication. That’s what I did with The Eternal War, the recent fourth in the series.

So please read the overview and then come back…

Now that you know the background to the series, I’ll focus here on The Eternal War, published last month (July 2011).

This fourth book is slightly different to the preceding three. This time, much of the action is set in 2001, but in a near present that is much changed from how we know it. All because Abraham Lincoln had a drink too many and landed under the wheel of a cart. This being TimeRiders, things aren’t quite that simple – both about Lincoln and about the cart – but the result is that Lincoln finds himself back in 2001 having to survive in a Civil War that has never ended but the cause has long since been forgotten. He’s not on his own. Liam, Sal and Maddy, along with support units Bob and Becks, are with him, each trapped in their own world of danger.

It’s a world of chivalry and brutality on all sides – American, French and British all play their part until Americans finally decide, spurred on by the arrival of these strange visitors,  to try and unite together to get history back on track. But beneath the reason lies prejudice, reminiscent of the original conflict over slavery. But now the perceived threat comes from genetically engineered beings, creatures that have been left to run free long enough to gain a soul. The similarities between these beings and Bob and Becks are blatantly obvious and painful to us but the battling soldiers are too blinkered, too fixed.

One characteristic of the series that I have particularly appreciated is Scarrow’s reluctance to judge. There are faults in everyone and there is good in even those who seek to destroy our heroes. Life is complicated and when time is messed with it becomes even more unfathomable. Also, the future that TimeRiders envisages is by no means utopian – it is no wonder that characters seek to go back and change it. Even more worrying is the increasing darkness surrounding ‘The End’. This was mentioned in the third book and continues here, supplemented by other little clues and recurring characters and symbols.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Eternal War although I feel that with this book in particular the story took second place to the need to give us more context for the characters. It’s less light than the preceding three and is without the travels in time to distant times and places that helped to make the other books so appealing. I can see why this was necessary though as the series continues on its purpose. The undertones of this series are also not to underestimated. The impact of mankind and its decisions on our planet have preoccupied Scarrow’s other novels and he does not shy from presenting similar themes here.

That being said, there is enough action and imminent danger here for even the most peril-demanding reader.

I’ll be interested  - to put it mildly! – to see what happens next to characters that I greatly care for in a series I adore.

Alex runs a great website for TimeRiders and its readers. Take a look here.

Other reviews:
TimeRiders 3: The Doomsday Code
TimeRiders 2: Day of the Predator
Review of TimeRiders 1 to come!

TimeRiders 3: The Doomsday Code by Alex Scarrow

Publisher: sPenguin, Puffin
Pages: 448
Year: 2011
Buy: Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the TimeRiders series by Alex Scarrow, so much so that I delayed reading this third novel as long as I could bear, simply because I didn’t want it finished, with me tapping my feet impatiently and waiting for number four.

The Doomsday Code finds our three young time travellers a little more wary as well as accustomed to the shocks that ripple through their time bubble set for 10 and 11 September 2001 when a wave through time is triggered. In this book, our hero Liam is sent back with larger than life Becks and Bob to Oxford and Nottingham in 1194 to fix the efforts of The Hood to alter the history of John and Richard and, as a result, the history of Britain and the Americas. No characters are quite what we would expect. As usual, Scarrow demonstrates that the history that we know is not necessarily as it was – we see what the victors write. When you’re in the thick of it, it could seem very different.

This third novel is a little more poignant than the preceding two, bringing the reality of 9/11 closer. It always exists within these books but this time we get a bit nearer to the horror. Maddy and Sal develop further too while Liam, first met in the corridors of the sinking Titanic, gets the first inkling that none of this may end well for him.

This may be a YA novel but it would be a shame if readers of all ages didn’t enjoy it. I can’t wait to see what will happen next.

Time Riders 4: The Eternal War is expected in July.

TimeRiders 2: Day of the Predator by Alex Scarrow

Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 448
Year: 2011
Buy: Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
A real highlight of the first Time Riders novel was the originality of the premise and the shock to the system that the youngsters suffered as they were wrenched out of their own time. With that inevitably missing from the sequel, Day of the Predator was always going to have to work harder. Nevertheless, Scarrow does a great job of letting us get to know Maddy, Liam and Sal that much better. And there are plenty of twists, some shocking.

Instead of support unit Bob, we have a female, Becks. Her interaction with Liam and the world around her is a treat here.

As before, Scarrow doesn’t pull his punches for a young readership and he doesn’t talk down. What will appeal to most, whatever age, is that this book is set in the time of the dinosaurs, some of whom may have been more intelligent than they’ve been given credit for. The world that Scarrow creates pulls the reader in. It’s quite extraordinary. And, with time waves rippling, you never quite know what will happen next.

This is most definitely a series to be read in sequence.