Vortex (Tempest #2)

My sticking point through all of this is the logic of time travel. I've said before that there are countless different approaches to the subject, and as long as you explain the rules, any and all of them can make sense. In Tempest, Cross outlined what seemed to be this universe's rules.

My sticking point through all of this is the logic of time travel. I've said before that there are countless different approaches to the subject, and as long as you explain the rules, any and all of them can make sense. In Tempest, Cross outlined what seemed to be this universe's rules. Yet here we discover that those weren't so much the actual rules, but the rules as Jackson understands them. And, well, "You know nothing Jackson Meyer."

In Tempest, we learned that Jackson is capable of something he calls a “half-jump.” It’s similar to astral projection -- he can see and interact with people (and they can see him), but he has no effect on the situation, and no one remembers having seen or spoken to him. Meanwhile, his body appears to have gone catatonic in real time. During the stress of seeing Holly get shot, Jackson completes a full jump, back to 2007. It’s unclear at this point (in the first novel) if he’s created an entirely different timeline, or if he’s simply gone back to 2007 in the original timeline, but he gets stuck. In 007, Jackson decides to attempt to prevent Holly’s eventual murder. He reconnects with Adam, his best friend in the 009 timeline, and the two work together to figure out what, exactly, makes Jackson’s time travel work. Meanwhile, it’s clear that other people are capable of making “full” jumps too, and they’re coming for Jackson.

At the end of Tempest, Jackson jumped once again, back to 2009 (from 2007) but in an alternate universe (so it appeared) where he had never met Holly or Adam. He thinks this is the best way to keep them safe, but he can’t stop himself from worrying about both of his friends. In Vortex, we see Jackson become an actual Tempest agent, working to prevent the so-called Enemies of Time (EOTs) from...wreaking havoc, basically. The EOTs attempt a few political murders and kidnappings, but it’s really unclear what their endgame is. It’s also unclear if these “enemies” are actually “bad guys.” And while I’m all for shades of gray, there’s moral ambiguity and there’s muddled storytelling.

Here’s my problem with the rules of time travel in this universe -- it seems like they’re being made up as they go. I can buy that Jackson doesn’t necessarily understand the full scope of his abilities, and he’s confused about what his “powers” actually mean, but at some point, the rules, as they truly apply, need to be laid out. Did Jackson truly create an alternate universe when he jumped back to 2009 from 2007? Or did his actions in 2007 simply alter history? Are there 2 alternate timelines or 3? Will any of these issues be resolved in book 3?

Here’s the thing: I get that time travel is complicated, but there are ways to explain it that make sense. The rules can change in any number of ways, as long as they follow some sort of internal logic. I had myriad problems with 11/22/63, but the rules of time travel were not among them. Every trip through the portal brought you to the same place (in the past, no going forward), and it’s initially thought that every trip is a reset. You go through the portal, you interact with people, and any changes you make will be immediately noticeable upon returning to the present. However. If you go back through the portal, every change you made on your previous trip no longer applies. You’re back to that same day in 1958, and it’s as though you’ve never been there before. By the end of the novel, we learn that this isn’t entirely true -- each trip creates a little “ripple” in time, and the more trips, the more ripples, the more the fabric of time itself is basically being ripped apart. Granted, although Jake makes a couple of preliminary trips, the bulk of the novel is spent with him actually staying in the past, which makes the time travel logic a bit easier to swallow. It’s similar to the “time travel” (with sarcastic quotes) in Shadow of Night -- once the characters are in the past, they stay there. Granted, they should be having a far greater effect on the present than just the convenient clues they leave behind, but again, the logic doesn't make my brain hurt. Even when Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, he’s limited by the span of his life -- it’s basically his consciousness that’s traveling, but he can’t go farther back than his birth or farther forward than his death. He really doesn’t have a home base in the sense that Jackson does, he’s anywhere/everywhere all at once. Even that is easier to follow than what’s laid out here, because he’s stuck in a finite amount of time. Jackson can, ostensibly, go anywhere in the past OR the future...and possible into different timelines as well. It would seem that, in Cross’s universe, the only rule of time travel is that there are no rules.

Oh, the plot you ask? We see Jackson completing his agent training, repairing his relationship with his father (I don’t recall them being so codependently close in Tempest, it’s bizarre), getting to know his partner, being tested by the senior agents, and trying his damndest to stay away from Holly Flynn. He also learns a bit more about his abilities...but for everything he learns (or thinks he’s learned), there are at least half a dozen more questions. For instance, Thomas seems to be the leader of the EOTs, and is capable of making “full” jumps from the future, back to the past, in order to alter it. So basically he’s coming back to the past from the distant future in order to prevent certain events (hence the political assassinations). At first, Jackson thinks Thomas is creating a new universe or timeline with each jump, but it would seem those jumps are all within the same timeline. Unfortunately, since we’re stuck in 2009 with Jackson, it’s unclear what, if any, effect Thomas’s jumps are having on his own home base.

It also turns out that, rather than being safely oblivious to all of this, Holly is actually (view spoiler)[ working for the CIA. She and Adam were recruited by Eyewall, who may or may not be the bad guys. Or Tempest may be the bad guys. Or something. By the end, it seems like Eyewall recruited her deliberately, based on her connection to Jackson. So in trying to save her, Jackson actually condemned her to ridiculous, sleep-depriving, CIA training. (hide spoiler)] Basically, everyone is under attack, all the time. We learn a bit more about Emily, the little redheaded girl from Tempest -- it seems like she’ll be pretty integral to the sequel.

I’m having a hard time nailing down many specifics about the plot itself -- certainly a great deal happens here, and as I said in one of my updates, I appreciate that, while we aren’t in the dark about Jackson’s feelings (and how he’s coping with losing Holly), Cross lets us jump right into action, without spending 100 pages of Jackson dwelling on his pwecious feewings. This feels less like a placeholder book than most 2nd novels in a trilogy.

Part of me wants to stick around for book three, in the hopes that it will make sense of these tangled timelines, and part of me wants to just give up. I don’t like feeling as though I need maps and notes and perhaps an abacus to keep track of the plot of a YA novel (or ANY novel for that matter) I had an easier time keeping track of the characters in A Dance With Dragons. I enjoy the writing style, and the voices of the characters, but the plot itself leaves me cold at this point. I’m also sort of hesitant to put it on my shelf -- partially because of the plethora of f-bombs the characters drop every 2 pages, and partially because I’m not sure any of the kids I have this year would even get through it. I powered through because I was interested in what would happen to Jackson, but I’m not sure many of my students would feel the same pull. It makes me a little sad, to be honest, because I did enjoy the first so much.