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Time Waits For No One: The Chronocar Chronicles
Time travel is incredibly dangerous. Building a time machine is surprisingly simple. In 2015 Tony Carpenter stumbled upon the plans for the Chronocar, a time machine conceived before it could be built by Dr. Simmie Johnson, genius, scientist, and son of a slave. Tony’s visit to 1919 to see the doctor and his lovely daughter Ollie turned into disaster, forcing the doctor to make a most difficult final decision.Now the timeline has worked its way back to 2012. A new Tony Carpenter is about to be hit by a real blast from the past when he chances upon Dr. Johnson's granddaughter, who has a story he can hardly believe and evidence of a journey to the past he can't deny. When Tony shows up in 1919 yet again, Dr. Johnson is confronted with the possibility of his invention ultimately obliterating all of creation. Can they locate and destroy all the copies of the journal with his article and any Chronocars that may exist before everything literally goes to hell?“With relatable characters and a clever storyline, it is a fascinating novel that will thrill science fiction fans who relish stories that travel back in time.”-- Susan Sewell for Readers’ Favorite
157 pages, Paperback
Published October 9, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 23, 2022
Steve Bellinger takes the time travel paradox seriously. Time Waits for No One is the sequel to The Chronocar, which won several awards. In The Chronocar, a young black man in Chicago, Tony Carpenter, builds a time-travel machine and goes back to 1919, where things go deadly wrong. That was the year of the “Red Summer” riots by white supremacists.
In the sequel, Tony is time traveling again, a different Tony in a different timeline, and things go wrong in a different and even more deadly way.
The story moves fast, with both serious and funny moments, but eventually Tony has to take responsibility for catastrophes that he might not be able to solve. As with The Chronocar, I especially recommend this book to YA readers.
Oh, and about halfway through the book, the Earth is destroyed. I always enjoy it when that happens in a story. But this is time travel, so maybe the Earth can be rescued…
In the sequel, Tony is time traveling again, a different Tony in a different timeline, and things go wrong in a different and even more deadly way.
The story moves fast, with both serious and funny moments, but eventually Tony has to take responsibility for catastrophes that he might not be able to solve. As with The Chronocar, I especially recommend this book to YA readers.
Oh, and about halfway through the book, the Earth is destroyed. I always enjoy it when that happens in a story. But this is time travel, so maybe the Earth can be rescued…
October 10, 2020
Dr Simmie Johnson, the son of a slave, has devised a plan for Time Travel.
When a young African, American Tech Student, Tony, discovers this plan, he wonders whether he can travel back in time, to meet the doctor in person.
One fateful day, Tony meets Martha, Dr. Johnson's grandaughter. She will pay him a lot of money to find the missing books that have details of her grandfather's research. Is she a madwoman or is she scamming him? She wants all the books with red binding traced and destroyed. She presents Tony with evidence that reveals the true scientific basis for Time Travel and that there is the possibility for the same person to create several lives for himself by journeying through different segments of time. Yet, perhaps there is a reason she has for stopping would-be space travellers in their tracks ...
Nonetheless, Tony visits the great inventor himself, traveling back in time in his spaceship - the Chronocar - to the year 1919. He meets flirtatious Ollie, the doctor's daughter, who hides her intelligence well, until Tony gets to know her better, and a love interest sub-plot develops. When he lets her into the secrets of Time Travel, the pair resolve to go back in time, to travel back to the time before a young black boy was killed at the hands of a white man. They want to recreate history and change it for the better. When they do this, a different kind of tragedy occurs. Tony has lost the only love of his life. Perhaps he can go back to before the beginning of Time itself, before the Big Bang seeded the Earth with light, and darkness was full of possibilities.
The intricacies and nuances of this excellent Young Adult novel fascinated me from beginning to ending.
What I especially enjoyed about this book was the way in which this novel with grand, sweeping themes: Racism, Inequality and Social Injustice, and one that warns us of a Dystopian future, portrays in intimate ethnographic detail the simple realities of ordinary lives; lives in which we work, eat chips, drink beer, fall in love, fight for ourselves, our values, our little existences. In particular, the tragic heroine Ollie, helps enlighten our (anti) hero so that he sees anew the fragile optimism and hope on which the very thread human survival depends. Have we made progress? Here is Ollie's glimpse of 2012:
"Wait, you mean to tell me that you can send people to the moon, watch movies in color on big screens in your homes, and use computer machines to play games, but you can't feed the hungry ..."
So many mistakes have been made on Tony's multiple experimental "journeys" he has to repair the damage he and the human race have made: "The Universe needs fixing." Our hero resolves to travel back in this Chronostar, this crazy time-travel machine, to the time before the Big Bang; to the time before the beginning of the world's mightiest explosion sent everything on its course ..
All in all, this book is a fast-paced, exciting, imaginative story based in reality, with an ambiguous yet hopeful dramatic ending. Highly Recommended!
Suzy Davies, Author, "The Girl in The Red Cape: A Mystical Sled Ride"
When a young African, American Tech Student, Tony, discovers this plan, he wonders whether he can travel back in time, to meet the doctor in person.
One fateful day, Tony meets Martha, Dr. Johnson's grandaughter. She will pay him a lot of money to find the missing books that have details of her grandfather's research. Is she a madwoman or is she scamming him? She wants all the books with red binding traced and destroyed. She presents Tony with evidence that reveals the true scientific basis for Time Travel and that there is the possibility for the same person to create several lives for himself by journeying through different segments of time. Yet, perhaps there is a reason she has for stopping would-be space travellers in their tracks ...
Nonetheless, Tony visits the great inventor himself, traveling back in time in his spaceship - the Chronocar - to the year 1919. He meets flirtatious Ollie, the doctor's daughter, who hides her intelligence well, until Tony gets to know her better, and a love interest sub-plot develops. When he lets her into the secrets of Time Travel, the pair resolve to go back in time, to travel back to the time before a young black boy was killed at the hands of a white man. They want to recreate history and change it for the better. When they do this, a different kind of tragedy occurs. Tony has lost the only love of his life. Perhaps he can go back to before the beginning of Time itself, before the Big Bang seeded the Earth with light, and darkness was full of possibilities.
The intricacies and nuances of this excellent Young Adult novel fascinated me from beginning to ending.
What I especially enjoyed about this book was the way in which this novel with grand, sweeping themes: Racism, Inequality and Social Injustice, and one that warns us of a Dystopian future, portrays in intimate ethnographic detail the simple realities of ordinary lives; lives in which we work, eat chips, drink beer, fall in love, fight for ourselves, our values, our little existences. In particular, the tragic heroine Ollie, helps enlighten our (anti) hero so that he sees anew the fragile optimism and hope on which the very thread human survival depends. Have we made progress? Here is Ollie's glimpse of 2012:
"Wait, you mean to tell me that you can send people to the moon, watch movies in color on big screens in your homes, and use computer machines to play games, but you can't feed the hungry ..."
So many mistakes have been made on Tony's multiple experimental "journeys" he has to repair the damage he and the human race have made: "The Universe needs fixing." Our hero resolves to travel back in this Chronostar, this crazy time-travel machine, to the time before the Big Bang; to the time before the beginning of the world's mightiest explosion sent everything on its course ..
All in all, this book is a fast-paced, exciting, imaginative story based in reality, with an ambiguous yet hopeful dramatic ending. Highly Recommended!
Suzy Davies, Author, "The Girl in The Red Cape: A Mystical Sled Ride"
June 4, 2022
TIME WAITS FOR NO ONE BY STEVE BELLINGER
Obscurely fascinating, the weirdness of time travels.
"He had just done the impossible. Traveled several years into the past and killed his father, years before Johnny would be born. So, how was it that he was still there?" An excerpt from page 9.
Following on from Tony Carpenter's adventurous journey into the past in The Chronocar: An Urban Adventure In Time, it's exciting to experience this story continues in Time Waits For No One, a novel that held me captive until I finished indulging my relatable emotions in it, it is obscurely fascinating and explored on the eeriness of time travel.
Time traveler, Johnny had built a Chronocar from reading Dr. Johnson's article on time travel, and he had traveled into the past from the future to kill his father, Augie Furst. The oddity of this event coupled with his unbelievable assertions about coming to present a birthday gift to his father was what made him land in jail after the police arrested him. Reading through this part made me laugh at Officer O'Donnell's confusing speech at the weirdness of Johnny's claim. However, Johnny eventually finds his way to visit Dr. Johnson and bid him to explain how this could ever happen, "if he killed his father, how would he(Augie) have met his mother and how would he(Johnny) have been born?" he was shocked when Dr. Johnson said it's possible.
Moving into the transition of how some silly historians messed around with religious history and traveled through time to witness the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they funnily met their desired shock. Dr. Johnson had seen how this time travel is driving people crazy and causing a lot of havoc, he regretted having written a book about it and he set himself to destroy other available books. I love the scenario whereby Martha gave Tony a phone that had been kept since 90 years ago. Tony was shocked to discover some pictures on the phone, a photograph of an old woman and someone that look exactly like himself, he had to revisit Martha and query her, Martha told him that it was the picture of her mother Ollie, standing beside a Time Traveler called Tony Carpenter who landed on her grandfather's house years ago.
This sent Tony into absolute curiosity and confusion, Martha told him more about the first Tony Carpenter, his education at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and other crucial things, at some point, Tony was agape asking if he was the first Tony. Following this twist, Martha, in other to prevent subsequent time travelers paid Tony to find and destroy the books that contain Dr. Johnson's article, this sets Tony on another journey, the story unfolds and Tony together with Art arrived in 1958, they'd traveled 54 years back in time.
Much like the first book series, Time Waits For No One also expounds on racism, this is evidenced in Dr. Johnson's attempt at publishing his book, and his higher education pursuit, as well as in Tony's visit to 1958 where a simple sip of water led him to become an overnight prisoner. Eventually, Tony escaped racism and fled with his fellow prisoner to get back to his Chronocar where he was set to re-visit Dr. Johnson, it was surprising that he met Ollie here. One of the reasons why I find this book to be obscurely fascinating was the point whereby Tony could tell of upcoming future events, about Ollie marrying Joker, and him having met Ollie's daughter who hasn't been born yet, and his travels back in time that follows more hilarious, hazy experiences, all of which made for an interesting read.
There are more interesting facts that I wouldn't be able to contain in this review in an attempt to make it a spoiler-free, however, this book left me with questions; if a Chronocar could ever exist, I'd love to use it to visit my forefathers, I'd love to go back to the years when the Nigerian pound was once a powerful currency in the world, I would have loved to experience how the British colonized Nigeria, I would have loved to go back to those years and probably prevent the Biafra War, and prevent the death of some of my relatives and millions of innocent souls. If I could have a chance, I would have gone 7 years back in my life and made some crucial adjustments to prevent the pains of today, but sadly, Time Waits For No One.
This book left me feeling contemplative and reminiscent of choices that I've made in my own life. Once more, Steve Bellinger proves himself to be a versatile and talented sci-fiction writer, and I am a fan of his works. This isn't just an ordinary sci-fiction novel, it goes beyond the ordinary story, it is a novel that, if interpreted in different ways, would make us understand the essentiality of time, and perhaps, the danger of time travels as posit by Bellinger. Told in a distinctive style of storytelling, energetic characterization and impressive transition, if you have ever questioned the significance of time in a man's life, I'm pretty sure this book will interest you. I'll continue to think about this book over and over again, and would recommend this to lovers of sci-fiction, philosophy, and literature at large.
Obscurely fascinating, the weirdness of time travels.
"He had just done the impossible. Traveled several years into the past and killed his father, years before Johnny would be born. So, how was it that he was still there?" An excerpt from page 9.
Following on from Tony Carpenter's adventurous journey into the past in The Chronocar: An Urban Adventure In Time, it's exciting to experience this story continues in Time Waits For No One, a novel that held me captive until I finished indulging my relatable emotions in it, it is obscurely fascinating and explored on the eeriness of time travel.
Time traveler, Johnny had built a Chronocar from reading Dr. Johnson's article on time travel, and he had traveled into the past from the future to kill his father, Augie Furst. The oddity of this event coupled with his unbelievable assertions about coming to present a birthday gift to his father was what made him land in jail after the police arrested him. Reading through this part made me laugh at Officer O'Donnell's confusing speech at the weirdness of Johnny's claim. However, Johnny eventually finds his way to visit Dr. Johnson and bid him to explain how this could ever happen, "if he killed his father, how would he(Augie) have met his mother and how would he(Johnny) have been born?" he was shocked when Dr. Johnson said it's possible.
Moving into the transition of how some silly historians messed around with religious history and traveled through time to witness the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they funnily met their desired shock. Dr. Johnson had seen how this time travel is driving people crazy and causing a lot of havoc, he regretted having written a book about it and he set himself to destroy other available books. I love the scenario whereby Martha gave Tony a phone that had been kept since 90 years ago. Tony was shocked to discover some pictures on the phone, a photograph of an old woman and someone that look exactly like himself, he had to revisit Martha and query her, Martha told him that it was the picture of her mother Ollie, standing beside a Time Traveler called Tony Carpenter who landed on her grandfather's house years ago.
This sent Tony into absolute curiosity and confusion, Martha told him more about the first Tony Carpenter, his education at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and other crucial things, at some point, Tony was agape asking if he was the first Tony. Following this twist, Martha, in other to prevent subsequent time travelers paid Tony to find and destroy the books that contain Dr. Johnson's article, this sets Tony on another journey, the story unfolds and Tony together with Art arrived in 1958, they'd traveled 54 years back in time.
Much like the first book series, Time Waits For No One also expounds on racism, this is evidenced in Dr. Johnson's attempt at publishing his book, and his higher education pursuit, as well as in Tony's visit to 1958 where a simple sip of water led him to become an overnight prisoner. Eventually, Tony escaped racism and fled with his fellow prisoner to get back to his Chronocar where he was set to re-visit Dr. Johnson, it was surprising that he met Ollie here. One of the reasons why I find this book to be obscurely fascinating was the point whereby Tony could tell of upcoming future events, about Ollie marrying Joker, and him having met Ollie's daughter who hasn't been born yet, and his travels back in time that follows more hilarious, hazy experiences, all of which made for an interesting read.
There are more interesting facts that I wouldn't be able to contain in this review in an attempt to make it a spoiler-free, however, this book left me with questions; if a Chronocar could ever exist, I'd love to use it to visit my forefathers, I'd love to go back to the years when the Nigerian pound was once a powerful currency in the world, I would have loved to experience how the British colonized Nigeria, I would have loved to go back to those years and probably prevent the Biafra War, and prevent the death of some of my relatives and millions of innocent souls. If I could have a chance, I would have gone 7 years back in my life and made some crucial adjustments to prevent the pains of today, but sadly, Time Waits For No One.
This book left me feeling contemplative and reminiscent of choices that I've made in my own life. Once more, Steve Bellinger proves himself to be a versatile and talented sci-fiction writer, and I am a fan of his works. This isn't just an ordinary sci-fiction novel, it goes beyond the ordinary story, it is a novel that, if interpreted in different ways, would make us understand the essentiality of time, and perhaps, the danger of time travels as posit by Bellinger. Told in a distinctive style of storytelling, energetic characterization and impressive transition, if you have ever questioned the significance of time in a man's life, I'm pretty sure this book will interest you. I'll continue to think about this book over and over again, and would recommend this to lovers of sci-fiction, philosophy, and literature at large.
June 21, 2021
Steve Bellinger’s DIY time machine, the Chronocar, is on the clock again. The machine is the brainchild of Dr. Simmie Johnson, the genius son of a slave, who published a blueprint of it in the obscure Negro Journal of Science. In The Chronocar, a young black student named Tony Carpenter stumbled upon those plans and realized that by using a computer as the “electronic brain” of the contraption, he could actually build one. The problem is, whenever you ride a Chronocar back in time, all of the present up to that point vanishes, and lots of “temporal energy” is unleashed, making the universe more chaotic and brutal. And in The Chronocar’s sequel, Time Waits For No One, we find that it’s not only Tony who has discovered Dr. Johnson’s article. It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet these days…
Bellinger lets science derive the plot points in this fast-paced adventure novel, though he briefly pauses to observe both the romance and racial inequalities of the past. If you enjoyed The Chronocar, you'll find Time Waits For No One a memorable sequel.
Bellinger lets science derive the plot points in this fast-paced adventure novel, though he briefly pauses to observe both the romance and racial inequalities of the past. If you enjoyed The Chronocar, you'll find Time Waits For No One a memorable sequel.
March 10, 2024
Even in a new reality our main chronocar pilot makes it back to the doctor and his daughter, but he still makes the same mistakes. Well he is only human. I loved how the story ended, or did it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews