Golden Girl

by Henry Melton

Debra Barr was barely out of bed when she found herself thrust into a pivotal role in the future of the human race. Hey, she wanted to be more than just a small town girl, but this was ridiculous! Plucked out of her bedroom in small town Oquawka, Illinois to a future Earth destroyed and poisoned by a major asteroid impact, the future scientists explained how she could walk a few steps differently, and with YouTube, save the planet. But everything they told her was wrong. Instead of returning to her bedroom, she appeared two hundred years in the past, in the wilderness on the banks of the Mississippi River and it was up to her to discover the rules of time travel without killing herself or anyone else in the process. Bouncing through time, only one thing was certain, anything she decided to do could mean life or death for her family and friends and the route she chose would likely cost her everything. Unfortunately, the more she discovered, the more she suspected that everyone was lying to her.

276 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

About the author

Henry Melton is often on the road with his wife Mary Ann, a nature photographer and frequently captivated by the places he visits. This has inspired his latest series of novels; Small Towns, Big Ideas. Formerly a programmer specializing in database work and web design, he pioneered Internet use for a Fortune 500 company until the tech bubble collapse. In the early days of home computers, he created one of the earliest commercial word processing programs, and built his own computers back when that meant wiring the chips together by hand to his own schematics.
Henry's short fiction has been published in many magazines and anthologies, most frequently in ANALOG. Catacomb, published in DRAGON magazine, is considered a classic, and by the continuing fan mail twenty years later, a formative influence among modern computer gaming programmers. Many of these are available for free on his website.
Other than an occasional short story, most of his time is spent writing science fiction YA novels. Currently being published by Wire Rim Books are the Small Towns, Big Ideas series of books, where high school aged heroes of the here and now are confronted with classic science fiction themes. The first, Emperor Dad, was the winner of the 2008 Darrell Award for Best Novel.
Sharing what he's learned about the art, craft, and business of writing has been an on-going part of his life, from grade school readings to teaching formal classes and veranda coaching for the students of George Benson Christian College in Zambia during his 2007 trip to Africa.

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Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

The opening pages were a great hook. Debra wakes up in a strange room surrounded by people in hazmat suits. They tell her she's in the future where an asteroid collided with Earth and killed billions of people. They can't affect the past, but hopefully she can affect her present. When they send her back instead of her bed she's further back in time, and swings back and forth until she makes it back to her present. Where now she's left with knowing that an asteroid will kill billions of people in twelve years unless she can do something about it.

Interesting twist on time travel. People from the past are more real and can easily affect the future, in the past you're less real, e.g. don't leave any footprints. Fast, fun read, loved Debra, the humor was good, like getting called "golden girl" in totally independent situations, the coincidences didn't feel contrived, but attributable to destiny or whatever. 4.85 stars. I wasn't sure that disappearing for twelve years was necessary, I would have thought once the early warning system was in place, that was as much as she could personally do to deflect the asteroid. I guess she was playing it safe. I wasn't sure why meteor-girl Debra went into hiding but a lot of questions we didn't know we had were answered

[Michael Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best time travel tale in a long time. Scientist know the means but time has it's own formula. Our young traveller gets yanked forward with no apparent trouble despite not really fitting into the future. She can not touch anything as it will fall apart. But she can listen to those who brought her forward and must accept their means of getting her home and why she is important. But then TIME gets into the procedure and she bounces up and down her timeline as she closes in on home.

[Cait · Rating 4 out of 5]

GOLDEN GIRL is an engaging, entertaining and enjoyable young adult sci-fi novel.

Debra is tasked with changing the future and saving millions of people from death. She winds up bouncing through time, changing history and at one point even disappearing from history itself (or does she?). There’s also a pretty neat use of the internet and what can only be Youtube involved.

At 267 pages, GOLDEN GIRL is a decent sized book. The pacing is kept steady with no lags in action or information, and the writing drew me in right away. Characterization was wonderful; Debra goes through major growth throughout the novel due to her time traveling and the burden that’s placed on her shoulders. As for plot? It was wicked. I was kept guessing at moments about what would happen next, and there’s one point in the story that involved Debra’s mother that made me freak out loud. As soon as the scene began I had a feeling about what was coming, and I was completely right – it was crazy. The time traveling is also a pretty imaginative explanation.

Of course, with time travel comes the immediate wonder about a paradox and how it can be avoided. The idea of a paradox (if Debra is brought to the future and told to change it, and she does, doesn’t that mean there was never any reason for her to be pulled into the future and so she wouldn’t have changed it, and…I could go on. You see my dilemma?) is not really touched on in great detail, and there were some instances I was a little conflicted about time lines. The concept may be a bit hard for a younger reader to understand if they’re not so well versed in abstract thinking (or sci-fi), but overall it was handled really, really well.

Debra’s solution to changing the future is hard and sad for a lot of people, including her, and though the book technically has a happy ending, I found it more bittersweet. It was a perfect ending for the book, though, it fit the storyline and overall feel of the novel. This is a great book for not only teens and pre-teens but adults as well, and crosses genre lines. Even if you’re not a huge fan of sci-fi, GOLDEN GIRL is worth the read.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Debra Barr is pulled out of her own time into the future, but it isn't a happy future, though she might be able to change that. Before she returns to her own time she ends up swinging back and forth from the past to the future, learning and (possibly) changing things along the way. The question is, how far will she go to save the world?

My favorite thing about this book was its handling of time travel. Even this difficult concept is made simple by the way it is written into the story. Basically, when someone goes to the future, they affect it more (easily breaking things, etc) because they are more real than it is. This works in opposite for someone traveling to the past.

I highly recommend checking this out.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met the author at All-Con in Dallas, a multi-aspect fan convention. He is writing sci-fi for teenagers and I especially loved seeing several female heroines. But little did I expect this time travel novel to be so interesting (and even complicated) scientifically. Some new problems/ aspects to time travel were introduced that I'd never seen before. Kudos. I will read more of your books, Mr. Melton!