Timesplash

Timesplash #1

by Graham Storrs

It started out as something underground, edgy and cool. Then Sniper took it all too far and timesplashing became the ultimate terrorist weapon.



Scarred by their experiences in the time traveling party scene, Jay and Sandra are thrown together in what becomes the biggest manhunt in the search for Sniper, Sandra's ex-boyfriend and a would-be mass murderer.



Set in the near future, Timesplash is a fast-paced action thriller. Filled with great characters, a sprinkling of romance, and a new and intriguing take on time travel, Timesplash is ultimately a very human tale about finding bravery through fear, and never giving up.



Highly recommended for science fiction and thriller enthusiasts alike.





Timesplash is the first book in the Timesplash series. True Timesplash 2 will be released in July 2013.

Genres: Time Travel, Science Fiction, Fiction, Amazon, Adult, Adventure, Thriller

284 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2010

About the author

Graham Storrs lives on a mountaintop in rural Australia with his wife, an Airedale terrier and a Tonkinese cat. He writes science fiction - exploring how science and technology might change our lives and how we might react to it.

He has published children's science books as well as other non-fiction work but, in the past few years, has focused on fiction. His previous novel, Heaven is a Place on Earth, explores the deceptions allowed in a world dominated by augmented and virtual realities. His new novel, Cargo Cult, is a sci-fi comedy adventure.

His début novel, Timesplash, a sci-fi thriller, and its Aurealis Award shortlisted sequel, True Path are published by Pan Macmillan/Momentum.

Reviews

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★s

It was 2047 and fifteen year old “Patty” was having the time of her life. She was about to embark on a new timesplash with her boyfriend Sniper and two of his friends. But stuck up high in the cage with the chanting of hundreds of young people below, she suddenly knew she didn’t want to go through with it. Sniper wasn’t having a bar of it though; ignoring her fears while the countdown went on. Suddenly she was weightless, flying through the blackness and terrified she was going to die…

Jay was only nineteen but in the years since he’d lost his best friend at the timesplash party when it had all gone wrong, he’d joined forces with a team who were determined to stop Sniper and the timesplashing – the time travel was now being used as a terrorist weapon and one disaster was following another, with thousands dying each time.

Sandra had escaped the facility which had held her since that terrible night the timesplash had gone wrong – her paranoia, terror and nightmares were there with her always. But she knew she needed to find Sniper – he was the only one who could allay her fears; give her back her life again. With the police after her, Sandra met up with Jay and together they joined forces to locate Sniper before he created the biggest disaster in history. But could it happen? Was Sniper crazy; would he succeed in his horrific plan?

Timesplash by Aussie author Graham Storrs is a very different take on time travel – filled with tension and very fast paced, the plot is intriguing as well as gruesome (but not “in your face”) There are good guys and bad guys, and the entertainment level is high. Recommended for lovers of science fiction and time travel.

[Janette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a bit wary of time travel novels, because writers either ignore unresolved paradoxes, or get themselves so entangled, they have to make plot holes to clamber out again.

For those unfamiliar with time travel, the most basic paradox is the one where you travel back in time, kill your own grandfather, and consequently never exist in order to go back in time and kill your own.... you get the point.

Happily, Graham Storrs has created a stunningly elegant solution, which sits at the heart of this exciting thriller, set in the near future. Time travellers are "lobbed" back in time, like bricks into a pond, ultimately being dragged back to the present after a few hours. The impact of the consequent ripples is what causes all the problems.

The action is tense and believable; characters are well-rounded and psychologically plausible; and the resolution is immensely satisfying. It has that best quality of all adventure stories: it's impossible to put down.

Highly recommended if you're after an action thriller that's well-written, clever and - in my opinion - a damn sight better on all fronts than the latest Dan Brown. In fact, I'm not sure I should mention these two authors in the same breath - it seems disrespectful to Storrs.

A final note: this book has been published ONLY as an electronic book, an appropriate choice for a book about the future! If you plan to purchase this e-book, buy it through the publisher, Lyrical Press, rather than Amazon. You may pay a few cents more (depending on your country) but purchasing from the publisher means the author earns significantly more.

[Zoey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5★
A different & interesting take on time-travel & what happens when you do, mixed with lots of action set in the not too distant future.
One major mistake (probably minor to a lot of people) that stood out to me was when they mentioned that Henry VII was King in 1902, ummm no it was Edward VII (Henry VII was late 15th century). But maybe that was just the characters themselves not being quite as knowledgable about History as they thought, rather than an error :)

[Yvensong · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this interesting take on time travel. The issue of paradoxes was handled rather cleverly. The characters were well-developed and their actions and motivations were believable.

The story is fast-paced and follows an arc that takes the reader on an adventure that is both entertaining and intriguing.

The only issue I had with this was toward the end. To do the time jumps, specialized gear must be worn for protection, and that was forgotten in the scene where Sniper is pulled back to the story's present time.)

[MCM MCM · Rating 5 out of 5]

TimeSplash by Graham Storrs is a truly great sci fi novel about the fallout of time travel, but not in the way you usually see it. In a nutshell: when you travel back in time, you can’t change history, but you can make “splashes” that ripple through the fourth dimension, causing havoc in the era you came from. The concept is illustrated brilliantly in the first chapter, and from there things go off the rails for the characters. It’s tense, actiony and generally a brilliant execution of a brilliant idea.

The details of the world are really well-articulated and convincing. End of oil, economic collapse, the fact that America is basically a Christian fascist state with the CIA as their religious enforcement agency, the way the world ignored and then suddenly fears time travel… it’s all very, very smart. This is not a book where the sci fi technology exists in a vacuum and only pops up when convenient. These characters have been living in this world their whole lives, and it shows.

The big bad guy is a lunatic, and at times he goes a bit over the top, as if to sell his psycho-ness, but it doesn’t really detract from the story at all (in fact, it helps sell other characters’ motivations). The supporting cast is very good and no one feels like they only exist to serve a function, which is nice in this kind of story.

If you want to read the book and enjoy it without my opinions tainting it for you, stop reading now and just go buy the book. Nothing below this point is really important. I promise.

UPDATE: Read Storrs' response to the second part of my review, which pretty much negates all I say below: http://blog.timesplash.co.uk/2010/08/...

Now for the part of reviewing I hate. The book isn’t perfect, but I can’t say it was the book’s fault so much as my own prejudices. Here’s the thing: the protagonists are very, very young. Sandra, a timesplasher’s “bitch” in the first chapter, goes from 15 to 17ish over the course of the book. Jay, a timesplash fan-turned-secret agent, is only 19 when things kick into gear. To me, the two years between the first events and the rest of the book seem too brief for Jay to have gone from half-assed punk to an even semi-capable law enforcement officer. And even so, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that these two are in charge of saving the world.

Here’s where I go off the rails, because these things get into my brain in all the wrong ways. I don’t have a problem with Sandra being 15 and then 17. I mean, it’s a bit young for my tastes (given the things she does in the story), but then I have a teenaged assassin in Arkady and Kain, so obviously I’m not one to criticize. But then you have Jay, who really seems to me should be an early-20s character, say five years, six years after the first chapter, grappling with the demons he witnessed when he was still a kid. But instead, he’s STILL a kid, somehow playing in a grown-up world, and every time he engaged with his superior officers in the story, I got this nagging feeling we were slipping into inauthenticity. It seemed like the training he’d go through to join M15 would have to take more than two years to complete, no matter how brilliant he might be (and he never comes across as especially brilliant). And every time I was about to let it go and just enjoy the story, there was some mention of either Jay or Sandra being a teenager, and I got sucked right out.

So then I started wondering who Graham Storrs was, because (and I mean this in a nice way, honest) stories where teenagers take on adult roles like this tend to be written by teenagers. But Storrs isn’t a teenager at all, so that theory fell apart. There was just something off about it… it’s not that teenagers CAN’T save the world, they’d just have to do it from the outside, not as part of a serious intelligence agency. In the very real world of this book, it seems jarring that this kind of rule would be ignored. Old people don’t like young’ns, and they hold them up as much as possible

I obsess on strange things, I know. No other reviewer was bothered by this, so you don’t need to listen to me at all. I just wanted to mention the one thing that bugged me. Well, that and the fact that every time a gun was used, we got its make and model. That happens in all kinds of stories, and I still don’t understand it.

So yes. TimeSplash: good book. Buy it, read it, love it, and tell me how silly I am.

[Sean Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was hooked before I even got the book, the description alone appealed enormously. And I was about as undisappointed as it's possible to be, because this thrill ride of a book kept me going like the sugar rush from a kilo of chocolate on an empty stomach.

First, these debut novels, especially those published small time on Kindle are often full of errors (spelling, grammar, continuity, the works). This is far from; Storrs is practically impeccable (Jay was called Jake once in chapter 24) but that's pretty much the only thing to set my proofing nose atwitch.

What stood out, then? The international quality of the work comes to mind, not just in the official team at the TCU but in the Splashers as a group. There's a great deal of localization: Brussels, Berlin, London - but there's also an extraordinarily wide net of characters represented. Where the locale-specifics were employed, they were employed well, right down to the Geordie's manner of speech, that of the London cabbie, and Bauchet's diction, when he gets riled: an author who can manage to give you a sense that the tech he's talking about impacts the whole world so well, yet focuses so accurately and carefully on specifics at the same time scores major points with me.

The structure of the work also appealed; each part felt right in terms of length and scope: they built on each other, adding to what had gone before whilst helping to show the passage of time and progress of the characters lives and the underlying technology. We weren't spoon-fed detail, but there was enough given so that you could easily follow - a balancing act often flubbed but executed here with magnificent aplomb.

There were little bits throughout that really caught my eye, too. The intense and terrifying end of chapter 3. Bauchet's authoritarian outburst in chapter 8. Jay's great discovery in chapter 9. Then there's Sniper's epic outpouring in chapter 15 which really starts to show his grip on reality is well and truly crumbling.

And then, as we move into the final act, which I suppose is really encapsulated in chapters 22 through 26, the action really kicks into high gear. The race is on, the splash is coming, the mole shows his fangs and it's all or nothing for our heroes in a great swelling bulging warped London of the past.

And, as if the tension and drama and action and excellently written prose isn't enough, as if the comic banter between the leads wasn't quite injecting the right note to keep a serious situation easily readable, as if the picturesque descriptions, imagery and dialog of the era, so apart from the "now" of the work wasn't captivating enough: there's the target. the pièce de résistance, in fact, because the viewpoint of the whole thing switches to the target's perspective, just for those 19, 20 paragraphs or so - that really works, you know? Hell of a weird shift, sounds bonkers, but it fits and more than that it really fits, slots into place, gives the scene a surreal yet painfully vivid reality. A sharpness, yet an innocence, it makes the entire denouement work in a brilliantly satisfying way that left me dry-mouthed with the sheer pace and bravura of it all.

Were I to tender one literary criticism, it's that the last chapter should've been an epilogue. I can't quantify why I think that, it was just my feeling at the time.

This book only cost me £3.29. The eBook was DRM Free from the Kindle store, print is also available from Amazon and an audiobook is similarly priced, both at Audible and an indi publisher without any DRM and in the format of your choosing. I enjoyed every chapter, every page, every sentence. You've got no excuse not to pick it up; no "I can't read it on my device" or "it's not available in audio" or "I can't Braille it". The only thing it'll cost you to read is a few bucks, the price of a relatively good sandwich and a cup of coffee. My advice? Make a pot, sit back with the book however you read it, paper, audio, synthetic, Braille. Get into it, let yourself go and allow the world to unfold in your head. You won't be sorry. If this book isn't in my top 5 reads of 2012, my top 3 even, then I've died and someone else is compiling the list.

[Graham Clements · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story. It is about terrorists going back in time and causing mayhem, resulting in ripples in time. These ripples splash through to the present causing havoc capable of destroying cities.

After a friend of Jay's dies at a timesplash gig, he becomes a policeman who is seconded by interpol to try and stop the terrorists. He is aided by Sandra, the beautiful ex-girlfriend of the chief timesplasher Sniper.

From the start of the novel I was drawn in and the tension continued for it entire length. The novel travelled the world and, with my limited knowledge, that world seemed real. I was interested to read that Graham Storrs lived in London where much of the novel is set.

It reminded me of a James Bond type spy thriller set a few decades into the future. Perhaps the one quibble I had was the dialogue, which sometimes seemed more last century, than the way they might talk in mid-21st century.

This was the first ebook I have read. I read it on a Kindle which unfortunately malfunctioned towards the end, so some of my concentration was taken from the words and placed on what the Kindle was doing. I had to get the Kindle replaced to enable me to finish reading the story.

I would recommend Timesplash to anyone in the mood for a fast paced adventure thriller. I reckon you don't have to be into science fiction, like I am, to enjoy it.

[Gerold Whittaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise behind the science is that the present cannot be changed by altering the past. A bunch of thrill-seekers (called bricks) have found a way to travel to the past, and by creating a time-paradox, create a time wave - a timesplash as it is called - as time corrects the paradox. The bigger the paradox (eg by "killing" someone who had an important influence on the world), the bigger the timesplash - to the point where entire cities (in the now) could be destroyed by the timesplash.

Some interesting concepts in the book but I never did understand why they had to travel to the past from within a cage - or why they were chained together within the cage.

If time travel were possible, it would have been so heavily regulated that no backyard "techies" would have been able to do it. Instead, the author says "..the world's scientists woke up to the fact that time travel had been invented and had actually been practised regularly for more than a decade!"

Allusions in the book: "Operation Scorched Earth" being an evacuation plan for a city being threatened by an impending Timesplash is an allusion to the "Scorched Earth" policy enforced on the Boers during the Anglo-Boer war.

[Nanci Arvizu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science-Fiction, Time Travel and some really interesting characters - I LOVED this book!

Graham Storrs writes a story that immediately draws the reader in and captivates us with a futuristic tale of time travel and the people who become addicted to it. Without making it too over the top in the technical aspects that could go along with such a tale, Graham leaves the boring behind and gives us the best elements of his story.

I had the opportunity to talk with Graham about his book on Page Readers, all the way from Australia! He had just completed a time-traveling journey himself, having "tweeted" around the world, all at 7pm in each time zone!

[Merrilee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timesplash is a really amazing concept. The timeline is fixed. You can go back and kill your grandmother, but the paradox doesn't alter the timeline, it just follows you home and makes one hell of a mess.

Jay and Sandra have to stop Sniper in his attempt to bring down civilisation by making the biggest timesplash ever.

Lots of action, politics, romance and a host of characters from all over the world.

[Steve Markham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book this morning and have finished it the same dday! I couldn't put it down. The way it all fits together is marvelous. The idea behind the book splashing as it were is not just a brilliant idea, but who wouldn't like to go back in time for an hour or a day? Also, who could go back and not do anything to either change the past or ruin the future?

[Graham Storrs]

I wrote this book. It's a sci-fi thriller set in the near future and featuring a time travelling terrorist and a disturbed young woman who is trying to stop him.

I'm a big sci-fi fan and I write sci-fi thrillers. If you like your sci-fi real, human and exciting, I think you'll enjoy this book.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. A completely original take on time travel and the consequences of such a technology existing. I honestly couldn't put it down, and was disappointed when I was finished because I wanted to read more.

[George Angus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very cool book with a neat concept for time travel.

[Julie Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought on this book is what a unique premise it had! It's basically about time travel into the past (called a timesplash), changing something there, and then enjoying the chaos that occurs when history works to right itself. While this was first done in small jumps with limited chaos, it was basically one big party. But when Sniper, one of the bricks (that's what they call the actual time traveler), goes back further and further, creating more and more chaos, it changes from a party to terrorist activity. Whole cities are leveled, and Sniper's next splash is going to go back further than anyone ever has before, and will cause even more damage when he returns. Enough to level London, in fact. Everyone is working furiously to find Sniper before he can make the jump, including Sandra (Sniper's ex who was emotionally scarred from what happened during one of their splashes), and Jay, a cop whose friend was killed during the chaos left after one of Sniper's splashes. What ensues is a race against the clock to locate and stop Sniper before a whole lot of people die.

This was a unique and interesting story, well written and action packed. I enjoyed it very much.

4/5 stars.

[Keith Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mind-bending time-travel-y sci-fi ideas melded with a credible terrorism thriller.

[Tony Castley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading this so I can complete the trilogy. A really refreshing take on time travel, with the development of a complete subculture and slang around the technology.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on time travel that I've not seen before, it is well written with strong, engaging characters.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love time travel novels, and this one was ok. Interesting concept and characters that you hate. I just couldn't get past the anti-Christian, anti-American bias of the author.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

What begins as a kind of extreme sport becomes terrorism in this story set in the future. A bit amateurishly written, but nevertheless a rather compelling story of loyalties, governments and power.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, love the title. I downloaded Graham Storrs’ Timesplash through a free offering on Amazon.

It’s 2047, and the world has changed. Big time. There’s been a worldwide depression, coined “The Great Adjustment”, and young people have found a new form of entertainment — time travel. Timesplashing has become the rave parties of the future. The “bricks,” or time travellers, are “lobbed” into the past to create a paradox; say, killing your own grandmother before you were born. I know, sick, right? No, not the “sick” my teenagers use to describe a new video game – the boring, old-fashioned sick. The timeline always smooths itself out and history is never changed so no harm, no foul, right? Not quite.

What do the splash partiers get out of it? After the deed is done and the bricks yanked back to the present, the fun begins. The drug-fueled splash partiers get to experience the backwash, where time and space shift in the present while time rights itself. The bricks become rockstars — picture Guns ‘n Roses in the 80′s or The Rolling Stones in the ’70′s.

While timesplashing is illegal, “the man” doesn’t really worry about it too much — until it starts being used as a tool for terrorism and whole cities begin to crumble in the backwash. As technology advances and the bricks are lobbed further and further into the past, devastating paradoxes erupt in the timeline resulting in the annihilation of the present.

Mr. Storrs has wrapped a political thriller, love story, and sci-fi novel into one neat package. Throw in espionage, a depraved psychopathic brick bent on becoming a timeplashing legend, and insecure young love — voilà! — you have Timesplash.

The main protagonists, a young couple in over their heads and haunted by their pasts, set out to stop a plot to destroy a major european city. Their determination and bravery, despite self-doubt, insecurity and fear make them easy to connect and sympathise with.

This book is fast-paced and gritty. There is a good share of violence, balanced by a very sweet, innocent love story. The characters are engaging and likeable (or hate-able), the narration and dialogue edgy and real. I could almost hear those British accents we Americans love so much.

Although there was quite a bit of technology discussed, (It is sci-fi, after all. I hate it when people complain about having to read about science and technology in a sci-fi novel) it didn’t overwhelm or bore me. Mr. Storrs does not go into a lot of Post Adjustment political detail, but the hints thrown in here and there are intriguing. I can definitely see global politics ending up exactly where the author places it in Timesplash.

I really enjoyed this book – especially the actual timesplashing scenes — I wish the author could have woven a few more of them in throughout the book. All sci-fi/time travel fans should add Timesplash to their collection and keep Mr. Storrs on their watch list.

[Monique Atgood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is sci-fi with a vengeance. Rich kids would have ‘splash’ parties, where they would do drugs, and send someone back a few years in a time machine. The time travelers would be gone under an hour. While they were in the past, they would commit as much destruction and mayhem as possible. They would murder their own grandmother when she was a baby, shooting everyone in sight, that sort of thing. The time lines always righted themselves, and it was like the ‘bad’ events never occurred, BUT the area around the time travel cage would turn into a PCP like weird land, called the “Splash”.

Then they figured out the farther back you go, and the more trouble you cause, the bigger the splash. Finally, someone went too far and a lot of people got killed. Then a whole city was wiped out. Suddenly stopping time travel terrorists became policy number one for governments everywhere.

This is the story of how one rich kid, went from being a ‘splash’ kid high on drugs, trying the latest fad, to being a super cop and saving Europe from time traveling terrorists.

CONS:
It was written by an Australian, so they have ideas about romance with ‘jail bait’ that would earn you ten years in prison in Florida. Getting over that hurdle was a bit strange.

You also have to do some translating, since it’s written in ‘English’ English, not ‘USA’ English, (nothing ethnocentric going on here!!) but actually, that makes it more fun. I actually had to go to urban dictionary for a definition.

I thought the evil character “Sniper” was too revered. Anyone could have taken his place for the terrorists, so they didn’t really need him. The tech who provided the ways and means for the time travel was the person whom I felt the story should have centered upon. But then again, Sniper was outrageous and crazy and really entertaining, which is all we expect from a book right?

PROS:
The novel was fresh and exciting. It was hard to put down.

The characters were truly alive. They leap out from the pages and grab the reader by the throat, shaking them by the collar and demanding to be devoured and enjoyed. I’d recommend if you like fresh novel sci-fi, give “Time Splash” a whirl.

[A.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It started out as a game, something underground and edgy and ‘cool’. Then time travelling hit the mainstream and became the ultimate terrorist weapon. Scarred by their experiences with time travelling, Jay and Sandra are thrown together in what is to become the biggest manhunt in history: the search for Sniper, Sandra’s ex-boyfriend and a notorious terrorist.

Set in the near-future, the novel is action-packed, full of political intrigue and a sprinkling of romance. Look out — science fiction is far from dead!

TimeSplash is highly ambitious in its scope, and the key to its success is Storrs’ intriguing take on time travel, which is integrated seamlessly into the storyline, avoiding the off-putting technicality of so much science fiction. In short: people can be ‘lobbed’ back in time for short periods, only to be eventually yanked back to the present. While you’re in the past, you cannot change the timeline — well, not permanently. You can go back and kill your mother, creating a temporary paradox, but the timeline will smoothen out and return to its original state. The problem is, the mess caused by that paradox will follow you home and wreck destruction on the present. Add some time travelling addicts into the mix and you have a recipe for disaster.

Despite such a fascinating premise, TimeSplash is ultimately a very human tale about finding bravery through fear, and never giving up. Jay, Sandra, and the host of other (mostly European) characters are vividly portrayed: you cannot help but empathize with their plights, including when it comes to the villains. It certainly helps that the settings were so strongly evocative, particularly the scenes in London — living in London myself, there was a pleasurable thrill in reading about places I have visited.

In sum, highly recommended for science fiction and thriller enthusiasts alike, and even those undecided.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers,

So, time travel is it possible? Sure is a favorite theme in science fiction. Especially what would happen if a person returns to the past, can that change the future.

Well, Storrs proposes that one cannot change the past. What happens is that a temporal displacement takes place, like throwing a stone into a still pond. The ripples flash out, but given enough "time" haha, the pond will return to itself. So in his premise, a time splash occurs, causing ripples that affect current time, yet the past doesn't change.

So the story begins with the fact that youths attend a party where a timesplash will occur. Some bricks - the people traveling in time, are lobbed into the past. The ripples of their effect in the past affect the party goers, who under alcohol and drugs get a wild ride.

Until the technicians are able to send bricks back over 60 years. The splash causes actual physical destruction in the current time-frame. All of a sudden the technology has a terrorist application. How will the world protect itself. What if the techs can send people back even further? What damage does that cause the current time frame?

Storrs tackles these various issues and gives us a few memorable, yet predictable characters to hang onto during his pursuit of a conclusion. From a pure fictional exercise it is a nice simple book to enjoy. The deeper science and philosophical issues are glossed over. While I liked the characters, I didn't really identify with them to much. Like I said, they are basic, predictable, and stylized.

Nice book for summer light reading.

BookBear

[Graeme Ing · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a brilliant and refreshing premise in this book that goes far beyond the cliched "timecop" time travel stories. This takes "kill your grandfather" to an original and exciting level. The first few chapters were gripping.

Storrs juggles a lot of characters in this book but the vast majority are well rounded and memorable. I loved the concept of the rockstar bricks (don't want to include any spoilers in this review), but Storrs brought in serious character flaws to prevent stereotyping. He has a talent for well-written action scenes and definitely brought the past alive, especially London in the final chase sequence. Enormous fun.

There were a few points where I felt the world history heavy-handed, put there for the reader, rather than it naturally flowing from the dialog. Not a show stopper, especially since Storrs' future timeline is intriguing and very believable. Maybe he's a prophet as well? :)

Also, he introduces a character at the beginning that is an overpowering foreshadow of the end, especially as that character doesn't reappear until the end.

The chief reason I rate it at a 3-star is that this book is really heavy with police procedural, so much so that the pace crawled in places, for my taste. I would have preferred more time spent on the science-fiction and especially the time travel. All the detective work was well realized though and highly believable, there's just so much of it. If you like police procedurals, this is easily a 4+.

I'm looking forward to his future work if this is his debut novel.

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for books about time travel, so this sounded like an interesting read. The description doesn't go into a lot of detail, but basically there are 'bricks' (people) who are lobbed back into time, making a 'splash'. Then someone gets the idea to kill an important person in history, and the manhunt begins. Pretty good plot, right?

I'll agree that the plot was intriguing - however, for me, the sci-fi aspects of the story were more believable than the characters. I didn't care for Sandra's character at all. She was an insecure teenager (14 years old when the story begins) and basically looking for a man to take care of her. A couple of years later, she's still insecure, but has transformed into someone with the skill set of a highly trained anti-terrorist operative after spending two years in a mental institution. Not likely. Jay, who actually is a highly trained operative, was more likeable, but made decisions like the 19-year-old that he is.

Although I enjoyed the actual story and it was well-written, it was a little confusing at first because of the multiple POV's - a lot of characters to keep straight, and I felt like more of the focus should have been on the time travel aspect rather than pages of police procedure. The action sequences were exciting and the pacing, for the most part, was good. If you're a sci-fi fan, especially time travel, you make want to look into this series, but concentrate more on the plot line than the characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

[Nick Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Australian horror story. There is some shallow comparison to sci-fi action movie Jumper, but with high technology providing a visit to the past rather than a natural ability to teleport through space. Supposing that the present is the best possible world and that any change would be horrifying, and supposing unlikely continuity of timelines after time travel, visiting the past puts timelines out of whack, temporarily, if you kill a celebrity dead White man. As the timelines spring back to the best possible world (history), horrific timesplash phenomena can be observed. When the visits are to the near past, the timesplash seems to die down after a short time and not affect the present when the time traveller is pulled back. The possibility that visiting the past could be used for any positive purpose isn't explored by this work. As underground hackers race to jump the furthest back, more extreme splashes are observed; even effects in the present. I liked how relationships were testy and subject to misunderstandings.
Timesplash effects were described mechanistically. There is a lot of telling of doom but not enough showing of the personal effects in the lives' of ordinary individuals. I read a review copy from the publisher.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how Graham Storrs worked out the mechanics and physics of time travel in this novel. He nicely resolved the implications of messing with the past.

Set in Europe of 2050, the world of TimeSplash is mostly familiar but with subtle twists. Everyone's got a "compatch," which seems to be what cell phones have evolved into. Terrorists use time travel as a destructive tool, funded by unnamed deep pockets (possibly the government of the United States, which has been taken over by religious zealots).

I wasn't as much a fan of the cartoonish characters. For some reason, the misogynist Sniper could have been the deranged twin of Zaphod Beeblebrox (from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Overall, a fun read for the plot and less so for the characters.

[Damali · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the cool kids are doing it!

The teenagers have discovered time travel, and the farther they go back in time, the bigger the splash -- the distortions that happen to the environment in the current time. They have parties where they drink and drug, and wait for the splash. To produce a splash, they have to kill someone related to the splash team, in the past. The adults have too much going on to notice the time travel discovery until a very nasty splash occurs.

Sandra and Sniper were part of a group of four doing a splash that has disastrous results. Jay was affected by the tragedy, and ever since then has devoted his life to track down those involved.

Tthis was a pretty good story, but it's choppy, and has a few too many POVs for this type of tale. It probably would've been better if the author stayed on one POV for 80 pages, then switched, etc. I love the idea of the splash, but I wish more time would've been spent in the past, and better characterization. Didn't care for the InstaLove.

[Russell Libonati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again the five star system fails me. I think this book was 4.5 stars. I had a hard time deciding between four or five stars. Ultimately, I went with four because the characters were a little two dimensionally and the climax went more or less as expected. That said, the writing was excellent and I really liked the concept. I'm not a fan of time travel. I don't like the multiple universe concept and the whole paradox issue otherwise kills it. The way the author treats time travel circumvents both of these concepts in a truly awesome way. Given that, this is another in a string of time travel stories I've really enjoyed. Maybe I'm a closet time travel lover.

I highly recommend this book. I particularly love the fact that the story takes place all over the world, mostly in Europe. Not sure this is good or bad, but it feels a little like a book written to be a movie. It doesn't bother me and I think it would make an excellent movie, easily doable with modern CGI. Read it!