"The Time Traveler's Academy" by Reginald Williams

Last night I finished "The Time Traveler's Academy" by Reginald Williams. In the book, a meteor shower lands an organism that, by itself, is completely harmless. However, the organism manages to combine the bubonic plague virus with the avian flu virus. Anyone without natural immunity to the virus who contracts it, dies. John, a former special operatives soldier, is drafted back into service to train and then lead a crew on a time machine to obtain a cure for the virus and save humanity.

It's said that any good science fiction novel has only one fantastic concept that the read is forced to accept, the thought being that too many fantastic concepts make the novel unbelievable. This book didn't stop with just one or two. Here's some of them:

1. Time travel
   
2. A virus from space that can interact and combine two earth viruses.
   
3. A society on a planet across the galaxy and thousands of years in the past speaks English.
   
4. The people on that planet look like us, as well
   
5. Because a person eats some food on an alien planet, he "adapts" to being near a black hole
   
6. Having adapted to being near the black hole, he's now a superman (Well, he's really the superhero The Flash).
   
7. He's able to run (yes, *run*) on Earth and Mars at the speed of light.
   
8. He creates a tornado that tosses himself and a large, heavy, object into space.
   
9. He ends up on Mars after tossing stuff into space. Oh yeah, he can breathe Martian air.

I'll give the author numbers one and two. They are what the book is based upon and actually I thought the explanation for the virus and what happened was well done.

When the aliens spoke English, it gave me a pause, but I let it go. I don't believe it could happen, but it was early in the book, so I just, well, kinda pretended it didn't happen that way.

When our heroes adapted, it wasn't clear to me what was going on -- and then John ran across three states in a matter of seconds. Then, later, he uses his ability to run at the speed of light to travel in time. It was about here that the book completely broke down for me. Even assuming someone could move their legs fast enough to run the speed of light -- something I can't believe -- I *really* can't believe that it could be done. He just couldn't get enough traction! And even at slower speeds -- as when he runs across three states in a matter of seconds -- how the heck is he going to stop?

And as for this tornado thing, well, I have real problems believing that a tornado is going to toss any thing as high as even low Earth orbit. And then to have him land on Mars -- well, while there is an extremely slight possibility it could happen, it's kinda like one person throwing a rock blindly into the air, and another person firing a gun blindly into the air and having the bullet hit the rock. Only not as likely.

In general, the science in this book is abominable. Horrible. I don't see how anyone who has ever taken a physics course could believe the stuff in this book.

Since I've ranted a bit about the science, let me rant about an internal inconsistency.

We are told that going back in time is bad. Very bad. It can cause the universe to restart -- essentially cause another big bang. And if not that, then these creatures will come around and destroy you if you get too close to causing the universe to reset.

But, wait! Didn't I mention a planet a long way away and thousands of years in the past that spoke English? Uh, yeah, I did. This planet is the one on which they have decided they will find the cure to the virus. The author uses some meaningless mumbo-jumbo to explain that they aren't *really* traveling to that planet's past, so it's okay. But it's also quite clear that they do travel to the planet's past, because they change it's future. And, besides, it doesn't even exist by the time this story takes place.

Now that I think about it, let me add a couple more items to my list:

1. The crew of the time machine give the aliens a satellite phone which uses the alien's communication system to communicate with the crew after they leave the planet. (And are traveling in time.) Huh?
   
2. The universe is an organism that tries to protect itself from time paradoxes by sending some weird kind of entity out to destroy things that are going to alter time.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to know what publisher had been dumb enough to waste money on this book, so I started looking. No where on or in the book is a publisher listed. The author thanks his editor, then gives her email address.. something at aol.com. I don't want to say she's a poor editor. I don't recall any typos or misspelled words. Or even poorly constructed sentences. No, it was the thoughts behind the sentences that were poorly constructed.

I don't sell books, but I'm thinking seriously of selling this one. I can't imagine ever reading it again, and if I forget enough about it to make me pick it up and want to reread it, I don't think I want to put myself through the pain again.

Last thoughts: The author is really trying to market this book. I notice that on Amazon.com he markets Time Traveler's Academy ball caps. He's got a website, or I think he does, but it isn't responding as I write this.

Rating: .5/10

(Notice the period in front of the five.) The reason I gave the book any points at all was because I thought the information about the virus and how it creates the super virus to be interesting and worthwhile. But don't read the book.