Beattz
They had us in the first half. Not gonna lie.
I was all aboard for a time travel adventure. This is super light when it comes to the “science” in the fiction. Time travel technology exists, secretly, of course, but we don't know how it works and even it's origins are vague. That's fine. I'm good as suspending belief. The premise seemed kind of half baked. Pull some not to be missed persons from the past and bring them to the future, acclimate them, then turn them into Ministry assets. Why they couldn't have just invested in current persons to train as assets, I have no idea. Well, other than that's not much of a story to read, I suppose. Each time traveler, of which there are six, is paired with a handler referred to as a “bridge”, and the story is told from the POV of one such Bridge, partnered with an Arctic explorer from 1847. We never learn the narrator's name, only that she's female, half Cambodian and daughter of a refugee immigrant, and wants nothing so much as to be a good cog in the machine.
The story progresses for the first half of the book as you think it should. You're introduced to all the players, get some back story on them, see the rumblings of what will become the conflict. All good and well. And then. And then they insert what feels like a very forced and awkward and unnecessary romance. And that becomes the focal point for the next 40%. Which is lame. Then the conflict comes to a head and it's all so very disappointing. It's over relatively quickly, with a sense of disbelief because, 1, that can't be all, 2, it might not even have worked, and 3, the apparent consequences that did exist might just come undone.
If the story had continued as it started, this could have been a great book.
They had us in the first half. Not gonna lie.
I was all aboard for a time travel adventure. This is super light when it comes to the “science” in the fiction. Time travel technology exists, secretly, of course, but we don't know how it works and even it's origins are vague. That's fine. I'm good as suspending belief. The premise seemed kind of half baked. Pull some not to be missed persons from the past and bring them to the future, acclimate them, then turn them into Ministry assets. Why they couldn't have just invested in current persons to train as assets, I have no idea. Well, other than that's not much of a story to read, I suppose. Each time traveler, of which there are six, is paired with a handler referred to as a “bridge”, and the story is told from the POV of one such Bridge, partnered with an Arctic explorer from 1847. We never learn the narrator's name, only that she's female, half Cambodian and daughter of a refugee immigrant, and wants nothing so much as to be a good cog in the machine.
The story progresses for the first half of the book as you think it should. You're introduced to all the players, get some back story on them, see the rumblings of what will become the conflict. All good and well. And then. And then they insert what feels like a very forced and awkward and unnecessary romance. And that becomes the focal point for the next 40%. Which is lame. Then the conflict comes to a head and it's all so very disappointing. It's over relatively quickly, with a sense of disbelief because, 1, that can't be all, 2, it might not even have worked, and 3, the apparent consequences that did exist might just come undone.
If the story had continued as it started, this could have been a great book.
