Future’s Dark Past
Future’s Dark Past (Time Forward Trilogy #1)
By: J.L. Yarrow
“‘You two are either going to kill each other or be the best team ever. I can’t decide which.’”
It’s always a gamble when you read books from authors you’ve never heard of that are up and coming. The gamble on this book paid off!
I was pleasantly surprised by this time-travel science fiction novel and am looking forward to continuing the series— especially because this one leaves you on a cliffhanger!
I wouldn’t say the general time-travel plot of this book was incredibly unique— Earth destroys itself in a nuclear war (classic)— The Purge War— and in the year 2355 the earth is less and less inhabitable so they use time travel to try to go back and stop the nuclear war from happening.
The method of time travel, however, has some of its own flair. Or maybe it’s been done and I just haven’t read enough sci-fi time travel books to know about it. But they discovered an Anomoly— a wormhole— that they’ve ‘harnessed’ to send agents back in time on missions.
Agents have to undergo a genetic ‘rebirth’ that transforms them into a kind of superhuman with greater strength, physicality, and a stronger body structure to endure the effects of jumping into the The Worm. The agents that jump are linked via transponders. They can’t pinpoint an exact moment and place in time to jump to. Their accuracy is getting people to the right continent within a year or two of the right time so their missions have to be flexible and adaptable to wherever they end up. They also can’t really control when they ‘go back.’
There are a few main characters in the book.
Hope Bannister, aptly named, is living in the year 2355 and has fashioned this Time Forward force in an attempt to stop The Purge War from happening because if they can’t, the Keplers (the bad guys) plan to exterminate the natives of another planet in order to provide enough room to transport people from Earth to the habitable planet. Using The Worm is their last hope.
Then we have Kristen. She is also living in the year 2355 and not in a good place. Earth has a series of ‘bubbles’ that people live in. Her parents tried to take them from the Dallas bubble to the Kansas City bubble by using seeds to trade for a new life. Their plan went awry leaving them dead and Kristen captured. When she finally escapes she finds herself in a position to either be enslaved to another man or volunteer herself for Hope’s team. With no knowledge of what she’s about to embark on, her only choice is to leave Earth and hope for the best.
Kants ends up being Kristen’s jump partner. He was the last superhuman on Earth when The Purge War began back in 2098. Since then he has sought to change history and get back the wife he lost.
Hunter Coburn and his brilliant mind is the key to it all— somehow. He ends up getting linked to Kristen in her jumps. Wherever she jumps to, he ends up landing with her. When she jumps back to the future, he returns to his timeline which is 2025. Through one of Kants’ missions Hunter was recruited to the FBI and is developing sentient AI systems.
Which brings us to our last main character— Comperi. This is the first sentient AI created by Hunter. It helps Hunter in this book a little bit, but I have a feeling its purpose is going to expand and become more important in subsequent books.
As with all time travel novels, some of the effects of their time traveling on the future is often hard to grasp or follow or when they go back in time to tell someone they need to do such and such at a future time to help someone, it’s the whole chicken or egg scenario, but with this book I was generally able to understand what they were trying to do and what what would happen if they failed or succeeded.
The Keplers add a good element of unpredictability and mystery to this novel. Somehow they know wherever Kristen or Kants is jumping to and they have their own agents there already trying to thwart Kristen and Kants’ mission. We aren’t given enough information about that yet— why are they trying to keep the Time Forward Project from preventing The Purge War? how do they know ahead of time of where they’ll be? Are they actually bad guys or are they good guys trying to prevent worse things from happening that the Time Forward team aren’t aware of?
Hopefully we get some more pieces to the puzzle in the next book.
Other things that I hope are going to be fleshed out in the next book— what happened to Chen-Yi and why is she obsessed with Hunter? Will Hunter ever have his happily ever after with Rachel and his future daughter? What’s the deal with Kants? Is something going to get altered in time where he is back on the team in real time? Are we going to find out more about Kristen’s background— is there more to her parents’ death and the seeds or is that purely just the catalyst for getting Kristen to space? How is Comperi going to save the world?
As I said before, this book ends on a cliffhanger. Let’s just say that their missions aren’t as successful as they were hoping so we have to keep going into book two to see where they go next.
As to the writing style, it was better than what I was expecting and had good pacing to it. I don’t know if it had a unique or show-stopping quality to it, but it was easy to read and get lost in the story. There weren’t distracting things about the writing that jarred me away or annoyed me.
Recommendation
If you’re looking for a dystopian or space-y sci-fi book, I’m not sure this one will scratch that itch for you. The future is somewhat dystopian and in space but a majority of the book takes place on Earth before 2100. And the future parts are generally relegated to the space station.
But if you just want to enjoy a good time travel novel with elements of AI and space, then I think you’ll enjoy this book. Or if you are looking for a book with some whales in it— this is probably it.
I enjoyed the adventure and felt invested in the fate of the world. I’m looking forward to see what book two holds!
Also- if you’re interested, HERE are some more time travel books I’ve reviewed if you’d like to go on a time travel binge.
[Content Advisory: a handful of s-words, some innuendo but no sexual content]
**Received a copy of the book from the author in exchange for an honest review**
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