Friday, July 5, 2013

Untimed by Andy Gavin

Untimed by Andy Gavin
Publisher: Mascherato (self published)
Publish Date:  December 17, 2012
Pages: 325
ISBN# 978-1937945046


I received this book from the publicist in exchange for an honest review.



Charlie is a teen living in Philadelphia.  Charlie's biggest problem is that no one notices or remembers him.  Not even his neighbors, though they've lived next to each other for years.  Even his mom forgets his name. The illustrations are delightful - I love a book with illustrations!

Charlie gets into a fight with what appears to be a clockwork man and falls through a hole to 18th century London.  Here he meets another time traveler, Yvaine.  As they accidentally change time events and bounce back and forth in time (girls only travel one way, boys travel in another, they need to work in pairs) they both learn a lot - about themselves, each other and their abilities.

The characters are fairly well-developed.  I do feel that the dialogue needs some work.  There were times when it felt jerky or I thought 'no kid would say that, not in any century'. 

You may recognize Andy Gavin's name.  He is the co-founder of Naughty Dog and co-created CRASH BANDICOOT and JAK & DEXTER.  He was a PhD candidate at M.I.T.'s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

I get why he's self publishing - the early work in video games and all.  But I think that a good agent and editor would really smooth out this book and it would fly off the shelves.

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