Here we are. In this chapter, our supposed heroes will finally travel back in time, after 18 chapters of foolishness. The novel is about halfway over. If you thought the writing was half-assed before, then you haven’t seen anything yet.
Three months of extensive training, the Society planned for me. Ha! What a laugh. In five incredibly short weeks, hardly enough time for me to learn which end of a rifle to shoot from—I didn’t, Joy would claim—the world ended. Abruptly. Forever. (page 158)
Pay attention to this paragraph. John’s training is cut short after just over a month. He still doesn’t know how to properly hold a rifle. And yet he is going to be sent back in time now, with no more preparation. Those last two sentence fragments are going to be quite prescient.
Why must they be sent back ahead of schedule, you ask? Because Tor’s groupies are wanted by the FBI.
I knew that their illegal activities would catch up to them eventually. Serves them right for training child soldiers and spiking people’s drinks.
Rummel, of course, treats this as a horrible injustice. How dare the federal government want to keep a time machine out of the hands of dangerous criminals and terrorists? So, naturally, Tor’s groupies blow up the time machine as soon as John and Joy are sent back. If only that had killed them, then I would not need to finish this.
But of course, our Mary Sues survive unscathed. My Sue-dometer has been fixed for this special occasion.
Joy speaks to her mother for the last time. In the hands of a good or even decent writer this might be emotional, but since it was written by Rummel, it falls flat. His Self-Insert, of course, just stands there like an idiot. All this is going on while the SWAT team is breaking the door down.
And then, after 160 pages of tomfoolery, our alleged heroes enter the time machine, and arrive in 1906. Finally. Could you have taken any longer, Rummel? Wait, don’t answer that question.
By the way, Rummel uses probably the worst description of a time machine in action I have ever read.
We had arrived. Somewhere. Sometime. Except for my racing heart, I felt nothing amiss. I put my hands to my cheeks and rubbed my eyes. I felt my clothes and moved my toes. I hadn’t changed. I hadn’t turned into a lizard. I wondered if, in spite of the sound, the machine really hadn’t worked, that I had only imagined that it did, and we were still back in Silicone Valley with the FBI SWAT team waiting for us to open the door. (page 160)
Yes, Rummel still calls it “Silicone Valley”! The fail knows no bounds.
And once they arrive in 1906, the chapter ends.
I’ll cut it off here, just because this is a natural stopping point, even though this chapter was just as short as the others.
Taku on 12 January 2013, 20:02 said:
Well, I was wrong. Rummel’s actually getting on with it for a change.
Also, John, you idiot. Time machines don’t work like that. Why would you expect to be turned into a lizard? It’s a time machine, not a vengeful medieval sorcerer!
Epke on 12 January 2013, 20:39 said:
Wait… we’re halfway and now we get to the time travel, the core of the book? <makes a rude gesture in Rummel’s general direction>
Aha! But did Joy put on her robe and wizard hat?
swenson on 12 January 2013, 23:09 said:
Huh. I’m actually quite surprised they went back in time so abruptly. (I say “so abruptly” because it’s abrupt for Rummel, by the way. It’d be normal for anyone else.)
Yet I do agree with Epke that it does seem to come oddly late in the book.
goldedge on 15 January 2013, 22:00 said:
Silicone Valley? I thought that was what Pamela Anderson was called!
Hiyoooo!
That’s not really Mary-Sueness. It’s called Plot Convenience.
Juracan on 7 June 2013, 05:30 said:
Given all the sketchy stuff they’ve been up to, such as making a freaking time machine without telling anyone, this is hardly surprising.