100 Book Challenge - Book 21 - Out of Time

Book 21/ 100

Book: Out of Time

Author: Monique Martin

ASIN: B0036Z9W00

Pages: 294

When Professor of Occult Studies, Simon Cross, finds an old watch amongst his late grandfather’s belongings, it throws him and his assistant, Elizabeth West, into an adventure that would not only change their views on the occult but their views on each other as well.

The watch is a time travelling device and it throws the two of them back it Manhattan in the 1920s, they have to find a way to blend in and survive until they can find a way back to their own time. Posing as a married couple they find jobs in a speakeasy part owned by a mysterious gangster. Jobs that lead them both closer to the answers they seek and closer to each other.

Rating… 4 out of 5 watches. While parts of the story moved a bit slowly, the overall story was entertaining, and you can’t help but grow attached to Simon and Elizabeth as their adventure unfolds. I’d recommend the book to anyone with a like of supernatural sci-fi.

100 Book Challenge - Book 17 - Ruby Red

Book 17/ 100
Book: Ruby Red
Author: Kerstin Gier
ISBN: 978-0-312-55151-3
Pages: 324

All her life Gwen has been raised with the knowledge that her cousin Charlotte was destined to be a time traveller, one born with the gene that allows them to move through time. Charlotte had been raised and trained for it since birth. So when Gwen suddenly finds herself back in time she’s forced to wonder who got their sums wrong and who had lied to her.

Gwen is completely unprepared for time travel, she’s had none of the training, knows none of the rules. She’s also unprepared to meet Gideon de Villiers, an obnoxious, know it all, who’s her time travelling companion, and quite possibly the love of her life.

Add in a secret society whose members include people like Sir Isaac Newton, a couple of rogue time travellers who don’t want the secret society to complete its mission, and a ghost who haunts Gwen’s school, and it all means Gwen has a lot on her plate.

Rating… Oh, 5 out of 5 stars, this was a great story, I admit it did take a little getting into, but once there you just gotta know what comes next. There’s a scene where Gwen takes an uncontrolled trip back in time and sees a girl who looks a lot like her! And be warned, there’s a twist at the end :)

100 Book Challenge - Book 16 - Doctor Who: Night of the Humans

Book 16/ 100
Book: Doctor Who: Night of the Humans
Author: David Llewellyn
ISBN: 978-1-846-07969-6
Pages: 247

For those who don’t know (Although I can’t imagine there are that many of ya) Doctor Who is a long running British science fiction TV series about an alien, The Doctor, who has a time machine, the TARDIS, that’s disguised as a 1960s style Police telephone box. The Doctor generally travels with companions, who are usually, but not always, human. And this year, 2013, is Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, so I couldn’t do this 100 Book Challenge without at least one Doctor Who book in it.

This book features The Doctor and Amy Pond as portrayed on TV by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.

Following a distress call from around 250,000 years in our future the TARDIS lands on a world made completely out of flattened space junk, called the Gyre, they soon encounter the hostile Sittuun, who take The Doctor and Amy prisoner, however as they’re being taken back to the Sittuun’s crashed spaceship, they’re attacked by a band of savages who kidnap The Doctor.

Amy soon learns that the savages are humans, humans who are descended from the survivors of a crashed human spaceship from ages ago, humans who have lost their knowledge of their past, who believe the Gyre is in fact Earth and their great god Gobo will soon come and take them to the sacred place called El Paso.

But of more immediate concern is the comet that’s scheduled to strike the Gyre and destroy it, sending debris out into space, to collide with the planets out there, including the Sittuun homeworld. Can Amy, with the help of the Sittuun, rescue The Doctor and save both the Sittuun and the humans? Well, with the help of the space swashbuckler Dirk Slipstream, maybe. But the question is, who can she trust?

Rating… Oh, 5 out of 5 TARDISes easily, although I did think that Amy’s characterization was slightly off from the TV portrayal, The Doctor though was spot on. The author managed to portray the sadness and the disbelief at the way things happen, as well as weave a nice little mystery into the book. I’d definitely recommend it to any Doctor Who fan out there.