The Prodigal Hour - Will Entrekin

Dec 10 - Dec 28, 2011

The Prodigal Hour
Will Entrekin
Sci-Fi
Published July 1, 2011
205 pages

7/10

  What if you could stop time, travel through it, and change the past?  Would you do it?  And what would be the final repercussions?  Chance Sowin is about to find out...

  This story reads like an adolescent hyperactive genius wrote it.  Really.
  The main idea, time travel and altering history to create alternate realities, is AWESOME.  Unfortunately, I'm not well-versed enough in science or science fiction to understand all the technical stuff.  I mean, this is an excerpt from the book:
  "Quantum mechanics is full of dynamic flexibility, thought experiments in which cats in safes with poison vials and unpredictably radioactive atoms propose greater logic problems than Zen koans.  Consider again an electron the certainty of which, in terms of speed and position, can only be determined by firing a photon - a tiny quantum of light - at it, and then realize that doing so will alter both."
  Tell me I'm not justified in having trouble with that. 
  And hey, I'm sure there's sci-fi lovers out there that will read that excerpt, then sigh pitifully and lament "All the pretty ones are stupid..." as they work on their Sex-Bots (I hope).  But my science learning basically stopped at particles, light, and energy.  I was more of a gene-mapping gal, myself.  So when I'm faced with a multitude of words I don't comprehend in a formation I can't really fathom, my mind starts to wander, and the next thing you know I'm thinking about ponies and the colour blue.

  There's also the fact that this story was all over the place.  Two different plot lines?  I can follow that.  But two plot lines that travel forwards and/or backwards in time to various events and occasionally converge on themselves from slightly different viewpoints?  Oh my.  There was just so much going on that I had trouble focusing and there I am again !BAM! blue ponies.  There was also a specific plot line (that I won't reveal for fear of spoiling it) that, while interesting as hell, seemed like it was either A) tacked on, or B) meant to be a way bigger chunk of the story but was then reduced, when it should have totally been expounded upon.  Really, this book could have been split up into two or even three books and it still would have been amazing.  I might have even preferred it that way, because there was so much to take in in so little time, that I didn't really get a chance to invest myself in the characters as much as I would have liked to.
  And I have to point out the fact that, while I thought this would be a boy book, this was totally a romance in a boy book disguise.  I can't tell if the cynic in my is disgusted or the ovulating female in me is enchanted by the "Love Conquers All" theme.  To be honest, it's a daily battle between the two.  "Don't give that homeless guy change, he'll spend it on drugs!"  "But he's got a dog with him!  He'll use the money to buy dog food!"  In that case, the ovulating female always wins. 
  There was also a slew of highly dreaded editing errors (mostly in the first half of the book) to drive me mental, but I suppose at this point it's just par for the course.  I find them everywhere now, it seems, so I just roll with it, and keep a pencil (for paper books) or pen and notepad (for digital books) handy to mark them down.  Because I'm fucking neurotic like that.
  But for all my bitching and moaning, this book has got a really REALLY cool idea driving it; and while I was reading, I found myself thinking, "This would make and EPIC movie!"  So I definitely liked it.  But if I was smarter, I bet I would have liked it more.