Weekly Reader: Demons of Time: Race to the 7th Sunset (Time Travelers Book #1) by Varun Sayal; Time Travel Adventures Offers Unique Society of Travelers

 

Weekly Reader: Demons of Time: Race to the 7th Sunset (Time Travelers Book #1) by Varun Sayal; Time Travel Adventures Offers Unique Society of Travelers

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Varun Sayal's Demons of Time: Race to the 7th Sunset is unique among books about time travel. It presents an interesting organization and world of time travelers.

While the time travel missions in the book are amazing, what is particularly fascinating is the organization and world in which the time travelers live (that is when they are not hopping through time.). They are not observing time from some future date but in the distant past. The book begins in 3077 BCE and is set at the University of Time Readers. From this vantage point, time readers see signs and premonitions, research information, and read documents from and  of the future. Since the future is not linear, they see possibilities. They can see what could happen if things are unchanged and the probability rates of potential destruction. To fix any problems in the time stream, they send for time travelers to a certain point in time to fix the problem. Then the readers scan the information to see what if anything changed.

In this assignment, Time reader Rigu is on the trail of a pair of time demons, Kumbh and Vetri. While fighting the demons, Rigu encounters mother and son, Dhara and Tej. Tej helps Rigu to defeat the demons. Rigu is impressed with the young boy's skill so twenty years later, Rigu reunites with Tej to give him a very interesting and exciting job offer. 

Kumbh has escaped from his time prison and traveled into the future. Rigu and the other time readers have seen the potential futures and have seen that a chain of events will result in humanity's destruction by 2076. The first link in the chain is set to occur in 2024 when Kumbh merges with someone's body. Tej has to merge with the body of Ravi Kumar Cheri, former illegal arms dealer turned businessman, find out who Kumbh is hiding inside, and stop his plan. Oh yes and he only has seven days. No pressure there.

Rigu and Tej have a close mentor student relationship. Rigu shows the younger man around the university and the difficulties of being a time traveler. Tej's first trip through time is somewhat stomach churning and sickening as he lands into the lair of a necromancer, three hundred years in the past to give him instructions on how to share consciousness with someone's body after they have been restored to life. Tej also travels through blackness and a long murky river which represents the River of Time. This journey is magnificent to read about and picture in one's head.

 Rigu realizes the difficulties that such a journey could produce and gives him some advice and recommends sandalwood and other oils to soothe his body and focus his mind so he can go to the right destination. Rigu also teaches Tej on how to live inside the host body and to return to his original timeline as a sanctuary. 

Rigu is also on hand to talk to Tej about other matters. Even though Tej is married to a woman and a father, he confides that he has thoughts about a male friend and has always had erotic feelings towards men. Rigu tells him that it is no sin for men to love other men and the only real sin is to hurt others. Rigu is practically the father that Tej lacks and has always longed for.

When Tej is on his own in 2024, this exciting original Science Fiction concept takes a back seat to Mystery as Tej-in-Ravi has to discern which of Ravi's colleagues or enemies Kumbh is hiding inside. He has to do some detective work as he scans Ravi's files to find the potential recipient of Kumbh's not so charitable donation of his spirit.

The kind hearted naive Tej's transformation into the ruthless avaricious Ravi is difficult for him to handle. He has to act like Ravi on the outside without anyone acting suspicious while still remembering that he is Tej, the time traveler with a fast approaching deadline, on the inside.

There are some twists towards the end, some that are rather unfortunate because they cause the Reader to question everything that had gone before. However, Demons of Time Race to the 7th Sunset is a brilliant first look at a unique world that will be great to explore in some future, or past, date.