Miles in Time: A YA Time Travel Mystery (Miles in Time Series Book 1) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Series Has Suspenseful Engaging First Volume

 Miles in Time: A YA Time Travel Mystery (Miles in Time Series Book 1) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Series Has Suspenseful Engaging First Volume 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Lee Matthew Goldberg has a tendency to give his Readers a wild ride. Slow Down was a drug trip about a Hollywood hopeful who gets involved with an experimental film that gets too experimental and deadly. Orange City is about a copywriter in a futuristic society who samples a drink that is used to drug and ultimately control the people. The Mentor features an editor who is stalked by an author who turns to violence and murder for inspiration. The Desire Card is a five volume series about several people who become involved with a nefarious organization that promises their deepest desires but with strict payments and penalties that are literally real killers. His latest, Miles in Time, is more conventional as it is written for a YA readership, but it still retains much of the suspense, tension, unpredictable chaos, and plot twists of its predecessors. 

Miles Hardy is a teen with a fascination for mysteries so he opens up a private investigation service. Unfortunately, serious mysteries and crimes are hard to come by in small town Frontier, Iowa and he can search for missing cats for so long. However, he is hit with a very serious crime when his secretive older brother, Simon, dies in what was originally believed to be suicide but evidence points to murder. Devastated but determined, Miles receives coded messages that SImon sent him in advance that leads him to a mysterious lab which holds Simon’s secret project: a time machine. Miles must use the time machine to travel to a week before his brother's death to save his life and find out who wants him dead.

Because Miles in Time crosses genres with Science Fiction and Mystery, it combines tropes from both to create an interesting amalgam of two separate tones and styles. In some ways both genres rely on curiosity. Science Fiction asks “What if?” and involves imagining possibilities and procedures to lead to the answer to that initial question. Mysteries often ask “What happened and who did it” and involve seeking clues and leads to come to a credible conclusion. Mysteries asks that you look around you while Science Fiction asks that you imagine what lies ahead but both are genres which involve discovery. 

That is what is at play here. Both Hardy Brothers go through their own individual quests of discovery to come to their conclusions. Simon spends his time in his lab, testing his theories about time travel, experimenting by sending his guinea pig Stinkers into the past, writing messages in code, and transcribing his notes into book form so Miles can understand and follow it. His goal is to prove that time travel is possible and that the past can be changed. His quest requires thought, intellect, and analysis of data.

Miles however is more physically than mentally active. He spends his time observing his surroundings for any changes in normal patterns, asking open ended questions that lead to potential leads, sneaking into forbidden places, and gathering clues in a way that ties all of the evidence together to draw conclusions. His goal is to find his brother’s murderer and to defeat potential enemies. His quest requires strength, courage and attention to detail. 

There are many suspenseful moments that occur during Miles’s trip to the past. No one is above suspicion. Miles investigates the school bully, Simon’s clique, his detached father, his mentally ill mother, a teacher who appears to have encouraged Simon’s pursuits, and a curious and attentive girl that Miles is attracted to. There is also a mysterious organization that hampers Miles’s investigation, seem to know a great deal about Simon’s experiment, and aren't afraid to get violent if need be even towards kids. It’s a tight plot with plenty of dangerous situations that Miles has to use his wits to escape from. It’s the kind of book that keeps the Reader fascinated with the various questions and Miles’ pursuit in answering them. 

There is also plenty of emotional depth in the book that thankfully doesn’t get in the way of the overall suspenseful and inquisitive tone. There are a lot of soft emotions in Miles’ relationship with his mother for example. She is a haunting presence as someone who lives in a semi-catatonic state in which she is awake and is able to move but is mentally separated from her family. She says very little except the occasional non sequitur rages and moves so seldomly that she has to be fed and given medicine by hand. She is like a dependent frightened child but occasionally she seems to know or understand more than she can admit. The brothers and their father clearly love her but are overwhelmed and anxious about her slipping away from her family. 

Miles and Simon's fraternal relationship is the real soul of the book. The chapter where Miles discovers Simon’s body is heartbreaking as is his anguish and remorse over the distance between the two brothers. During his time travel adventure, Miles stays by his brother’s side pretending that he is interviewing him for a school assignment and is able to see the world through Simon’s perspective. The time travel and the investigation gives Miles and Simon an opportunity to understand, empathize, and bond with one another. 

Ironically, Miles’ time in the past is the longest most pleasant experience that the two brothers shared in years. They are able to repair a relationship that was once close when they created imaginary worlds and secret codes but has become distant when maturity, puberty, and different interests and perspectives got in the way. Miles may have traveled through time to save Simon, but it was clear that the brothers needed to save each other. 

As with many ongoing series, Miles in Time leaves some questions unanswered and some plot points unresolved for the next volume. This first volume is a strong sharp start and hopefully the next volume will continue to be that way. 

The Fallen Dreamer: The Seers Storyteller Edition by Kevin G. Broas; Philosophical and Metaphysical Themes Are Highlights of Magical Kids Novel

 The Fallen Dreamer: The Seers Storyteller Edition by Kevin G. Broas; Philosophical and Metaphysical Themes Are Highlights of Magical Kids Novel

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Okay yes, Kevin G. Broas’ The Fallen Dreamer: The Seers Storyteller Edition, is another book in which teenagers obtain supernatural powers and explore the consequences and responsibilities that are tied to them. But there are some deep philosophical and metaphysical questions, details, and themes that are intrinsic to the book and keep it from being a hoary superhero/magic user plot.

Johnny is a teen who emerged from a cave collapse possessing extraordinary abilities such as flight, precognition, and clairvoyance. They are activated by Johnny manipulating clusters of invisible blue energy strands around his body. Excited by this discovery, Johnny shares the news with his best friend, Jake and girlfriend, Brooke who also gain those abilities. As the trio become more powerful, they discover darker purposes for these powers. Not only that but others become involved. Other people also possess these gifts. Supernatural creatures, called Spooks and another creature called The Taker absorb their powers by destroying the human body. Then there's Johnny who is acting stranger and more unpredictable the longer he has these powers.

This is a Contemporary Fantasy about kids discovering magical powers that isn't afraid to get deep and touch on various themes such as the ego, human nature, dreaming, the subconscious, the notions of good and evil, and what it means to truly have godlike powers inside a human body with its vulnerabilities, frailties, and best and worst personality attributes.

Johnny explains that they have to shift the blue energy strands that surround their clusters to harness these abilities. The key he says is in learning control and not letting worries, distractions, and anxieties or other thoughts and emotions drain their energy. Most importantly, it involves killing the ego and foregoing material and physical trappings. That includes relationships which feed the ego and binds the soul to the illusion of the physical world. 

Once the ego falls, so does the energy that holds them to the physical world. They are able to then access a higher metaphysical existence and manipulate forces outside their limited experiences. It requires a lot of self-examination and reflection before the strands can be accessed and those powers can be used.

Once Johnny, Brooke, and Jake become acquainted with the idea of seeing and using clusters, they see them everywhere and in everything (though because of their practices, theirs are stronger and brighter). Seeing the clusters surrounding other people gives the trio a rare opportunity to control others. In one chilling chapter, Jake tests his powers by moving a bully’s strands so he is severely injured with headaches, nose bleeds, and temporary loss of breath. This causes a slippery slope as they discover that they can use these powers for nefarious purposes like creating hallucinations or telekinetically fight someone. 

Johnny, Jake, Brooke and the other characters are teenagers. Teenagers by nature are argumentative, surly, emotional, unpredictable, immature, and intolerant. Now give someone with that attitude the powers of a god or goddess and it makes sense why they do what they do with their strands. 

Many people like to think that if they had any type of magical superpowers they might do good things with it like stopping crime or helping people. They might but more than likely they would use it to their advantage the way these kids do to defend themselves against bullies, receive a passing grade, or to win a football championship. In a meritocratic society where we are told to use our talents and win at all costs, many would use whatever advantage that they have to succeed even if it is an otherworldly advantage. 

As they control their strands, they gain higher perspectives. The usual teen talk, high school social hierarchy, dates, and material possessions that once identified their placement in society become mere distractions. It’s practically an ascension into a higher plane of existence. 

Part of this elevated ascension involves altering time and space. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the continuous references to dreams and astral travel. The characters explore The Dreamer's World which is exactly what it says in the title. It is a vast endless land of silver sand dunes and aurora borealis filling the night sky. This land exists out of time and space and looks like a world before awareness and consciousness. It appears to be barren as though waiting to be filled with memories, fears, moments, the things that dreams store and decode.

The land in the Dreamer’s World shifts as they are faced with challenges like climbing cliffs, fields of grass, and seemingly endless seas. The world is connected to their subconscious and alters itself accordingly. 

The Dreamer’s World is also where The Spooks and The Taker emerge from. They represent their fears, insecurities, all of the ego trappings that had been removed from them. They haunt the protagonists so they can torture them psychologically before they ruin them physically. The fact that they strive to drain Johnny and the others of their powers before destroying their bodies is highly significant. They weigh them down with the egos that they once held so they descend into their human states before they are faced with their mortality. 

In one terrifying chapter, The Taker becomes so powerful that it becomes a natural storm that obliterates Johnny, Jake, and Brooke’s school. This happens during a very key moment as the characters are questioning their own loyalties, allegiances, and self worth. The Taker is fueled by their worst emotions and this threat spills out into the world around them. It changes the physical as well as metaphysical world and creates schisms within both.

Besides the supernatural creatures that threaten the protagonists, they also face threats from within. Some characters take frightening turns with their strands and become intoxicated with power. They use different means from violence to mental manipulation to sway events in their favor. Because of their detached ascended nature, they no longer respond to emotions like empathy, trust, understanding, friendship, or love. They may have removed their egos but they also stripped themselves of their humanity. 

The Fallen Dreamer may be a Fantasy about kids embracing the magic around them, but it also reveals a lot about the constant struggle to achieve awareness and enlightenment while also retaining one’s humanity and the reason that they began this ascension in the first place.