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Time Travelers Never Die (2009)
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Fiction Review by The Gravedigger
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02.09.10
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author: Jack McDevitt
After his physicist father mysteriously disappears, Shel discovers that the old man created a working time-travel device which looks like a cell-phone. He thinks his dad may be stranded in the past or even killed, so he starts to make trips back in time to find him. These places include Renaissance Italy and ancient Greece. But he can't speak the languages so he gets his friend, Dave Dryden, to accompany him there, since there are a few of the devices. Dave is a teacher and a linguist. He's not nearly as reckless as Shel. At first it seems to be an impossible task but Shel recounts all the places and people his father was fascinated with, from Galileo in Italy to the Wright Brothers in Ohio. But when they finally do find him he does not want to return to the present, for a very good reason.
Things become more complicated when they make a trip to the future and get information that Shel dies in a fire. Evidence also points that he was murdered. But who would do this and why? They also know they can't change things without causing themselves heart attacks (a time-line failsafe). So while Dave does attend his friend's funeral Shel (from an earlier time) continues to visit him and make travels in time. However, Dave may have figured out a way to get around Shel's ultimate fate. Unfortunately, like his father before him, Shel disappears.
TIME TRAVELERS NEVER DIE is an interesting time-travel novel. One aspect of it is a historical lesson while another explores the things these characters may actually be able to change without repercussions, such as bringing Socrate's lost stories back the modern era. Author McDevitt is also very creative in pulling off the twist ending which really had me guessing until the end.
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Rating: nan out of 10.0 - votes cast total
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