Friday, May 3, 2019

Short Book Reviews: D B Jackson Ventures into Time-Traveling Fantasy

Time's Children, by D B Jackson (Angry Robot)

I loved D B Jackson’s “Thieftaker” Chronicles, set in pre-Revolutionary Boston, with an appealingly flawed hero and a system of magic that extorts a dreadful toll. The plots moved right along, part police procedural, part magical battle, part romance. My interest never wavered, and at the end, I counted many of the characters as friends or at least recognizable enemies I must never trust. So I dove happily into this fantasy with its intriguing premise of magic wielders who can not only cross distances but time itself. I assumed the setting would be vivid, the characters compelling, and the magic itself carefully thought through and integral to the world and the plot.

The description was promising: Fifteen year-old Tobias Doljan, a Walker trained to travel through time, is called to serve at the court of Daerjen. The sovereign, Mearlan IV, wants him to Walk back fourteen years, to prevent a devastating war which will destroy all of Islevale. Even though the journey will double Tobias' age, he agrees. But he arrives to discover Mearlan has already been assassinated, and his court destroyed. The only survivor is the infant princess, Sofya. Still a boy inside his newly adult body, Tobias must find a way to protect the princess from assassins, and build himself a future... in the past.

As I read, I found my expectations were not amiss: the world was complex and interesting, and the characters, particularly the demons, got me curious. I loved the system of magic. An auspicious beginning, I thought. But as page after page went by, each one piling up more secondary characters that seemed to serve no purpose but to be left behind in an unending prequel to the plot promised by the description, I found myself looking around for something else to read. Add to that, the descriptions went on and on…and on, Robert Jordan style. As I’m not a fan of Jordan except as a cure for insomnia, this didn’t work for me.


Don’t get me wrong, D B Jackson is a marvelous writer. The “Thieftaker” books showcase his ability to depict settings with wonderful characters caught up in nonstop action on many different levels, with internal angst as well as external dangers. The prose in Time’s Children is just fine, and often even better than fine. But beautiful writing alone could not, for me, overcome the overlong static passages and the repeated bits of action, interaction, and minor plot threads that seemed to go nowhere.

In the end, I gave up. I’ll wait for the next “Thieftaker” novel or give Jackson’s next a chance…so long as it is not this particular series.

All this said, this is only my own experience and opinion. It’s not that I’m opposed to long novels with leisurely descriptions. I love Tolkien’s writing and re-read The Lord of the Rings at regular intervals. There’s a travelogue in the form of a novel if ever there was one. But the conception of the world and the way it’s imbued with enchantment makes Middle Earth itself the focus for much of the trilogy. That wasn’t my experience with Time’s Children. Perhaps other Tolkien fans – or Jordan fans – will love this series. I wish them joy of it, and D B Jackson himself success with his work.

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