I thought the book started off good, but went bad after the appearance of Paul Kramer. As a story writer myself, I understand that Scarrow wanted to make Kramer a mystery character in the book, but he did not give enough information for me, the reader, to be able to identify him. When Kramer appeared a second time, I couldn't remember who he was, so I flipped back through the pages and realized that there was nothing that can be used to identify this character except for the name. I kept reading and Kramer kept appearing. After a point I simply lost interest in the book. If books won accolades for the gripping start of their plots then this first volume in the series ought to have won award after award after award. It is a really clever concept where young people destined for a horrible death are rescued by a stranger suddenly appearing in the moment of catastrophe. The option given to them, either stay and die as was planned or take the step into the unknown and become a 'Time rider'.The job of these new recruits is to live in one day of time continually repeated but watch for any slight change in the repeated action, changes that would signify someone had entered into history at a different point and had skewed history. The flaw in the plotline was the fact that the timeriders themselves were aberrations in history. They ought to have died and therefore their presence in the 24 hour time capsule they inhabited was a sensitive balancing act. They needed to pass through each day without affecting or changing the throb of history other than the moment when they encounter glimpses of new details in an otherwise identical day.This first novel in the series introduces the main characters and their first adventure which is to go back into time and prevent Hitler being advised against invading Russia. The plot and initial concept is excellent, the sadness I felt about this was it missed an opportunity to investigate in a quite ingenious and challenging way the alterations in history that might have happened. Scarrow chose instead to veer wildly into apocalyptic destruction and zombie terror instead of writing a more thought provoking and intriguing story.Once again of course, this is a book for young adults and not picky hyper critical middle aged blokes so I would hate to denigrate the novel in anyway that would stop its target audience from picking it up. It is clever and exciting and I will definitely read another.The relationship between the lad Liam and the artificial intelligence Bob is a delight and really works, what doesn't work is Scarrow's attempt to differentiate the young people by their idiosyncratic way of speaking. Liam's irish brogue, Sal's Indian street speak just clunk and grate. I really hope Mr Scarrow in the next book just makes use of 'Sal said', 'Maddy suggested', 'Liam shouted' etc. So not a towering work of literature destined to stand forever, unless one of the timeriders slips forward and inserts it on a bookshelf in 2136, but well worth a read as a clever idea which, I hope, will be more honed and less self conscious as the series continues.
What do You think about Jezdci Časem (2011)?
Really go at the start and I found it a little bit boring
—allstar1914
