Normally I would put a summary here of the plot, but I'm going to skip that for this book, because as far as I could tell, it had no plot. You may ask, then, what exactly he did in 127 pages. Most of it was vignettes of various children from previous times, with perhaps 10% of the book following a quiet kid named James who got hold of this time travel device. Forget science fiction---this book hardly falls under real fiction.If I wanted to be kind, I would say I think the author was trying to show various pictures of kids who were alone, most of them suffering from something they couldn't prevent, and most of them similar in character to James. This would have worked a lot better if more than one of them actually met James. The vast majority showed up for about one to two pages, gave their entire life history, and were never seen again.As a science-fiction novel, it's even worse. The time travel device is, of course, a handheld remote about the size of my graphing calculator. Nothing is ever said about how it works, although James picks up an article at the beginning which hints it has something to do with white and black holes being joined together to form wormholes. This is a theory I am perfectly willing to pursue, but I must ask why none of the practical questions of a *HANDHELD* black-hole generator have been solved. It runs on an infinite energy battery (no, I'm not kidding), yet this wonderful source of power, despite being well known to the only other person who sees it, is not in widespread use. The author is very careful, in fact, to avoid even naming his source of power. I think this is because he realized how weak his science was.And for a novel supposedly about time traveling, James does very little of it. Most of his trips are over in under 5 minutes. The remaining ones he hardly does anything either.I'm glad I got this short book done over lunch break, because it wasn't worth wasting an evening on, and it's certainly not worth reading again. Not Recommended.
James has a lot of time on his hands. His parents are busy either with work or their social life. He seems to live on or near a military base and he has access to a lab where his old friend Dr. Woodforde has been developing a time machine.As with so many time travel novels, Out of Time has to be carried on the strength and likeability of its main character. Unfortunately for Out of Time James keeps to himself. He doesn't even share his thoughts with the readers leaving only descriptions of what he's doing and where he's going.What's left in place of dialogue (internal or external) is "artful" description (as Laura calls it in her review). The artfulness though leaves everything too ambiguous for me. When my husband asked me to describe the book I called it "an attempt at Picnic at Hanging Rock with time travel."I realize that the Dreamtime is a popular (dominant?) theme in Australian literature and there's a hint of that in Out of Time but it just doesn't gel. James needs to be a more engaging character for it to work.
What do You think about Out Of Time (2007)?
Creepy and somewhat confusing. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it all, especially the little side stories thrown in throughout the novella. Are those children time travelers? I think that's what the book attempts to suggest; that the explanation for the disappearances is time travel. It's definitely a story that makes you think ...but the thoughts are mostly sad and unsettling o_OAlso ... I wonder if James' sister being named Ellie was on purpose or what. I don't think this story has any direct connection to TWTWB, but still it was an interesting choice of name.
—Lindsey
