1 out of 4 stars
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While a creative concept, The Time Stone, by Jeffrey Estrella, ultimately requires more editing for both form and content before it realizes its full potential. The story is wide-reaching and, while exciting, fairly unfocused, and the characterization requires development to become compelling. I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars.
The Time Stone follows a band of four misfits as they attempt to unravel a galactic conspiracy, battle fantastic monsters, and ultimately save all of humanity from a future catastrophe. The protagonist, James Timewalker, is a homeless deadbeat who is accused of a murder he did not commit and somehow simultaneously develops an implausible set of superpowers, including visions of other times and telekinesis. His high school friend Tina, who accompanies him, sports an equally implausible number of languages and skills, despite dropping out of her undergraduate program to work as a prostitute. Milton Drax, the ex-villain trying to bring down the organization he used to work for, and Mercedes Gonzales, perhaps the only functioning adult in the group, complete the main quartet.
The Time Stone is undeniably entertaining. Action strays from the distant future to approximately 14 Million B.C.E., with fun, if absurd elements such as a flying car, space pirates, and a veritable avalanche of prophecies. Unfortunately, the poor editing obscures the enjoyment. The tense of the writing frequently switches in the middle of a paragraph, and spelling and grammar errors render some sentences amusingly unintelligible. Structurally, many key elements are introduced and never resolved, or else handled too quickly. Perhaps the strongest examples of this rushed pace are the romances; both James and Mercedes meet, fall in love, and in Mercedes’ case, get engaged to their partner, in the space of only a handful of pages. This hasty treatment renders the romances uninteresting at best and ridiculous at worst.
Character development also suffers. All the women present are beautiful, capable, and entirely one-dimensional, and most of the male characters are explicitly described as lusting after at least one. The majority of the major female characters have a tragic past of rape or violence, which is stated but never explored. The men are scarcely more developed; James is described as “a young man in his late thirties” at one point and “in his mid-thirties” in another, while a minor character is described as being exactly seventy-seven years old. Such inconsistencies indicate a lack of character development. Additionally, James in particular seems to possess no distinctive qualities – his special destiny is never explained and never seems particularly warranted. His powers serve as more of a deus ex machina than any kind of entertaining advantage.
Ultimately, The Time Stone reads like an unedited first draft. Some elements are strong, engaging, and exciting, but they are rare and require some excavation from the grammatical and spelling errors. I would not recommend this book for the average reader, although someone looking to create an exciting table-top roleplaying game might find some compelling inspiration in its pages. However, with some significant revisions, The Time Stone could take on new life and, like the characters in its narrative, change its future.
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The Time Stone
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