Book Review

Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Reviews

2020

Overview

When Delly joins a misfit team of female bodyguards protecting a wealthy woman in the weeks before her marriage, she thinks it will be easy money—until horrifying necromantic mechanical spiders are sent to attack her boss’s carriage. In the year 2304, wealthy sociopath Morgen Campbell leads a sadistic team of time travelers in Temporal Dilemma, a competitive game played by altering events in American history with the goal of preventing the U.S. from ever having entered WWII. In 2136, historian Madison Grace enlists the help of CHRONOS time agent Tyson Reyes, himself based in 2304, to determine which of several historical events that Campbell’s team have altered prevented the bombing of Pearl Harbor: the conversion of Catholic priest Charles Coughlin to the new Cyrist religion in 1938, an attack on the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. in 1939, the attempted assassination of aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1940, or a bombing at the 1940 World’s Fair. The best stories include “The Children’s Hour,” about a little girl who encounters the benevolent spirit of her recently deceased father; “An Angel Cometh,” a surreal tale of a man who witnesses horrors within a cathedral; “Standing Tall,” about a young boy who watches from his wheelchair as other children play sports; and “Dancin’ Days,” which sees a female martial artist sparring with her instructor.

• Publisher: PWxyz, LLC
• Subject: Anders, Charlie Jane / Bodyguards / Bookstores / Earth / Horror fiction / Marriage / Novels / Okorafor, Nnedi / Politics / Science fiction & fantasy / Travel