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TV Review: Another Life

Posted on 24/05/202024/05/2020 by Ndrw

SPOILER ALERT

Anyone who has not seen season 1 of the sci-fi/drama TV show Another Life is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

My wife and I are seldom happy unless we’re watching at least one TV program with space ships in it and having recently completed Star Trek: Enterprise, we were very much in the market for another space opera. And so we did the only thing we could: dipped our hand into the televisual nest of vipers that is Netflix, only to get bitten by Another Life.

I was cautiously optimistic about this show. In the opening scenes, a mysterious alien object crash-lands on earth and grows into an enormous crystalline monolith (dubbed ‘the Artifact’) which begins sending transmissions to a distant world. Niko Breckinridge (Katee Sackhoff), captain of the Salvare, is ordered to travel to this planet to learn what the aliens are doing, while her husband, Erik (Justin Chatwin) remains on earth to study the Artifact and while trying to raise a young daughter.

Sounds good, right?

Yeah. That’s what I thought too.

However, if we ever do have to send a manned spacecraft out on a dangerous mission to make first contact with aliens who may or may not mean us harm, I seriously hope we send a slightly more seasoned (or at least, trained) crew than this mob. These guys seemed to see no problem in eating alien plant-life, taking off their helmets while mining on alien planets or (my personal favourite) vaping alien narcotics, nor did they ever once learn from their mistakes. Their idiocy finally culminated in them deliberately installing a mind-altering alien implant, which they knew virtually nothing about, into a sick colleague’s brain. And as if being stupid weren’t bad enough, this crew, who presumably represent the crème de la crème of America’s astronauts, lost their heads every single time one tiny little thing went wrong– when they weren’t having sex, of course.

The sexual elements in this show (I refuse to exalt them to the level of ‘romantic subplots’, for they were neither romantic nor were they developed enough to be called subplots) lacked any substance or purpose whatsoever. All of the characters were pairing (or tripling) off in ways which seemed forced and unconvincing, finally fizzling out in the episode ‘How the Light Gets Lost’ where they all get high and have sex. Only the chemistry between Niko and the holographic William (Samuel Anderson– easily the best character in this show, by the way) seemed remotely natural or like it was contributing to the overall story in any way, only to be spoilt when Niko and William have really weird ‘hologram-pretending-to-be-my-husband’ sex and then it all went wrong for them too.

‘Big Brother in Space’ is how my wife described this ship and its crew and I am forced to agree.

Anyway, let’s look at some characters.

Niko: One of the few competent people aboard the ship. A bit of a control freak and a hard-nosed no-nonsense space captain who was anxious to protect her family back on Earth. Fairly well written.

William: Best character in this show and easily the most likeable until the ‘Lame Sci-Fi Trope Monster’ got him too and he started to malfunction because he fell in love with someone who treated him badly.

Erik (Justin Chatwin): Your bog-standard American dad trying to raise his daughter all by himself even though he’s also got a really important job to do. Lots of potential but a little too superficial for my taste.

Sasha (Jake Abel): I liked him better after he became a bad guy. He made my skin crawl, which I think was the effect the writers were going for.

Cas (Elizabeth Ludlow): A little preoccupied with her own issues which were never fully explored in this season but generally likeable. Cooler in a crisis than most of the crew.

Michelle: Swears like a trooper but apart from that, she seemed to serve no function whatsoever aboard the Salvare, (I just checked back to see what her job was, turns out she was the communications expert. Ha!) and I was downright glad when she died because she was just such a torn-faced, potty-mouthed pain in the fundament who dragged down both the pace and the tone of the show with her shrill dialogue.

All in all, Another Life failed to live up to its potential. This first season (which ends on a cliffhanger, by the way) was a sloppy mish-mash of sci-fi/horror cliches, pointless sexual tension and a bunch of characters who, for the most part, were as irritating as they were incompetent.

My rating: 🌟

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Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.

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Throwback Thursday: Maigret (TV Review)

Posted on 21/05/202011/05/2020 by Ndrw

Originally published: 10/04/2016 under the title ‘To Catch a Killer (A Little Too Easily)’

SPOILER ALERT

Although every effort has been made to avoid spoilers, anyone who has not seen the ITV television-movie Maigret or read the Georges Simenon novel Maigret Sets a Trap is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

I’m normally quite fussy about reading the original of any story before I watch the film/TV adaptation. It’s not that I favour one over the other; I just like to get a feel for the original author’s unique angle on his/her story before sampling other people’s homages to it. That being said, when I heard that Rowan Atkinson was going to be starring as the main character in ITV’s television adaptation of Georges Simenon’s detective novel Maigret Sets a Trap, my curiosity got the better of me.

There are a couple of reasons I was so keen to see it but what really piqued my curiosity and what caused me to break with my usual tradition of reading the book first was the fact that the main character (a fairly sour-faced French detective called Jules Maigret), was being portrayed by Rowan Atkinson; a British actor best known for playing fairly silly comedy roles such as Mr Bean, Johnny English and Edmund Blackadder.

I will admit that it took a couple of minutes to get used to Atkinson’s face being so serious. His features are very striking and he has made a career out of comical facial expressions, not least of all in Mr Bean, where he has made an art of telling jokes without uttering a word. My disorientation only lasted a minute however. Atkinson’s acting and the general mood of the film were more than adequate to create the serious and mysterious ambiance needed for a good, solid detective story.

I do love a good detective story. I think secretly we all do. Mystery is very compelling. It’s what makes a detective story so captivating; something puzzling has happened and we simply can’t go to bed until we’ve had all our questions answered! That means, of course, that it is important that the reader/viewer of a detective story never knows for certain who committed the crime until the last moment (that was always my biggest objection to Columbo!). Those unanswered questions are what keep us on the edge of our seat. Without them, there’s no mystery and no story worth telling. Those detailed conversations you have with your family during the ad-breaks about who you think the killer might be and why are half the fun of watching a detective drama in my book.

And that, dear reader, is the main thing that ruined this first episode of Maigret for me.

The episode opens midway through an investigation conducted by Jules Maigret into four similarly styled murders. The victims have nothing in common except the colour of their hair and Maigret is, frankly, utterly failing to catch the perpetrator. And so he sets a trap, using female police officers as bait. At first, this seems to have all the makings of a good TV detective story; a compelling hard-nosed detective; pressure being applied to remove the detective from the case because of his failure to solve it; a series of mysterious murders that cause my wife and I to exchange numerous increasingly wild theories about ‘who dunnit’; the looming threat of more deaths; a dangerous plan to force the killer to reveal himself…

But then the plan goes ahead fairly early in the story, nobody gets killed as a result of Maigret’s risky move and someone is arrested against whom a truck-load of evidence is immediately forthcoming.

‘It can’t be him.’ I say to my wife. ‘It definitely, definitely, definitely can’t be him. It’s too obvious. It’s never the first guy they arrest, especially not when they find so much evidence against him so easily.’

So we carry on watching it for another half hour or so, quietly confident in our individual theories about who the real killer is while Maigret continues to hold and interrogate someone who we assume is an innocent man…

Only it turns out it was him after all and the person who I thought maybe was the killer is actually never actually seen again. Oh sure, they try to throw us off the scent by having another murder committed while the killer is in jail but by that point it’s painfully obvious that it was the killer’s wife who committed this last murder just to protect her husband and so we are not fooled and neither is Maigret.

I was prepared for the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to take Rowan Atkinson seriously as a serious detective and was pleasantly surprised to find that I thoroughly enjoyed his performance. If I was giving out prizes for acting or creating the right ambiance, I would have nothing but praise for Maigret but when it comes to that all important story, I must admit to feeling like I had been robbed of a good mystery and I am not nearly as enthusiastic about the second episode (due to be aired later in the UK later this year) as I was about the first.

My most sincere congratulations to Rowan Atkinson (and indeed, all the cast!) on a very good and very non-comical performance. Hopefully the plot for the next episode, Maigret’s Dead Man, will do greater justice to the acting and ambiance of the first episode.

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Spotlight: Cocooning the Butterfly by Laila Doncaster

Posted on 19/05/202013/05/2020 by Ndrw

“I love you, Butterfly. I will never hurt you, and I will never leave you alone to fend away the pain. I promise.”

If Halya had known what the Knight Riders stood for, against, and their protection, would she have experienced the trauma and heartache that she had gone through? Possibly, but that is not what happened or how it was. Sheltered and innocent to the biker reality that swarms around her, the family did what they had to do, to save her from certain death. The Demons want her dead, will stop at nothing, but they have to find her first.

A naive orphan at 17, bullied, beaten, molested, raped, battered, and broken. Faith gave her the strength to search for the man she dreams of. This is Halya’s story; what she went through and how she overcame a painful existence. Love, protection, shelter, warmth, and tenderness, could The Buffalo’s destiny in “Cocooning, The Butterfly” save her mind from the madness of trauma?

Knight Rider Law rules the biker world, yet as time passes and tempers flare, war is inevitable. A biker’s feud became a long-standing crusade to safeguard the ownership of a multimillion-dollar ranch and its fortunes. One boy and one girl were born to achieve the promise of the old men of long ago, but time is also the enemy. Will she survive, find the man in her nightly dreams, escape Hell, and remain sane?

Praise for Cocooning the Butterfly

“Cocooning The Butterfly” gives you a new perspective on life, and in a beautifully romantic way. goo.gl/BCmXpx
—
Jay W Squires (@jay_squires) November 06, 2017

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Monday Motivation

Posted on 18/05/202011/05/2020 by Ndrw

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Star Trek: Enterprise (TV Review)

Posted on 17/05/202011/05/2020 by Ndrw

Spoiler Alert

Anyone who has not seen any episode of Star Trek: Enterprise (2002-2005) is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

I’ve always loved Star Trek. The original series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and even Voyager have always been my firm favourites for as long as I can remember. I have all the DVDs and I watch them over and over without getting bored. When I was still a lad and just starting to really get into writing, I even wrote a few Star Trek fan fictions.

The one thing I didn’t like, or should I say refused to like, was Enterprise (2002-2005). In fact, I’ve been pretty vocal about my contempt for this show in the past. However my wife and I were desperately hunting for something new to watch that filled the Star Trek void. Sure, Star Trek: Picard was good, but it doesn’t quite fit the classic Star Trek feel and the less being said about Discovery, the better. So after a little gentle coaxing from the wife, I decided to give Enterprise a second chance.

I won’t lie to you, I still hate the theme tune. But I clenched my teeth and decided to bear with it long enough to see if I enjoyed the actual program and, to my great surprise, I did! Maybe it was just my bad experience with Discovery or maybe I was being genuinely unfair before but I have to say that I really liked Enterprise and feel it fits in nicely with the first three spin-off shows. The first two seasons meandered a little bit but it really picked up with season 3 and its season-long story arc focusing on the Xindi invasion and the formation of the United Federation of Planets in season 4. Oh and if you like time travel episodes, this show has got them in spades.

Anyway, let’s talk characters. While TNG, DS9 and Voyager focused on different characters for individual episodes (resulting in definable ‘Riker episodes’, ‘Data episodes’, ‘Odo episodes’, ‘Neelix episodes’, etc.) Enterprise focuses almost entirely on three key characters: Captain Archer, Sub-Commander T’Pol and Commander Tucker (‘Trip’). The rest of the regular cast serve as little more than supporting characters with loose fitting backstories and all the substance of a bunch of turnips. Boring supporting characters aside, I quite liked this approach. It was reminiscent of the original series with its focus on Kirk, Spock and Bones and allowed the three key players a bit more opportunity to develop. I could take or leave Archer but I really liked T’Pol and Trip.

Most Star Treks also have very familiar settings aboard their ships: the bridge, where all the shaking happens when the ship is attacked; the transporter room, where people get beamed up; engineering, where things explode; sickbay, where people with bizarre alien diseases are cured by the CMO at the last moment. Well, Enterprise has all these and more, including the command centre, the situation room and my personal ‘favourite’: the decontamination chamber. This bizarre little room was ~~an obvious and cynical attempt to increase viewing figures~~ particularly confusing and upsetting. Whenever a crewman (or usually two or more crewmen of opposite genders) returned from an alien planet, they went into this dimly lit room where they stripped down to their underwear and started lazily sponging each other down with shiny oil. You know, to decontaminate each other.

Decontamination wasn’t the only subtle-as-a-bat’leth attempt to bring sex appeal to this show. Almost from the outset, it is clear there’s going to be a romantic subplot between Trip and T’Pol (I knew it the first time I saw them together in that decontamination chamber). Very good, we like romantic subplots. Foreshadowing it by having both characters stripping off and giving each other massages to help treat Trip’s insomnia, on the other hand, seems a tad obvious. They didn’t develop any serious kind of relationship until the very end of the last season, and even then it seemed like their relationship was only just starting to get real when Trip was quite unnecessarily and unceremoniously killed at the last minute.

Speaking of which, the final episode was a major disappointment. Most Star Trek spin-off series ended with a thrilling two-part bang. Enterprise ended with a one-part episode in which Will Riker from The Next Generation runs a holodeck simulation of the Enterprise crew on their way to sign the charter which led to the formation of the United Federation of Planets. A brief bit of shooting, a lot of Riker and Troi musing about following orders and Trip’s untimely demise. The end. Probably the most boring episode of the series, with the possible exception of the Risa episode.

I feel like I’ve done nothing but criticise in this review. Please don’t be misled. I may be fifteen years late to the party, but I finally decided I like this show. I hereby renounce any of the bad stuff I’ve said about it (apart from anything I’ve said in this post, of course). It feels a million times more ‘Star Treky’ than anything else we’ve been served up in the last fifteen years and gives you a good solid forty minutes of family friendly sci-fi/drama entertainment more or less every time. It boasts well written story arcs and a good mix of humour, drama and excitement and (mostly) likeable characters (I want to punch that snotty-nosed Reid in the chops though). Watch it with my blessing.

Just make sure you skip the intro sequence.

My rating: 🖖🖖🖖🖖

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Throwback Thursday: The Church Mouse

Posted on 14/05/202009/05/2020 by Ndrw

Originally published 07/05/2017

My original plan for today had been to blog about works of fiction that are nevertheless based on true events but I also had a niggling feeling that it’s been ages since I’ve put any of my own stories on Penstricken.

I know what I’ll do! I thought. I’ll write a story based on true events! I just need to decide what true story to base it on…

At about the same time as I was thinking all this, I found evidence that a mouse had taken up residence in my house and that gave me just the idea I was looking for. So without further ado, I give you…

The Church Mouse

by. A Ferguson

Based on a true story

[1]

The Landlord and Landlady were busy today, pulling out the furniture and hoovering behind every nook and cranny where I’d been, or even might’ve been. They even shoved their infernal vacuum nozzle into my room. I wasn’t in at the time, praise God. I was out scavenging, but they’ve definitely been here. They’ve cleaned up all my business, sure, the bits they could reach anyhow. They’ve settled down now. Their telly’s been on for hours.

Ah, that’s it off now. Finally. They’ll be going to bed soon, I can hear them moving about. He’s washing the dishes, like he usually does just before bed. She’ll be upstairs already then. I’ll give them an hour, once I’m sure they’re asleep and then I’ll–

Wait. Snifffffffff. What’s that?!

Sniff, sniff?

Chocolate and.. sniff?… raisins and caramel by goodness! Ohh, mamma mia… sniffffffffff! Oh yes! A Cadbury’s Picnic if I’m not very much mistaken! Ohh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I’m eating well tonight!

No! No… no, no, I mustn’t yet, he’s still out there… gotta wait… gaagh! Hurry up and leave, already!

I think… yes, he’s gone. I can hear him on the stairs. I should wait but… oooh, I have to have that Picnic! Maybe, I’ll just have a peak… he won’t be back now till morning anyway… and that smell, it’s so strong… it must be…

Yes! There it is, right outside my door! That idiot’s left a whole chunk of the stuff just lying around in this little plastic box for me. I’ll just pop in, grab the choccie and…

Ow! The door just fell on me! It’s not very heavy, though, that’s something. If I just back-peddle like this I can pull out the choccie and… yes! I’m free! Haha! Oooh, my precious little Picnic, I can’t wait to get you back to my room… ! Hehehe!

[2]

Ooh! Another day, another Picnic! Maybe I’ve got the Landlord and Landlady all wrong. Maybe they really like me and want me to stay? Eh? Nah, don’t be silly. I’ve had all night to think about this and I don’t think that door closed on me accidentally last night! It’s just dumb luck, really, that my bum was still hanging out the back or who knows what might’ve happened…

I should leave it, I know. I’ve still got plenty left over from last night but… ooooooh, that smell just drives me wild! I got out okay last night, I’ll probably be okay again just as long as I’m careful. I know it can be done and… oh mercy, I won’t be able to think straight with that sitting outside my front door all night long.

Just need to watch. Make sure, take care, always beware. Don’t let them outsmart you. You can do this, just… take care. Beware. Don’t let carnal passions cloud your judgement. Use your brain, take your time, claim the prize.

Good… good, it’s the same kind of trap as before. Nothing that’s gonna snap my back or open my skull. I’ll just do what I did last night, leave my bum in the doorway and… gagh, the choccie’s a bit smaller tonight though… tucked right away up at the back it is, I can’t quite reach… ooooh, but it’s right there, I can almost taste it! Just another half inch…

Woosh! Rats, rats, ratty-rats! The door’s closed! Ohh, no, no, no, no, no, no, please God, let me out! Let me out! Ooh, God forgive me, I know it’s my fault, I… I got greedy and I’m sorry! Please, God, let me out! Please… I’m sorry, I’m sorry… please!

[3]

Ngh! What? I must’ve fallen asleep. But it wasn’t a dream. I’m still here, in the stupid box with the stupid choccie. I don’t fancy it quite the same anymore. I feel sick. I can’t move. They’re here. The Landlady, she sees me. She’s calling to her husband. They’re so… big!

Aaaagh! He’s picking up the box! What’s he doing with me? Where’s he taking me? To eat me? I hear humans burn up smaller animals before they eat them! Maybe he’ll leave me if I just sit very still but… oh no, it’s a forlorn hope! What else can I do?

Please, please, please, please, Lord God Almighty, rescue me from the hand of this monster! I know it’s my fault, I promise I won’t ever be greedy again I’ll… oh, Lord, please have mercy on me a sinner!

Agh! The light! He’s taking me outdoors, into their car… where are we going?

I wish I could move. I’m so afraid, every part of my body feels like it’s turned to stone. All except my bowels; they’re working overtime. Whatever he’s doing, oh Lord, let it be over soon. To die in terror, trapped in this dungeon, tiny even by my standards and drowning in my own business…

He’s stopped the car.

Oh… rats.

This is it.

Here it comes. He’s picking me up and taking me outside and opening the box… he’s shaking it at the ground. In one sudden motion my petrified body and the choccie fall to the ground and land among the long grass on the roadside. I’m out! I’m free! I’m out of here! Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, God! Thank you kind Landlord! I’m free!

* * *

Mr. Mouse fled through the grass and the bushes for hours. He swore never to succumb to gluttony again.

In the winter of 2017 he became a church mouse. He devoted his life to the ministry and service of the church and was ordained as a minister in 2018.

He died peacefully at the age of three in 2019 and was buried on the grounds of his parish along with the piece of Picnic which he had preserved as a memento of the day his life was spared.

THE END

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Spotlight: A Storm of Shadows and Pearls by Marion Blackwood

Posted on 12/05/202009/05/2020 by Ndrw

After barely surviving last year’s lethal power struggle, the smart-mouthed thief known as the Oncoming Storm has solidified her long-standing belief that steering well clear of other people’s problems is the way to live. Even when a whole new civilization sails right into the harbor, she remains adamant. She is not getting involved in another political intrigue. But she might not have a choice.

Past sins have caught up with the knife-throwing thief and she finds herself under attack. With more enemies than she can count, the Oncoming Storm has no idea who is targeting her. Or why. Her desperate fight for survival draws her deeper into a web of manipulation, threats, and conspiracies.

Assassins, kings and noble lords, as well as strangers from another land, all plot in the shadows. Who will outsmart who? And which side is trying to kill the thief caught in the middle? The noose is tightening. Can the Oncoming Storm solve the mystery in time or will she be forced to betray her allies in order to stay alive?

Praise for A Storm of Shadows and Pearls

#WritingCommunity @MarionBlackwoo9 releases the second book in her Oncoming Storm series tomorrow! Make sure you pi… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
—
Catherine Bowser (@CatherineBowse2) May 03, 2020

Happy Book Birthday @MarionBlackwoo9 and A Storm of Shadow and Pearls! It’s perfect and dare I say better than the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
—
RavenPelt Kat💙 (@KnitUpGirl) May 04, 2020

📚 Latest #BookReview 📚 A Storm of Shadows and Pearls by @MarionBlackwoo9!! Shadows and Pearls was the perfect se… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
—
Danielle Novotny (@DanielleNovotny) May 06, 2020

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Monday Motivation

Posted on 11/05/202009/05/2020 by Ndrw

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Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Children’s Edition (Vol. 4)

Posted on 10/05/202011/05/2020 by Ndrw

Spoiler Alert

Anyone who has not read The Golden Egg by Maggie Keen, Peedie Puffin by Michelle Robertson, The Jolly Pocket Postman by Janet & Allan Ahlberg, Tractor in Trouble by Heather Amery or Postman Pat and the Giant Snowball by Alison Ritchie is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.

It’s time once more for another exciting edition of Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Children’s Edition! My daughter is almost three now and more addicted to books than ever before, especially picture books with simple stories, and so I’ve reviewed another small selection from her bookshelf for your enjoyment.

You all know how these things work by now. I’ve selected five random children’s books and written tiny little reviews on each of them. As ever these reviews reflect nothing more than my own personal opinions and impressions, abridged, abbreviated and condensed into just a few short sentences. The books I have selected have nothing in common, save the fact that they are all fictional stories for very young children. They are not necessarily books that I or my daughter particularly liked or disliked, nor are they sorted into any particular order. So, here we go.

The Golden Egg by Maggie Keen

This sweet little tale of a duck who longs to find an egg made of solid gold (for some reason) has been one of my daughter’s favourites on and off since she got it. I quite like it too. The protagonists have a clear goal which they try to accomplish only to gain a profound epiphany in the end. Highly accessible to small children and with a beautifully paced rhyming pattern.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Peedie Puffin by Michelle Robertson

A sweet but fairly unremarkable tale about a puffin who decides to go and live apart from other puffins and then changes his mind and goes home. Highly accessible for toddlers but a bit of a bore.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟

The Jolly Pocket Postman by Janet & Allan Ahlberg

If you’re running out of psychoactive drugs during lockdown*, try reading this instead. This story follows the bizarre adventures of a postman who gets caught up in a surreal mish-mash of fairy-tales. The swift rhyming pattern creates a sense of urgency, stressing out both adult and child alike as they try to make sense of what the heck is going on.

*Don’t do drugs, kids.

My rating: 🌟

Tractor in Trouble by Heather Amery

This book is flavour of the month with my almost-three year old right now. Personally I found it a bit of a bore at first but I’m warming up to it and I can see how its simple but inoffensive plot would appeal to a toddler. My only real criticism is about Mrs Boot, the farmer. She is introduced on the first page and then… she never does anything again. Even when Ted needs a farmer’s help, he calls for Farmer Dray instead of Mrs Boot. I mean…. why?

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Postman Pat and the Giant Snowball by Alison Ritchie

This has been a firm favourite of both myself and my daughter since the day she first encountered it. Postman Pat and the Giant Snowball (or ‘The Snowy One’ as my daughter used to call it) is based on the TV episode of the same name. You can’t go wrong with Postman Pat and this book has been lovingly adapted from screen into clear and simple prose in a way which feels natural and remains highly accessible regardless of whether or not your child has seen the TV show.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

DON’T FORGET TO CHECK OUT ALL THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF SUPER SNAPPY SPEED REVIEWS

Super Snappy Speed Reviews: TV Edition (Vol. 3)	Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Books (Vol. 4)
Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Children’s Edition (Vol. 2)	Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Doctor Who Edition
S uper Snappy Speed Reviews: Children’s Books Edition (v ol 1)	Super Snappy Speed Reviews: TV Edition (vol. 2)
Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Writing Apps for Android	Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Books (vol. 3)
Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Games Edition	Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Star Trek Edition
Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Books (vol. 2)	8 Super Snappy Speed Reviews: Film
5 Super Snappy Speed Reviews: TV Edition	8 Super Snappy Speed Reviews

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Spotlight: The Time Tourists by Sharleen Nelson

Posted on 05/05/202002/05/2020 by Ndrw

Buy The Time Tourists on Amazon

Imogen was four the first time it happened. As she flipped through her grandma’s dusty photo album gazing into the faded, monochrome faces of her grandma’s sombre family—relatives with funny names like Aunt Ada and Uncle Paul and Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Gordy, and second cousins Percy and Viola from Missoula—suddenly, the universe tilted, and for a brief instant Imogen found herself inside of one of the pictures.
One of only a handful of individuals who can time travel through photos, she establishes an investigative business to help people recover lost items and unearth the stories and secrets of friends and relatives from the past.
Step into time with Imogen Oliver in this first book in the Dead Relatives, Inc. series as she investigates a teenage girl who disappeared to 1967 San Francisco with her boyfriend, then journeys back to 1912 to locate a set of missing stereoscopic glass plates that hold a curious connection to her own life.

Praise for The Time Tourists

Many time travel stories focus on the science and mechanics of time travel, often at the expense of writing a good story. The Time Tourists is different. This is, first and foremost, a novel about a PERSON with needs, problems and strongly held opinions; who, it juts so happens, can also travel through time.
Andrew Ferguson, http://www.penstricken.com

Click here to read my interview with The Time Tourists’ author, Sharleen Nelson.

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Buy The Time Tourists on Amazon