Book Review – Traveler

Traveler by Dennis W Green
Series: Traveler Chronicles #1
Published by Mbedzi Publishing on 2013-10
Genres: Action & Adventure, Science Fiction, Thrillers
Pages: 308
Format: Paperback
Goodreads

Travis Becker is a police detective. So is Travis Becker. And Travis Becker. As a matter of fact, Travis Becker is a detective in countless existence streams, all of them living various versions of their lives, completely and safely unknown to each other. That is, until a brilliant scientist friend of his not only discovers the existence of parallel timelines, but how to navigate them as well. When a tragedy in one reality causes a chain reaction of events in other realities, Trav suddenly finds himself both at odds with and allied with different versions of the same people he knows throughout every reality...including himself. And if he can't trust himself, who can he trust? As the stakes grow steeper and Becker struggles to keep his sanity intact while fighting to keep the very fabric of time from unwinding, he realizes that the decisions he makes are not always black and white...sometimes they are blue and red.

 

Lynn’s Review:

Think back to June 7, when our Chat Between the Chapters topic was sci fi. Terri from Second Run Reviews mentioned a book – Traveler. Full disclosure time: I won a copy from her blog and author Dennis W. Green. (Thanks again Terri and Dennis!) And Terri was correct. Traveler is a really good sci fi book.

Trav Becker is a cop, and a messed-up one at that. But in Traveler, he discovers he has a special talent. Trav can travel between different dimensions.

I feel like I just lost most of our readers with those few sentences. Yes, Traveler is science fiction. Yes, there is science, some of which is way above my head. But don’t let that stop you from reading it. I feel like Traveler is more about the characters and the inter-connectivity between those characters. With some science and dimensional travel on the side.

I’m going to attempt to explain the plot, hopefully without being too spoiler-y or confusing. The science part first: Trav’s best friend and college roommate Sam is a physicist. Sam has discovered a way to track particles across different dimensions. These dimensions are explained like streams with multiple branches. And in each dimension is another Trav and Sam. It turns out that Trav can easily travel between the dimensions. Now the plot: Travs from different dimensions are running into each other in (multiple) attempts to solve crimes and stop the bad guys. Each dimension is slightly different, and our Trav has to do his cop thing and prevent the bad guys from killing the good guys.

As for the characters, along with multiple Travs and Sams, there are multiple versions of Mary, Trav’s girlfriend, Adam, Trav’s partner, Holli, the little girl who hangs out at the police station where her mother works, and Morgan, the psychic, among others. It is the interactions between the characters that intrigued me the most. How the decisions and actions of one person could result in multiple outcomes. And all of the characters from the different dimensions have slight variations. I commend Mr. Green for his ability to keep all of the differences straight!

The subtle geek humor in Traveler was strong. This quote is a great example of that: 

If you say all this is because the Force is strong in my family, I might have to hit something.

I thoroughly enjoyed Traveler. There are elements of hard-boiled cop thriller, and alternate realities, all wrapped up into one story. The plot and action kept moving at a good pace. I stayed interested while reading the entire book. And the romance was very limited. (Yes, I’m still off the straight romance novels). I’m looking forward to the next in this series. 

 

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