ESCAPING THE FUTURE
by Adam Crozier
In this SF adventure for middle-grade readers, some resourceful tweens hop through time as they try to return home while striving to save Earth from an alien invasion.
Twelve-year-old Nic Walker is miserable about his parents’ decision to move from their Southern California home to San Jose, far away from his best friends, Sophia and Tate. Forlorn and sullen, he is riding his bike to visit his childhood pals for the last time when the afternoon is shattered by a “black saucer-shaped aircraft” falling from the sky, seemingly in combat with a “gigantic crystal.” As both vessels appear to crash in the hills, Nic races to get Tate, a video game whiz who wants to be a pilot, and Sophia, a science nerd who likes to build robots. Together, the three go on one last adventure to investigate the downed spacecraft. They find the crystal ship first and catch sight of military personnel carrying the body of “a massive humanoid reptile, twice the size of a human.” The second vessel appears to be of human design and conceals an even greater mystery: a time machine. The friends cannot resist a short trip into the future, where they meet Nadezda Wright, who is attempting to prevent a past alien invasion of Earth, and her granddaughter, Zoe, who is craving pals her own age. The travelers also receive some bad news. The time machine can only take them to the future, so their return to their own time is likely to be challenging. Crozier’s tale of a time-travel quest is original and exhilarating, and his young heroes are appealingly scrappy and inventive. The future landscapes they travel as they bounce through time are plausibly imagined, and the fight scenes are blessedly free of death and gore. If it is not quite believable that Dungeons & Dragons and space pilot video games have prepared the friends for everything they have to do, from flying spaceships at sub–light speed to breaking into an alien prison, the rollicking fun will make it easy for readers to suspend disbelief.
A warmhearted and engaging tale of time travel and friendship.