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Player Valuation: £15m
Split Second - Douglas Richards
Blurb
What if you found a way to send something back in time? But not weeks, days, or even minutes back. What if you could only send something back a fraction of a second? Would this be of any use? You wouldn't have nearly enough time to right a wrong, change an event, or win a lottery. Nathan Wexler is a brilliant physicist who thinks he's found a way to send matter a split second back into the past. But before he can even confirm his findings, he and his wife-to-be, Jenna Morrison, find themselves in a battle for their very lives. Because while time travel to an instant earlier seems useless, Jenna comes to learn that no capability in history has ever been more profound or far-reaching. Now, as Jenna fights to defeat the powerful forces arrayed against her, nothing less than the fate of humanity hangs in the balance . . .
SPLIT SECOND is a roller-coaster ride of a thriller, one that will have readers pondering the nature of time, and of reality, long after they've read the last page.
The 27th best selling kindle book of 2017 out of 6 milion titles. Ok, so it was popular.
What really interested me was the blurb.
What makes it so valuable that going back a fraction of a second matters that much ? Suffice to say that once this is explained in the first half of the book then yes, it is a very important discovery and the rest of the book starts falling into place.
I would recommend you do not read too many reviews on the book, but instead, go with the flow and enjoy it for what it is, a very good techno thriller (classed as sci-fi, but it's not in the space travel/alien type of sci-fi genre)
A lot of reviewers say the 1st half is one of the best they have read but the second half lets it down, I agree to a certain extent, but a clever ending imo.
I wasn't a big fan of the 'America is great, everyone else is a savage' narrative, it could have been left out and the story would be none the worse for it, but saying that I didn't think it detracted that much.
Does go overboard a bit on the science and there are plenty of cliche characters, but it's a darn good tale and you will certainly appreciate how important going back a 46 millionth of a second could be if it ever gets discovered on how to do it.
Reviews
1. Just the right mix of sci-fi and thriller. The characters are enjoyable and the author maintains a good pace throughout. I really enjoyed the afterword in which the author separates scientific fact from speculation and elaborates on the various current scientific theories (as in educated hypothesis, not Relativity) that he makes use of in the book.
2. He has evidently done a lot of research (quoting his scientific and other factual references at the back of the book) and has come up with some clever twists about time travel but, like so many stories in this genre, it becomes too much like a fairy story where the author can wave a magic wand and, with a bit of clever forethought, can create fabulous wealth; bring out alive someone whom you thought had died; and where escape from heavily guarded strongholds is a piece of cake. It is all very plausible and has a cleverly-contrived yet thought-provoking conclusion and so still deserves 5 stars – largely because the beginning was worth a six even if the end was only worth a four!
3. I really wanted to like this more than I did, and I think it's because the author thinks he's just a bit smarter than even his smartest readers, and it comes through in his storytelling. It wasn't exactly condescending, but there was a lot of, "are you still with me folks? Did my big brain lose you back there?" going on, even to the point of there being a fairly lengthy after-story section on what science in the book was real and what he made up.
4. I couldn't get on with this and gave up at about 30% into the book. I really don't understand the 5-star reviews given here. The intro was quite gripping (I read the sample and purchased the book before I finished) but it wasn't sustained. Long sections of exposition slowed the pace. Some of the plot development seemed too dependent on unlikely coincidence. Technology is uneven (encryption is easy to break but no-one thinks to copy a USB stick). The ex-special forces hero is a cliche. I can see the attention to detail and research but it's not a substitute for telling a story. I like hard SF, military SF and conspiracy type thrillers but this wasn't a good combination.
Price
Free on kindle unlimited, £2.49 to buy the standalone ebook, £8.71 for the paperback.
If techno thrillers are your thing you will enjoy this one. Even if they aren't it's still worth reading
Blurb
What if you found a way to send something back in time? But not weeks, days, or even minutes back. What if you could only send something back a fraction of a second? Would this be of any use? You wouldn't have nearly enough time to right a wrong, change an event, or win a lottery. Nathan Wexler is a brilliant physicist who thinks he's found a way to send matter a split second back into the past. But before he can even confirm his findings, he and his wife-to-be, Jenna Morrison, find themselves in a battle for their very lives. Because while time travel to an instant earlier seems useless, Jenna comes to learn that no capability in history has ever been more profound or far-reaching. Now, as Jenna fights to defeat the powerful forces arrayed against her, nothing less than the fate of humanity hangs in the balance . . .
SPLIT SECOND is a roller-coaster ride of a thriller, one that will have readers pondering the nature of time, and of reality, long after they've read the last page.
The 27th best selling kindle book of 2017 out of 6 milion titles. Ok, so it was popular.
What really interested me was the blurb.
What makes it so valuable that going back a fraction of a second matters that much ? Suffice to say that once this is explained in the first half of the book then yes, it is a very important discovery and the rest of the book starts falling into place.
I would recommend you do not read too many reviews on the book, but instead, go with the flow and enjoy it for what it is, a very good techno thriller (classed as sci-fi, but it's not in the space travel/alien type of sci-fi genre)
A lot of reviewers say the 1st half is one of the best they have read but the second half lets it down, I agree to a certain extent, but a clever ending imo.
I wasn't a big fan of the 'America is great, everyone else is a savage' narrative, it could have been left out and the story would be none the worse for it, but saying that I didn't think it detracted that much.
Does go overboard a bit on the science and there are plenty of cliche characters, but it's a darn good tale and you will certainly appreciate how important going back a 46 millionth of a second could be if it ever gets discovered on how to do it.
Reviews
1. Just the right mix of sci-fi and thriller. The characters are enjoyable and the author maintains a good pace throughout. I really enjoyed the afterword in which the author separates scientific fact from speculation and elaborates on the various current scientific theories (as in educated hypothesis, not Relativity) that he makes use of in the book.
2. He has evidently done a lot of research (quoting his scientific and other factual references at the back of the book) and has come up with some clever twists about time travel but, like so many stories in this genre, it becomes too much like a fairy story where the author can wave a magic wand and, with a bit of clever forethought, can create fabulous wealth; bring out alive someone whom you thought had died; and where escape from heavily guarded strongholds is a piece of cake. It is all very plausible and has a cleverly-contrived yet thought-provoking conclusion and so still deserves 5 stars – largely because the beginning was worth a six even if the end was only worth a four!
3. I really wanted to like this more than I did, and I think it's because the author thinks he's just a bit smarter than even his smartest readers, and it comes through in his storytelling. It wasn't exactly condescending, but there was a lot of, "are you still with me folks? Did my big brain lose you back there?" going on, even to the point of there being a fairly lengthy after-story section on what science in the book was real and what he made up.
4. I couldn't get on with this and gave up at about 30% into the book. I really don't understand the 5-star reviews given here. The intro was quite gripping (I read the sample and purchased the book before I finished) but it wasn't sustained. Long sections of exposition slowed the pace. Some of the plot development seemed too dependent on unlikely coincidence. Technology is uneven (encryption is easy to break but no-one thinks to copy a USB stick). The ex-special forces hero is a cliche. I can see the attention to detail and research but it's not a substitute for telling a story. I like hard SF, military SF and conspiracy type thrillers but this wasn't a good combination.
Price
Free on kindle unlimited, £2.49 to buy the standalone ebook, £8.71 for the paperback.
If techno thrillers are your thing you will enjoy this one. Even if they aren't it's still worth reading
