This is not a normal type of read for me, but I picked up the first two books in this series for free at a book swap last year while I was attending a book camp (yes, that's a real thing - it was a lot of fun, enjoying a retreat with other book lovers like myself!). Since I do love time travel stories (Doctor Who, Dark Shadows, etc.), I thought I'd give these a try. There is a third (and final) book in this series, but that was not there, so I don't have it. The tagline on the front cover - "He had to enter the past to save the future!" - is a great hook, especially for fans of time travel, such as me. Of course, anyone who has watched Back to the Future, The Butterfly Effect, or other time travel films will know that one has to be very careful when one meddles with time - so I was very curious to see just how this book would play out...
Vanished is the first volume in this "Time Police" series, written by Warren Norwood. Oddly enough, the organization that is the title of the series are not the protagonists - in fact, they turn out to be the bad guys (or at least, they are doing things that some might not think of as "good"). The protagonist is a simple librarian by the name of Jackson Dubchek, who hails from the Midwest and who agrees to help the Time Police with a special project, all because a beautiful woman asked him to. I mean, isn't that the way it always goes - a beautiful woman somehow entices a man to do something, and the man ultimately winds up in deep trouble. Well, in this case, it's no different. The year is 2249, and time travel is common place for the government of the Second Republic. Dubchek is honored to be selected to go back in time to help with a mission - back to the year 2183. But, as he is ready to use his interpreting skills, the ambassador next to him is shot and killed, chaos explodes, and suddenly Dubchek is being hunted by both the police of that time period and the very same Time Police that brought him back in time. What is going on? How did he wind up in this position, and how is going to get back to his own time? Enter the Mnemosynes, an organization dedicated to preserving history - the REAL history, not the one being changed and created by the Time Police in order to gain control over all life on Earth. Wait, what?
The story is extremely convoluted, and unless you are a huge fan of time travel and familiar with stories like this, it may become too confusing at points, making it difficult to follow. While I enjoyed the actual time travel elements themselves, I grew a it weary of the repeated "let's throw him into a different time, put him in immediate danger, and have him jump back home" trope that happened over and over and over again. There was no variation, other than setting and time. Plus, the fact that everyone Dubchek tried to save in each of his trips back and forth in time resulted in that person dying, which left me very disappointed. What is the point, if everyone he tries to save dies? And while the ending could have basically ended the series, had there been no more books, it still felt somewhat anticlimactic. I expected more out of the "hero" of the story - perhaps the fact that I'm not a huge sci-fi fan may taint my opinion of the book somewhat. Hopefully the second book in the series will be an improvement over this one.
Warren Norwood (1945 - 2005) was not only a science-fiction author, but also a teacher and musician, as well as a veteran of the Vietnam War. He wrote two series other than this one, The Double-Spiral War series (consisting of three books) and The Windhover Tapes (consisting of four books). In researching Norwood online, I discovered he had a fourth, unedited manuscript for this Time Police series titled Refugee, that is currently in the Special Collections at the University of North Texas. Thus, it was clear he had intended to tell more stories of Jackson Dubchek. And I did smile at the fact that his author bio at the front of the book indicated he grew up reading Tom Swift books! A fellow lover of children's series books!
One interesting thing I did take note of in this first book is the reference to a "painting by Dell Harris III, a picture of an alien creature..." (p. 24). That name seemed familiar to me, so a quick look online revealed the fact that Dell Harris is, indeed, an award-winning artist, whose sci-fi illustrations appeared in Amazing and Analog magazines, as well as on the cover of any number of science-fiction novels in the 1980. It makes one wonder if Norwood did not purposefully choose that name as a way to honor the artist.
And speaking of art, the cover to this book was provided by twin brothers, Stephen and Paul Youll, who collaborated on a number of commissions in the late 1980s. When Stephen moved from England to the United States in 1989, their partnership ended - but the two continued to do their own individual art for various publishers in both England and the U.S. This book was published in November 1988, which would have been during the height of the brothers' collaboration.
RATING: 6 rows of stacked high junk cars out of 10 for introducing readers to a reluctant hero having no idea what he's doing as he bounces around through time!
