Helpful Score: 1
Reviewed by Candace Cunard for TeensReadToo.com
Owen is ostracized by the other children around him for his father's death long ago, a presumed suicide that resulted in his mother being thrown into a haze of depression from which she cannot escape. By his young teens, he's quietly self-reliant, managing the house on his own and taking care of his mother who is forgetful and not always lucid. He spends his time wandering around the terrain outside of his house, by a river and an abandoned old building that was once a workhouse.
One day, Owen meets a strange man near the river right before witnessing a strange flash of darkness. The man, who introduces himself as the Sub-Commandant, explains to Owen that the mysterious flash signifies that a group of creatures known as the Harsh have succeeded in turning back time to before human habitation, so that they can live alone in solitude and turn the Earth to a barren, ice-encrusted waste. Owen does not believe the Sub-Commandant at first, but when he runs away to find his home, he is faced with nothing but ruins.
The Sub-Commandant brings Owen back to the Workhouse, which Owen learns is situated on an "island in time" that the Harsh cannot touch, and home to the Resisters, a rag-tag fighting force whose purpose it is to defeat the Harsh and prevent them from tampering with Earth's timeflow. Owen quickly becomes swept up in the affairs of the Resisters, who do not understand why he did not disappear along with all of the other people and signs of human life in the world. Some even suspect that he is a Harsh spy, and mistrust him. Along the way he meets with several compelling characters, including Cati, the Sub-Commandant's daughter, and Dr. Diamond, an expert in the science of time. While with the Resisters, Owen learns things about time that he can barely believe, and begins to delve into the secrets of his past and his father's connection to the strange object known as the Mortmain that will allow the Resisters to defeat the Harsh once and for all.
The concept for this book was quite inventive, and I enjoyed the author's concept of a world in which time itself is in danger from antagonistic forces. The action moved along at a good pace, and although some of the scenarios were initially confusing, the reader learns more about the situation as Owen does, and things start to fall into place, leading up to a conclusion that closes up enough loose ends to be satisfying but leaves enough new possibilities open to be interesting.
Owen is ostracized by the other children around him for his father's death long ago, a presumed suicide that resulted in his mother being thrown into a haze of depression from which she cannot escape. By his young teens, he's quietly self-reliant, managing the house on his own and taking care of his mother who is forgetful and not always lucid. He spends his time wandering around the terrain outside of his house, by a river and an abandoned old building that was once a workhouse.
One day, Owen meets a strange man near the river right before witnessing a strange flash of darkness. The man, who introduces himself as the Sub-Commandant, explains to Owen that the mysterious flash signifies that a group of creatures known as the Harsh have succeeded in turning back time to before human habitation, so that they can live alone in solitude and turn the Earth to a barren, ice-encrusted waste. Owen does not believe the Sub-Commandant at first, but when he runs away to find his home, he is faced with nothing but ruins.
The Sub-Commandant brings Owen back to the Workhouse, which Owen learns is situated on an "island in time" that the Harsh cannot touch, and home to the Resisters, a rag-tag fighting force whose purpose it is to defeat the Harsh and prevent them from tampering with Earth's timeflow. Owen quickly becomes swept up in the affairs of the Resisters, who do not understand why he did not disappear along with all of the other people and signs of human life in the world. Some even suspect that he is a Harsh spy, and mistrust him. Along the way he meets with several compelling characters, including Cati, the Sub-Commandant's daughter, and Dr. Diamond, an expert in the science of time. While with the Resisters, Owen learns things about time that he can barely believe, and begins to delve into the secrets of his past and his father's connection to the strange object known as the Mortmain that will allow the Resisters to defeat the Harsh once and for all.
The concept for this book was quite inventive, and I enjoyed the author's concept of a world in which time itself is in danger from antagonistic forces. The action moved along at a good pace, and although some of the scenarios were initially confusing, the reader learns more about the situation as Owen does, and things start to fall into place, leading up to a conclusion that closes up enough loose ends to be satisfying but leaves enough new possibilities open to be interesting.
