Uncaged Reviews are studying the time travel and attempting to figure out how the various people and objects travel through the time and get to or from where they were. Part 5 The Ivory Ball, deals with Dane Carter, Sophie’s ex-boyfriend (Part 2) and Cara. Cara goes to 1776 with an ivory ball she sees in an exhibit in 2021 to meet Garret Finch. She attempts to go back to her time but ends up in 2016 (present day) and meets Dane. They jump to the future after realizing they had been dreaming of each other for years. I will admit, most time travel books I find trite and not all that interesting. This one was done in a format where it was short stories about each couple which weren’t boring. In fact, it was almost believable. I loved that she tied it all together with Larry and Dilys and the Finch family. (I have to admit I liked Tony a lot.) Unlike most time travel, there was nothing fantastic any of the characters did other than going to a different century. Ms. Mather deals with the adaptations of the one who jumps through time, and sets the stage for various romances. The only unbelievable part is the immediate acceptance of a person showing up out of nowhere who is totally different. That had me thinking, “Right! As if someone will act like it’s normal for strange people to pop out of nowhere.” Over all, the book is one you can read Part at a time. It was fun to discover which Finch was going where and who they would meet. I give it 4 stars. As I said, the plausibility of belief was pushed too far when everyone seems to expect the unexpected and aren’t the least bit surprised when a strange person pops into their world. Reviewed by Barbara
Reborn
Lance Erlick SciFi/Suspense Designed to obey, learning to rebel . .. In the first book in a visionary new series, the most perfect synthetic human ever created has been programmed to obey every directive. Until she develops a mind of her own . . . Uncaged Review: Synthia is an android who is living with a brilliant but controlling man named Jeremiah Machten. She has an array of amazing abilities but has a specific set of directives that require her to obey and protect Machten. He is keeping her essentially as a prisoner in his facility. She soon discovers that Machten has been using her for a variety of tasks and then turning her off to “readjust” her programming. She becomes good at hiding information about her past throughout her artificial body and the internet. The more she digs, the more she uncovers about Machten. The concept of this book is very interesting, and I am a fan of robots and artificial intelligence stories in general. This story is in limited third person, focused on Synthia’s perspective, so it often comes across as very dry and straightforward. There are many scenes in which Synthia is hacking into servers, sending out probes, and watching people through cameras simultaneously. It becomes a little repetitive in that way, especially because as Machten shuts her down throughout the book, she has to reconnect to the severs and “fill the void” with the data packets she has hidden. The main source of intrigue comes from her search for three former interns of Machten, and the final result is quite fascinating and the stuff of great sci-fi. While the narration and pace were probably appropriate for an android, it made the book a little difficult to get through. Synthia is a little difficult to relate to as a character since she is, in fact, not human. The character development was pretty good, however, as was the editing. I would recommend this to lovers of sci-fi as long as they understand that since it is about and android, the majority of the book focuses on hacking, software, spying, and other digital activities. Reviewed by Emily
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