"He had just done the impossible. Traveled several years into the past and killed his father, years before Johnny would be born. So, how was it that he was still there?" An excerpt from page 9.
Following on from Tony Carpenter's adventurous journey into the past in The Chronocar: An Urban Adventure In Time, it's exciting to experience this story continues in Time Waits For No One, a novel that held me captive until I finished indulging my relatable emotions in it, it is obscurely fascinating and explored on the eeriness of time travel.
Time traveler, Johnny had built a Chronocar from reading Dr. Johnson's article on time travel, and he had traveled into the past from the future to kill his father, Augie Furst. The oddity of this event coupled with his unbelievable assertions about coming to present a birthday gift to his father was what made him land in jail after the police arrested him. Reading through this part made me laugh at Officer O'Donnell's confusing speech at the weirdness of Johnny's claim. However, Johnny eventually finds his way to visit Dr. Johnson and bid him to explain how this could ever happen, "if he killed his father, how would he(Augie) have met his mother and how would he(Johnny) have been born?" he was shocked when Dr. Johnson said it's possible.
Moving into the transition of how some silly historians messed around with religious history and traveled through time to witness the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they funnily met their desired shock. Dr. Johnson had seen how this time travel is driving people crazy and causing a lot of havoc, he regretted having written a book about it and he set himself to destroy other available books. I love the scenario whereby Martha gave Tony a phone that had been kept since 90 years ago. Tony was shocked to discover some pictures on the phone, a photograph of an old woman and someone that look exactly like himself, he had to revisit Martha and query her, Martha told him that it was the picture of her mother Ollie, standing beside a Time Traveler called Tony Carpenter who landed on her grandfather's house years ago.
This sent Tony into absolute curiosity and confusion, Martha told him more about the first Tony Carpenter, his education at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and other crucial things, at some point, Tony was agape asking if he was the first Tony. Following this twist, Martha, in other to prevent subsequent time travelers paid Tony to find and destroy the books that contain Dr. Johnson's article, this sets Tony on another journey, the story unfolds and Tony together with Art arrived in 1958, they'd traveled 54 years back in time.
Much like the first book series, Time Waits For No One also expounds on racism, this is evidenced in Dr. Johnson's attempt at publishing his book, and his higher education pursuit, as well as in Tony's visit to 1958 where a simple sip of water led him to become an overnight prisoner. Eventually, Tony escaped racism and fled with his fellow prisoner to get back to his Chronocar where he was set to re-visit Dr. Johnson, it was surprising that he met Ollie here. One of the reasons why I find this book to be obscurely fascinating was the point whereby Tony could tell of upcoming future events, about Ollie marrying Joker, and him having met Ollie's daughter who hasn't been born yet, and his travels back in time that follows more hilarious, hazy experiences, all of which made for an interesting read.
There are more interesting facts that I wouldn't be able to contain in this review in an attempt to make it a spoiler-free, however, this book left me with questions; if a Chronocar could ever exist, I'd love to use it to visit my forefathers, I'd love to go back to the years when the Nigerian pound was once a powerful currency in the world, I would have loved to experience how the British colonized Nigeria, I would have loved to go back to those years and probably prevent the Biafra War, and prevent the death of some of my relatives and millions of innocent souls. If I could have a chance, I would have gone 7 years back in my life and made some crucial adjustments to prevent the pains of today, but sadly, Time Waits For No One.
This book left me feeling contemplative and reminiscent of choices that I've made in my own life. Once more, Steve Bellinger proves himself to be a versatile and talented sci-fiction writer, and I am a fan of his works. This isn't just an ordinary sci-fiction novel, it goes beyond the ordinary story, it is a novel that, if interpreted in different ways, would make us understand the essentiality of time, and perhaps, the danger of time travels as posit by Bellinger. Told in a distinctive style of storytelling, energetic characterization and impressive transition, if you have ever questioned the significance of time in a man's life, I'm pretty sure this book will interest you. I'll continue to think about this book over and over again, and would recommend this to lovers of sci-fiction, philosophy, and literature at large.