Time Sniffers

C. S. Lakin

Average Rating 8/10 (1 Review)

In the near future, a desperate race for new sources of energy pushes Bria Harrison's mother - Nobel Prize-winning scientist - to experiment with unstable compounds to harness dark energy. The result is disastrous...

Bria refuses to believe her mother is dead, even though dust chokes the site where the top-secret laboratory once stood. A strange symbol keeps showing up: on the dry erase board, in a pile of leaves, even in the milk her brother drips on the table. Bria has no doubt her mother, somehow, is sending her a message. But how? And where could she be? To find out, she has to do something dangerous, but she sees no other option.

While re-creating her mother’s last experiment in her basement, Bria, her autistic brother Dylan, and four friends cause a rip in time-space - and out of the resultant black hole tumbles K-Six, a time sniffer who has come to get them.

This doglike alien creature takes them back through the rip to his training world, where Bria, her brother, and her friends must be altered to adapt to dangerous time confluences and worlds they must traverse to save the scientists trapped in a time eddy. If they aren't rescued soon, dark energy, now streaming into the galaxy at an alarming rate, will cause horrific destruction - including the end of all life on earth.

Bria, drawn to the brooding Jace Riggs, has no time to fall in love. But the universe doesn’t spin on logic, and though Bria can’t afford any distractions in her attempt to rescue her mother, she also can’t ignore her heart. But it’s her heart that risks losing everyone she loves as she undertakes an utterly impossible mission. Yet what other choice does she have?

Review by Paul Lappen (010123) Rating (8/10)

Review by Paul Lappen
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 8/10
First of a series, this novel is about a group of young people who are the only thing keeping Earth from being destroyed by an evil alien.

Set in the near future, Bria Harrison is the brilliant daughter of two famous scientists. Several weeks previously, her mother's experiment with lasers went very wrong, and her entire laboratory vanished. Bria is convinced that she is still alive.

Attempting to re-create Mom's experiment in her family's basement, Bria creates a small hole in space/time. A time sniffer pops out of the hole and into her basement. It looks like a big, shaggy dog who can camouflage itself (like a chameleon) and can sniff out time streams with its nose (it also speaks English).

The time sniffer, named K-Six, tells Bria (and several friends) that the disappearance of the laboratory (Mom is still alive, but trapped somewhere in time) has created a huge rift in space/time. It has allowed an alien named The Interloper to pour huge amounts of dark energy into our galaxy. The Earth will eventually be destroyed.

K-Six tells the humans that the only way to close the rift is from the inside, by finding the right time stream. They are taken through the space/time hole, where they are trained and physically altered. After several close calls on other worlds, the group finds itself inside the lab, before it disappears. Of course, it isn't as easy as Bria simply explaining to her mother why the experiment should be cancelled.

This is a really good YA story (at least four stars) that is full of science. Things may get a bit convoluted at times, but sticking with it will be worth the reader's time. Teens and adults will enjoy this story.
Paul Lappen (1st January 2023)