The Time Travelling Tourist

They Say a Stitch in Time Saves Nine, But Who Will Save the Traveller

By: Nick James

Narrated by: Gordon R Smith

Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's Summary

If you had the power to change things in the past for the betterment of yourself, your family, or the world, what would you do? Brian Partridge is a fan of all things science fiction, especially when a book or film is about time travel. One day after buying all of his favorite author's personal effects in an estate sale following the man’s death, he finds out just how this man of words managed to write about the past with such passion and detail. The truth was he had visited all those places using his very own time machine. Soon enough Brian follows in his hero’s footsteps, living both the dream and the nightmare. From traveling to see dinosaurs, to keeping one step ahead of FBI agents who are tasked to track the individual who has been playing God.

©2020 Nicholas Plumridge (P)2022 Nicholas Plumridge

entertaining and enjoyable

I enjoyed this time travel, but like several other reviewers, I could have done without so much of Brian's love interest. Between her and Sam I don't know who was the bigger dominatrix dealing with their men!!! It's intriguing that the author wants to revisit disasters in history rather than something happy and rewarding. I would have preferred the later- (ie: Princess Di's wedding or Ben Franklin discovering that lightening is electricity). Everyone knows you can't change the past without effecting the future. Heads up Brian!!! I liked the way it ended, because that leaves it open to more craziness in the future. I voluntarily listened to a free copy of this and am giving an honest review. The narrator did a good job bringing it to life

Great book

I loved this book humorous, entertaining, well narrated and thoroughly enjoyable... If you acquired a time machine would you go see dinosaurs, visit the Titanic, try to change things in your past .. you probably would!!
well worth a listen

Get past the dialog, the story gets better

I received a free review copy of this audio book, at my request, and am voluntarily leaving this unbiased review.

This is an interesting book, with a good story, that is held back by some bad dialog and poor research.

This book has an interesting concept. What if the average person got hold of a time machine? What would you choose to see, how much trouble could you get into?

The book makes a good attempt to follow along with a guy, in that situation. His steps and missteps, and adventures.

The plot is fairly straight forward, however takes a little bit to get going. It's framed in a bit of an odd way, where it starts with a guy and his wife checking up on the house of the main character. They find his diary, and a note saying to read it. Then it kicks off the story of the main character, told from the main character's pov, suggesting that this is the diary of the main character. In the beginning, it even sounds like the main character recounting the events of his life. However, at one point it switches to the pov of the FBI, 2 agents and the director, himself. Also, a secondary character is introduced and given a POV introduction. So, not the diary. Then back the first guy again, and his father, etc. In the end, it seemed like a premise that was established, only to be dropped along the way. It doesn't ruin the story, but if you are expecting the story to be the diary that was introduced in chapter 1, it's a bit odd.

What does more harm to the story is the dialog. I have not met anyone, ever, who talks like the characters in this book. Every character as part of a couple addresses each other as 'love', 'my love' and the occasional cringe inducing 'lover'. Parents constantly use 'my son' when addressing adult children. Even the FBI agents constantly address each other as 'my friend'. I don't mean once in a while, or once or twice per scene. I mean almost every single line of dialog. The couple in chapter 1 speak back and forth and call each other 'love' at the end of each sentence, like they are addressing some romantic drill Sgt or something. It is also hard to become numb to it, because the narrator over pronounces it and the dialog is so few and far between.

The book is mostly narration. It is mostly the recounting of events around the main character and his travels. This is where the book shines. The prep work, the back story of why the main character what's to visit, etc. The more narration in this book the better.

However, the other issue with this book is that the author could have done a bit more research. I've read so many fantastic time travel books, which feel like they were written by a historian, that this book stood out as not. The issues weren't game breaking, but things like the T-Rex having movement based vision (that was just made up for a movie) and the Egypt Pyramids being built by slaves (it is build by skilled tradesmen), are so easy to fact check that it feels lazy to have them in there. They didn't add anything to the story, so changing them to be more accurate would have made more sense.

However, the characters were well written. A d felt believable, for the most part. Their motivations were believable and the never felt 1 dimensional. Apart from the dialog the characters were handled well. The FBI felt a bit off, though. The characters felt a bit too much like boy scouts, but overall it was OK.

The settings were engaging, for the most part. The Titanic, Dallas and Normandy were all well done and nothing felt too off about them. Most of the book takes place in the main characters house, or the apartment that the FBI agents stayed in. A bit dull bit it made the time travel environments pop more.

The voice narration, by Gordon R Smith, was OK. His narration was good, and he connected the characters with me. His female voices were not bad and his stoner voices was strong. His Latin American accent was a little weak, but good enough. The only issue I had was the way he read the dialog. It was already bad enough, but he emphasized the article use (love, my friend, etc) and that stuck out of the story like a sore thumb.

All in, this was a very interesting book with a few flaws. The characters, plot and setting were all very interesting and enjoyable. The voice narration was good, for the most part and only needs some polish. The book stumbled from 4 stars with its dialog. This is not how anyone I've ever met, heard of or seen on a screen.a few historical issues aside, this was a fun story.



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Spoilers


I had a problem with the ending. The solution to the agent wanting to kill the main character, as retribution for an accent the main character that made the agent kill an enemy soldier, is to make the agent think he killed the main character in a fit of rage. How does this help the agent and not push him off the deep end. If he had demons before he will many more now. That made no sense to me

Time travelling tribulations

Brian Partridge buys a time machine at an estate sale then researches past events before time hopping. His knows that his adventures that change history affect the present and future, but he selfishly does it anyway. His travels bring the attentions of 2 FBI Agents who try and track him down by criss-crossing through history. The story was interesting until his girlfriend re-entered his life and the story dragged. Their relationship was annoying and constant use of pet names was absolutely unnecessary. The author, Nick James, tied everything up, leaving an opening for a sequel or followup book. The narrator, Gordon Smith, does a good job, except for voicing one of the FBI agents, who sounded like a cross between Shaggy and surfer-dude. Overall worth a listen.

The Book Started Strong - But I Couldn't "Love" it

I "love" time travel stories, and I "love"interesting or clever approaches to time travel stories even more. This ticked all of the boxes for me, until the "love" interest hit the scene.

Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with the character, or the love interest, or even the initial playfulness and eventual intimacy. I could not get past the massive writing and editorial failure of trying to cram as many instances of the word "Love" into each scrap of dialog since her arrival. Love as a noun, love as a pronoun, love as a verb, love as an adverb, love as an adjective... It was exhausting, and I'm not being pedantic with my complaint. The massive overuse of "love" in all of its forms was so distracting to me that I had to stop listening part way through and give up.

Entertaining but not great

I usually love time travel books but this one was mediocre. it has poor charecter development and charecter choices. The performance wasn't great either. He made some weird choices for what voices to give certain charecters. wont listen twice

Fantastic

Another brilliant book from this author. Gripping, funny and great writing through out Awaiting the next book!

Refreshing twist on time travel

Great story, loved the characters and the narration by Gordon R Smith was brilliant

Good story

Good book, well conceived and always stays interesting throughout. Strange start with the letter but it does develop much better. Recommended

fun and easy

it's a good book with a few unexpected turns. I would recommend it. good

Beyond the title this is poor

Oh dear just wasted 12 hours listening to this rubbish hoping that it would get better or at least an interesting ending as hinted at in the first chapter.

This is supposed to be sci fi and you expect the author to try and weave an explanation of time travel but this just puts it on a plate as a fait accompli

Wait this will be one of those time travel novels where the time travel is a framework for beautifully sculptured characters who you just want to spend forever with. A story that weaves these individuals with points in time. Sorry no, every character is as flat as a pancake.

I can’t understand how this rates so high on Audible. Each to there own but I’d suggest giving this a miss, so many great time travel based novels out there sadly this is not one of them.

Enjoyable listen

I enjoyed the narration of Gordon R Smith

This is an action packed, fast paced, time travelling listen. With some science explaining time travel. The story goes from the Jurassic era to the beaches of Normandy, from The Titanic to Bonnie and Clyde. Listen with an open mind and enjoy. Oh yes those consequences of playing with time.

Hmm where can I get one of those machines !!!

what would you do if you acquired a time machine

I loved this book humorous, entertaining, well narrated and thoroughly enjoyable... If you acquired a time machine would you go see dinosaurs, visit the Titanic, try to change things in your past .. you probably would!!
well worth a listen !!

Really enjoyed the book

This for me was a most enjoyable book, it is original and well paced with well defined characters. The concept of time travel may not be new but to be able to travel back and forth to any period of time to me at least is new. I really enjoyed Bryans exploits with the Dinosaurs, visiting the Titanic etc. I thought Gordon R Smith narrated the book very well, it may have been a bit slow but personally I speeded the narration up to number 4 and it was excellent. And of course don't forget Carl the cockerel! ☺
I was kindly given a copy of the book and leave this voluntary and honest review.

Pure Cringe

Awful cringeworthy dialog read by someone who thinks he's narrating desperate housewives half the time.