Member Reviews

I know, another time travel novel? But, this one is written by an author known primarily for horror so I'm interested. I am not typically a fan of science fiction, but I am a fan of Fracassi's horror works so that is what intrigued me to read this. Yes, it is a time travel novel, and what you expect to happen and go wrong does, but the way that it works and how it is revealed made this novel much more interesting. Very subtle clues and hints are dropped in along the way, almost to the point I was thinking it was a typo or an editing miss. At a few points in the story, you are seeing something unravel and it really ratchets up the tension and suspense. I really like the way Fracassi told this story. It's a quick read, and if you are a Fracassi fan I suggest you pick this up.

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Orbit Books provided an early galley for review.

I gravitate towards science fiction that involves time travel as I always find it fascinating. I appreciate that Fracassi spells out the specifcs of his time travel right out of the gate. Level setting those rules is very critical for the reader.

Another thing that the author does very well is provide for the emotional beats that grounds the fantastical elements of the story. There is tension and excitement that kept me turning the page (I started the book one evening and finished it by the end of the next afternoon). It was very enjoyable.

I will certainly be recommending this book to all my sci-fi friends and patrons.

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This gripping sci-fi thriller had me locked in!!!

Husband and wife scientist duo Beth and Colson Darlow create a time machine that allows the traveler (or rather their mind) to briefly visit their past. However, unlike your stereotypical time machine, there are 3 rules travelers must follow:

(1) “Travel can occur only at destination points during the previous lifetime of the traveler.” No catapulting into the future, no free-falling backwards into the French Revolution. Travelers cannot travel outside of their own memories or timeline. (2) Travel only lasts for 90 seconds, and (3) the traveler can only be an observer.

These rules end up being a cocktail for trouble when Beth’s husband dies suddenly in a terrible accident. She’s left alone to raise their young daughter while continuing the daunting research required to perfect the operation of time travel for her employer–Langan Corp. Being the only human trial subject allowed to test the machine, Beth starts to worry the effects of time travel are tearing her mind apart—she’s experiencing troubling hallucinations—and therefore doubts it's safety for public use. To make matters worse, the time machine only takes her to the most traumatic events in her past. What’s going on???

At this point, I don’t think I can ever pass up a book from author Philip Fracassi, and after absolutely loving his last book—“Boys in the Valley”—I knew I was in for a nail-biting ride. While this book ventures away from Fracassi’s usual horror genre, there are suspenseful elements of anxiety and unease that will have the reader fully absorbed!! You won’t want to put this book down!!!

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**Book Review** The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi.

I have to preface this by saying that I'm a big Fracassi fan (Boys in the Valley lives forever in my mind), but I'm not a Sci-Fi fan at all. Stangely enough, though, I do like time travel. That all being said, this is a solid, solid novel by Fracassi. Although I have favorites by this author, and this one would maybe make my Fracassi Top 5, it isn't my favorite by him. Not because of the writing, pacing, or anything like that, just that I have a hard time getting lost in Science Fiction.

I look at it this way, 4 stars from a non Sci-Fi fan would probably equate to a 5 star from everyone else, so kudos to Philip Fracassi for writing well enough to get a non sci-fi guy enjoy a sci-fi novel.

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I read The Third Rule of Time Travel in one day. I’m a fan of Philip Fracassi’s Boys in the Valley and Gothic. This was an easy read. At 66% in, I was scratching my head and wondering what was going on. With science fiction elements of time travel, I thought certain aspects of the story might be over my head but that wasn’t the case. Science fiction usually isn’t a genre that I read but this book has expanded my interest. ARC was provided by Orbit Books via NetGalley. I received an advance review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

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The story had interesting moments but with unlikeable characters and surface level science It never grabbed me. I very much enjoyed BOYS IN THE VALLEY and GOTHIC, The main character Beth, is wholly unlikeable, one dimensional, and completely unbelievable. The book felt like the author was following a formula with the recently widowed mom. This one I do not recommend.

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An intriguing approach to time travel with likable characters and well written prose. I enjoyed the emotional element of revisiting the past. Who hasn't wanted to re-experience a past moment with eyes open to the the results.

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Scientist Beth Darrow and her husband Colson have discovered time travel. Well, a form of mental time travel with some important limitations, like being unable to change the past. Now, a year later, Beth is alone after Colson’s tragic death. As pressure for the time travel project mounts from her benefactor, Beth starts to see her dead husband everywhere. As her reality continues to shift, she begins to realize the rules of time travel may not be as firm as she thought.

This is the first book I’ve read from Philip Fracassi, and I definitely see the horror influence and his background as a screenwriter. I agree with other reviewers who describe this as a thriller first and a sci-fi book second. I think it could work very well as a movie in the vein of The Butterfly Effect.

I’m usually not a “well, actually” sort of sci-fi reader who gets hung up on the technical details. However, the way the technology is described here, especially the failsafes in place, really impacted my enjoyment of the book. Maybe some additional detail would have clarified this for me. My understanding is that, before someone time travels, they answer 6 questions. Their recorded responses are sent to a satellite moving away from Earth. The person time travels, and then during a debrief, they answer the questions again. The old recording is returned via the satellite and the results are compared. If they are the same, the implication is that changes haven’t happened to the timeline. At its simplest, it implies the potential of a very localized change to the timeline that then spreads out and eventually can impact the recording, which didn’t make much sense to me and really reduces dramatic tension. And if something changed, wouldn’t it impact everything, unless perhaps the satellite was moving at lightspeed and the answers were recorded more than a day in the past? Please someone explain this to me.

I should also comment on the gender relations here. A lot of actions taken against Beth were intentionally villainous and I take no exception to that for narrative purposes, but the end of the book (no spoilers) really emphasizes her lack of agency in a troubling way. It really made me question why Beth was chosen as the protagonist at all.

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Real talk, I was bored. There was nothing intriguing about the plot. The writing felt almost clinical, dry, no depth. There wasn’t enough character development for me to care one way or another about the characters. It didn’t help that I did not like the MC. The ending was as flat as the characters. Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

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Overall, I liked this time travel novel, and it has some unique points of view on what goes on when the protagonists travel through time. There are some cool philosophical discussions throughout on the nature of time, multiple universes, the impact of observation on those being observed, and even the nature of “the present”. I will also say it is compulsively readable.

The protagonist in the story is Beth Darlow who invented a machine that can send the human consciousness back through time. The three rules of time travel are:

You can only travel in your own lifetime and where you end up is random.

You only stay for 90 seconds.

You can only observe, not say or do anything.

I should add a fourth element which is consistent in the book, you observe from your own consciousness when you travel back in time.
Beth’s co-creator and husband dies in a car crash and Beth continues to travel back in time. But even though you are not supposed to be able to change anything, her own timeline warps in tragic ways. She needs to figure out how to put things right (not a spoiler since it is in the cover blurb). And let’s just give a hint, maybe the time travel rules aren’t so steadfast after all.

I mostly liked the arc of the story, especially Beth’s character because we get to see how she views herself and how others view her, which is interesting. I also liked how the novel speculates what is really going on as she travels through time.

But some elements of the novel leave a bit to be desired. I found most of the ancillary characters to be caricatures, especially the billionaire funding the research. He is evil incarnate. Well, maybe he is not such a caricature after all, maybe he is too much like the oligarchic billionaires that run the American country today, but that’s an aside. I also felt the “how do you know if the timeline changed” mechanics a bit convoluted. The entire setting of the novel seems a little over-the-top as well.

But overall, I enjoyed the story and it is worth a read.

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An enjoyable and somewhat predictable thriller with a sci-fi spin. It had a few unexpected twists and turns but ultimately ended basically right where you expect it to. It had some nice suspense so I would be interested to read the author’s previous horror stories.

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Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for sending me an ARC of The Third Rule of Time Travel in exchange for an honest review.

Beth Darlow and her husband Colson built an actual time machine, one that allows the traveller to travel anywhere within their own lifetime, to only observe, for up to 90 seconds. But Colson died in a tragic car accident almost a year ago, leaving Beth not only to raise their 4-year-old daughter, but also to try to protect their invention and solve how the machine determines the arrival point in the past she travels to. It’s a delicate balance, and it’s not clear she’s succeeding, but when Beth begins to believe that—impossibly—her travels to her past are changing her present, everything in her life threatens to unravel ….

The Third Rule of Time Travel does a good job of slowly ratcheting up the tension in Beth’s life so that it’s not clear what is real and what she may be imagining. As it built towards its climax, it was pretty clear how the story was going to end, though her final trip in the machine was a good bit … weirder than I expected based on the rest of the book. A solid, though not spectacular, time travel story. Recommended. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

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I'll read anything that blurbs time travel as a story element, so it was a given that I would request this book. The setup was super interesting, and for once, I was able to actually notice a hint <spoiler>(the coffee cup BROKE! Her daughter's art was NOT that color!</spoiler> so I was certain something was going on. While I do agree with some critiques that this felt a bit more thriller-y than sci-fi, I still enjoyed it immensely and will recommend wholeheartedly.

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This book was so intriguing and so entertaining. I loved the premise behind it and the author's unique spin on time travel. It makes the reader question everything, including reality. So good!

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So, basically this book is about scientists and the creation of a time machine with their rules and risks, so nothing new here. But there are a lot of things that makes it different from other time travel books, and although some of these things can be confusing at times (multiples timelines and, therefore, different realities), not to mention the fact that there are a couple of scientific terms and things explained through physics (which I don't have a clue about it), and also things that are predictable, that doesn't mean that you'll be left confused once you finish the book. Besides, there was a lot of action and the characters were pretty interesting, especially the main POV, and there were a lot of scenes that were so vivid to me that I felt I was watching them in front of me.
So, congratulations to the author (I know how much research and effort you put into this), and Thank You to Orbit Books and NetGalley for sending me this ARC.

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2.5 stars

This book has such an intriguing premise, but the execution falls short. That's not to say it's all bad: there are points where Fracassi's talent for writing thriller and horror shine through--scenes that are the perfect mix of creepy and suspenseful. And I appreciate that the main thread of the book is Beth's love for her family.

But while that thread works hard to tie the book together, there isn't actually a developed plot. The first half of the book drags, and just as the action picks up in the second half, a conclusion that has almost nothing to do with the dramatic climax comes out of left field. If you want storylines that resolve, this isn't the book for you. And the secondary characters were for the most part bland, one-dimensional people, at least two of whom could have been cut from the book completely with no impact on the plot or on Beth's character.

While I wouldn't personally recommend this book, if you love Sci-Fi enough to check out any new additions to the genre, or if you want to read a new take on time travel, you could definitely give this book a shot and may find that you enjoy it more than I did.

Thank you to @orbitbooks_us and @netgalley for this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

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Beth Darlow has accomplished what scientists for decades have strived to do: enable the human consciousness to safely time travel. Within certain parameters, of course.

Rule One: You can only travel to a point within your lifetime.
Rule Two: You can only travel for 90 seconds.
Rule Three: You can only observe.

Guided by these three unbreakable rules, Beth travels over and over to the most painful moments within her own life: and why? As she strives to answer the question of how her time machine chooses the points in time the traveler returns to, it becomes clear that other forces are at work. Bit by bit, Beth's reality fractures and her timelines begin to bleed together: what is past and what is present? And how can Beth possible stay tethered to the real world when she begins seeing visions of her deceased husband in it?

Maybe there should have been a Rule Four: Travel at your own risk.

"The Third Rule of Time Travel" is Fracassi's latest reading slump-conquerer that maintains him as an auto-read author for me. While not a perfect novel (for those, turn to "Gothic" and "Boys in the Valley"), his venture into science fiction with a modern time travel story is fast-paced, well-written and kept me on the edge of my seat with expertly-driven suspense. In a way akin to Black Crouch, Fracassi manages to present a complex subject like time travel in a digestible, thoroughly-enjoyable way without stretching credulity too much. Certainly worth the read.

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The Third Rule of Time Travel is a truly unique read! Sci-fi fans will love this thrilling read of two scientists discover a way to travel through time to moments in their lifetime. Suspenseful and heartbreaking at times, you won't be able to put this down!

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Fracassi has quickly become a must read author for me. I've enjoyed and sought out everything he's released and had just recently finished his limited edition book "Sarafina" so my interest was piqued when I found out he was venturing out in to a different genre from his previous work.

The usual Fracassi traits were still there; strong writing, engaging story, solid lead characters, but it just felt like something was missing for me with this one. It felt like he was just trying to be different, which isn't a bad thing but the story just kind of lost steam for me towards the end. I hope he does continue to venture out and explore other genres and I'll be first in line to read those as well.

Thank you to Orbit for the ARC. Much appreciated.

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Rule Three: You can only observe.

I'm sitting in my living room with my favourite drink, an americano. I'm reading a book, The Third Rule of Time Travel. I'm enjoying every second of it. I only have 90 seconds to relive this moment. In this case, I wouldn't change a thing.

There are only three rules ... but rules are made to be broken aren't they?

Fracassi's The Third Rule of Time Travel is a story that feels shrouded in mystery. Who can be trusted? What is real? Is this reality? It was a fast paced enjoyable read and I will definitely be picking up more of his stories in the future.

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