Time Phantom

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Pub Date 10 Nov 2018 | Archive Date 14 Feb 2018

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Description

On his 50th birthday, recently divorced male model Dane Vanderbrouk is struck by a peculiar affliction: if he remains still for too long, he falls back in time. If he moves too fast, he'll travel forward. 

Pursued relentlessly by an assassin from the future through the narrow streets of Amsterdam, Dane is thrust into a war where shaping the future means changing the past. But changing history is difficult business for a time traveler. Every jump in time erases every previous action.

With fast paced action, unexpected twists, and an eclectic cast of characters - Time Phantom will pull you into a world where impressions matter but only actions of consequence can change the future.

Time travel has a new speed, catapulting the adventure novel into an exciting new series. 

On his 50th birthday, recently divorced male model Dane Vanderbrouk is struck by a peculiar affliction: if he remains still for too long, he falls back in time. If he moves too fast, he'll travel...


Advance Praise

A great read - the action is so thrilling and wonderfully detailed that it feels like you are physically with these characters through each twist and turn. 

A great read - the action is so thrilling and wonderfully detailed that it feels like you are physically with these characters through each twist and turn. 


Available Editions

ISBN 9781519066978
PRICE $2.99 (USD)

Average rating from 26 members


Featured Reviews

What if time travel were related to your movements, or lack thereof? Life would certainly get a bit more interesting, and troublesome, like it does for Dane in Time Phantom: Amsterdam by Randy Anderson. 

Having just finalized his divorce, male model Dane Vanderbrouk travels to Amsterdam to while away his troubles with various vices. But while smoking and drinking on his fiftieth birthday, things take an interesting, albeit it uncomfortable, turn for Dane when he begins to inexplicably travel back in time. Having relived the same few days over and over again, he slowly begins to understand that staying still for too long sends him back in time, but when he moves quickly he travels forward in time. Just as he gets the knack of how to manage this quirky talent of his, his life is threatened by an assassin from the future, forcing Dane to travel back to New York, only to wind up much further into the future than he ever anticipated as he struggles to get back to his life as he previously knew it. 

Capitalizing on a rather unique time travel mechanism, the story moves forward and backward in time, muddying the waters of both history and the future through Dane's actions. The writing was solid, entertaining, and well-crafted, aside from the scientific info-dump that helped to explain Dane's ability for time travel that pulled me out of the intensity of the moment. There were interjecting vignettes from a time and about a character that weren't fully integrated into this particular narrative, which left additional unresolved elements to the story that merely raised questions - perhaps it's a set up for subsequent installments in this series, but it detracted from the momentum of the story at hand. 

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

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Time Phantom – Randy Anderson

The first of a series (the next is set in Copenhagen), Time Phantom opens in New York in the year 2070, with a 50-year-old lady called Tonja preparing for a special ritualised execution – her own. She suddenly turns and runs. Through her escape, we get an idea of how the time travel process works, and its impact on the traveller.
    
Time Phantom - Time has a new speed.
 
We next meet Dane Vanderbrouk in 2019, a 50-year-old male model who is going through a personal crisis (a divorce, where his cheating wife got everything), and has travelled to Amsterdam to forget. It’s his birthday. He is NOT there to visit the museums!

It is in a local pub that he first begins to Time-Travel. His method is unique, in that if he sits still too long, he goes back in time, and forward when he moves too fast. You really empathise as he comes to terms with his new power, the déjà vu, and feel his disorientation. As one character states, it’s Mr Toad’s Wild Ride on acid weird.
We also meet the assassin from the future, who is chasing Dane, for reasons to be explained, and Natali, and a host of others. The world is now run by one single corporation, and the world of the future is bad. And it’s up to Dane to save it, when-ever he can!

The mechanics of time travel are well-explained, to my mind at just the right level to keep the story clipping along, balancing between the heavy sci-fi fans need to have things connect, to the more general reader who just doesn’t want the jargon to get in the way of a good read.

It is fast-paced, with more of your time being spent on the edge of your seat than anywhere else. A rollicking good read, a fresh take on a well-used premise, and set up perfectly for both the sequel, and the inevitable film!

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What a fast paced, enjoyable book. I was hooked from the first page. Many plots twists throughout to keep my attention. I got lost a couple of times but in the end all the treads were neatly tied up and all was revealed. Superb.

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Wow. What a deserving book to be my first marked "favorite" in 2018. This is time travel like you have never seen it before! The protagonist is Dane, a 50 year old (kudos for that slice of diversity in the midst of hundreds of YA sci-fi novels) former male model, who is not necessarily a sympathetic, but certainly an interesting character. On his birthday, he discovers that whenever he stays still for a certain period, he travels back in time. And whenever he moves faster than a certain speed, he travels forward. This is a truly imaginative system, the likes of which I have not seen before. It is already explained well in the opening chapter - and from this action-packed, stunning prologue to the final sentence, the novel remains interesting.

The intricate rules and precise math of the time travel make it very exciting and increase the risk of failure. Due to Dane's jumping back and forth, he weaves an intriguingly complicated net of time jumps - but the book manages to continue to make sense despite its unique approach. Also, there is a great feeling of restlessness because to the rules (if Dane rests, he falls back in time, so in order to stay, he needs to constantly move) and the writing style. I loved the characters, which were all interesting and have by no means been exhausted in their narrative potential. They stayed realistically human amidst the crazy sci-fi around them. Also, there were enough "muggles" in the novel to warrant regular re-explanation of the details, which was a nice help for the reader.

At the half-way point, it suddenly got a little heavy on the exposition, and some of it was a little too convenient to the plot, but that is merely a minor issue that disappears in the rest of the awesome storytelling. The last action scene did not get too crazy and huge, which was also nice. It would have wrapped up nicely, but I am so glad there is a sequel - I just want more! There is so much still to explain and explore, so any unanswered questions. I cannot wait to read the next installment.

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Before all else, I have to say that I could give this book 5 Stars just on the basis of originality! I have never ever read anything quite like it and I’m usually not too big of a fan of Time Travel related books but Time Phantom totally changed my outlook on that. The book follows Dane who is a scientific rarity because of a peculiar condition – if he moves too fast he travels forward in time and if he stays still for too long, he travels back in time.

Time Phantom had an excellent plot, executed well. Generally it takes me a while to get involved in time travel books but this one had me hooked from the start and I read it in under a day. What I loved most was the description of the future, which wasn’t too bleak, well written and not drawn out and unrealistic as is the case with so many books. I am definitely looking forward to read more in the series.

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Fantastic story! I have read very few time traveling books, but this one managed to be both scientific and interesting at the same time! I was immediately drawn to the characters and their back stories. Dane was a newly divorced middle aged man who simply wanted a time out from his everyday life. Boy did he get his wish! 😮

I highly recommend this fast moving tale for all adventure loving readers!

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for the copy of Time Phantom in exchange for this honest review!

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The main character can travel in time out with the 'standard methods' of time travel, this means he can help and be hunted...

It took a while to introduce the main characters and why he has these abilities. Once we have passed this point the pace of the book increased dramatically. I was impressed with the technical description in this book where the author clearly gave the technicality of time travel a lot of thought so it doesn't sound as far fetched as some other books.

I enjoyed the book and would read a sequel.

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En science-fiction, l’un des sujets les plus rabâchés depuis H.G.Wells est le voyage dans le temps. Il peut donner lieu à des merveilles d’ingéniosité comme à des salmigondis sans logique ni cohérence. Time Phantom: Amsterdam de Randy Anderson s’annonce comme appartenant à la première catégorie.
Après un prologue dans le New York de 2070, l’histoire commence avec Dane, un mannequin new-yorkais de 50 ans fraîchement divorcé venu s’oublier dans l’Amsterdam de 2019 entre coffee shop, quartier rouge et canaux. Un soir, un malaise, et le voilà qui remonte le temps à rebours, sans pouvoir se contrôler. S’il reste immobile, il repart dans le passé ; s’il avance trop vite, il se précipite dans le futur. Et au cours de ses sauts dans le temps, il croise la route d’un homme translucide, Agent Charles, qui veut le tuer. Pourquoi ? Comment peut-il voyager ainsi dans le temps ? Pourra-t-il contrôler son don ou sa malédiction ? Sauvera-t-il l’humanité de la Sixième extinction ? Autant de questions auxquelles il va s’efforcer de répondre.

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Starts strong and keeps going. Excellent story that keeps the reader engaged and keeps you on your toes. Highly recommend!

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Recently divorced Dane Vanderbrouk is celebrating his 50th birthday in Amsterdam with a mid life crisis (prostitutes, beer and drugs) when he makes the startling discovery that he can time travel. Just as he's learning how to control this, he discovers that he's in all sorts of trouble with someone from the future trying to kill him.

This is a very original take on time travel but a tad confusing with a bit of an info dump of pseudo-science half way through and several plot lines that weren't resolved, although maybe these will all make sense in the sequel. Anderson's vision of the world in 2070 was also interesting with changes in human behaviour brought on by overpopulation and climate change. Of the characters, I liked Dane's new friend Cooper best and suspect he'll have a role in the sequel. I also warmed to Darius but not so much his wife Pasha, although I suspect she'll also play a major role in the continuing story.

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