Broken Shards of Time

Broken Shards of Time is a science fiction adventure with elements of spy stories, superhero stories and H.G. Wells. Wren Derecho’s uncle is a genius inventor whose latest invention, a time machine, causes some serious accidents. Wren’s parents are killed, and Wren is injured so badly she needs to be repaired with robotic parts. Wren works with her uncle in a secret organization, repairing the time machine, but it blows up, and her uncle is killed. Wren devotes herself to rebuilding the time machine in his honour, becoming completely obsessed with it and with a mysterious orb that appeared during the first accident.

Before Wren can finish her project, she is abducted by three people in a time machine who take her into the future, saying that her future self is taking over the world and current Wren is the only one who can stop her. Alex, Cass and Trevor are agents for a secret organization devoted to protecting the world from dangerous inventions. In their timeline, Wren merges with the strange orb to become all-powerful. Her memory is erased, and she takes control of the town to keep everyone safe. Alex, Cass and Trevor spend years fixing the time machine in secret and then go back in time to retrieve Wren from the time before she merged with the orb. They sneak her into the heavily guarded town and the two Wrens face each other. Because past Wren brought the orb with her, she can use quantum physics to eliminate future Wren. When future Wren disappears, her timeline begins to unravel. Alex, Cass and Trevor sacrifice themselves so past Wren can return to her timeline where she meets past Alex for the first time.

The story is told from the points of view of Wren, Alex, Cass and Trevor and goes back and forth along each character’s timeline, filling in the gaps in the story until all stories come together in Wren’s confrontation with herself. This is an ambitious narrative technique that doesn’t quite work as the story becomes both repetitive and confusing.

The four main characters are well-developed with explanatory incidents from their past leading to the time they are all recruited by the organization DAWN. They train together and go on missions which provide opportunities for secret agent action with cool devices and vehicles. Their friendship is the centre of the novel: their bantering relationship is fun, and their trust and devotion to each other are believable and make their sacrifices genuine and moving.

The plot is cluttered with entertaining tropes, none of which are examined too deeply. The writing is solid, and Nichol has an instinct for a good story; the novel would have benefitted from stronger editing to more firmly focus the plot and help the structure make more sense.

Nyah Nichol is a debut author to watch. She has imaginative ideas, and her writing has a good sense of voice. Broken Shards of Time is a confusing but enjoyable romp through some classic science fiction scenarios.