John Marsden

James, a strange, silent boy, makes the acquaintance of old Mr. Woodford, a physicist who constructs a mysterious black box, but when the box comes into the boy's possession, it draws him into a magical and dangerous world, in and out of time.

Out of time

Sarah Sammis

James has a lot of time on his hands. His parents are busy either with work or their social life. He seems to live on or near a military base and he has access to a lab where his old friend Dr. Woodforde has been developing a time machine.

As with so many time travel novels, Out of Time has to be carried on the strength and likeability of its main character. Unfortunately for Out of Time James keeps to himself. He doesn't even share his thoughts with the readers leaving only descriptions of what he's doing and where he's going.

What's left in place of dialogue (internal or external) is "artful" description (as Laura calls it in her review). The artfulness though leaves everything too ambiguous for me. When my husband asked me to describe the book I called it "an attempt at Picnic at Hanging Rock with time travel."

I realize that the Dreamtime is a popular (dominant?) theme in Australian literature and there's a hint of that in Out of Time but it just doesn't gel. James needs to be a more engaging character for it to work.

Out of time

Reviews