From Publishers WeeklyMcDevitt (Seeker) avoids flashy action scenes in this tale of two friends using a time machine to take a grand tour of history. When Adrian Shel Shelbourne's physicist father disappears and leaves behind a time-travel device, Shel and his friend Dave Dryden, a language expert, search for Shel's father in Galileo's Italy, Selma during the civil rights marches and other famous times and places. Realizing that time resists paradoxes and history can't be changed, the two friends seize the opportunity to live enriching, truly humane lives from Thermopylae to a few minutes in the future. As the paradoxes begin to pile up and their luck in dodging some of history's villains runs out, McDevitt ingeniously handles a tricky denouement that will leave readers satisfied. (Nov.) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.From BooklistWhen scientist Michael Shelburne vanishes, his son AdrianShel to his friendssuspects unusual circumstances but not that his father has discovered the secret of time travel. Figuring it out, however, Shel and friend David Dryden use Michaels devices to find the missing man in a quest that takes them through Depression-era Philadelphia, Renaissance Italy, the bloody civil rights march at Selma, and the as-yet-unburned library of Alexandrias collection of the classical Greek dramatists. Eventually they succeed, but Shels curiosity spurs him to travel into the future, where he discovers his impending death, and then to search for a way to avoid that fate. That search occupies the books latter half and becomes a masterpiece of storytelling and exploration of the paradoxes of time travel. In fact, the whole book ranks very highly in McDevitts quarter-century of work distinguished by high intelligence, fine world building, and superb characterization. --Roland Green "McDevitt ingeniously handles a tricky denouement that will leave [listeners] satisfied." ---Publishers Weekly how do i get bookbub Time Travelers Never Die
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Try and stay awake.By R. ValentineI am a huge Jack McDevitt fan. I am generally waiting with bated breath for his next book to come out. So when Time Travelers Never Die auto-downloaded into my Kindle right before a flight to Australia, I was ecstatic. To date, Jack's creative, exciting, and fantanstical work had never disappointed.To date that was.Time Travelers Never Die is just about as boring as it gets. Unless you are a big history buff, it's hard to stay awake for this snoozer. There are huge long passages of the main characters rambling on and on with historical figures about things that do not further the plot line at all. Half way through the book I just started skimming through those passages. I actually stopped reading the book out of lack of interest about 2/3rds of the way through. I did eventually go back and finish it just in case it was one of those really slow to get to the good parts kind of books. I needn't have bothered.The characters are flat and I never did get to the point where I cared if they lived or died. The whole timeline paradox thing had the potential to be interesting, but really just started to become annoying. It would have been really interesting to find out who or what was controlling the "death to those who mess with the timeline" principle but it was never addressed. Curiously, it didn't even seem like the characters were curious about it themselves.As I said at the beginning, Jack McDevitt is a wonderful author. And I'm back to waiting with bated breath for his next book. But if you're just starting to get to know this author, please do yourself a tremendous favor and go back to the mid-1990's and read forward. You'll be enthralled and have a blast reading your way forward all the way to The Devil's Eye. But if you start with this sleeper, you'll probably lose interest in Jack McDevitt.And that would be a sad, sad thing indeed.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Time Travelers Never Die, Do They?By C. BakerI like time travel stories and this one is mildly entertaining but not particularly fulfilling. Call it time travel light.The plot centers around Adrian Shelburne and David Dryden who cavort to their favorite places in history after Shel (Adrian's nickname) discovers his father created a time machine. Shel's father, Michael, has disappeared and leaves Shel a rather interesting electronic gadget with instructions to destroy it. Through curiosity, which almost gets Shel in trouble throughout the novel, he discovers the device allows one to travel through time and space. Shel and David go in search of Shel's father, visiting their favorite's places and times in history along the way. And that, mostly, is the entire plot. Almost.The most compelling cliffhanger is the novel opens with Shel's funeral and then he suddenly returns to visit David after the funeral. Finding out what was going on with that scene concludes the book with an interesting twist, and alludes to the title of the book.The drawback of this novel is often it seems the adventures of Shel and David are just filler and not all that interesting. I found myself bored through significant parts of the story. The ending was a good and dramatic twist, but getting there was not always so enjoyable.Overall, I'd say I enjoyed the novel but it wasn't great. You won't miss anything if you skip this one.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Excellent sf story.By Gerald G.Great story. Got me page turning to see how things would work out. Good characterizations too.