Erasing Time

Gr 7 Up—Twins Sheridan and Taylor are snatched from their comfortable home and dragged 400 years into the future by scientists with dubious intentions and a time machine. While the science strains credulity, it's really just a device to set the twins up in the future. Present at their arrival is historian and wordsmith Echo, charged with acting as translator and then babysitter when the scientists realize that the girls are not the groundbreaking scientist whom they intended to pull forward. The future is both too comfortable, breeding a clueless citizenry oblivious to the rampant pollution and lawlessness outside their domed cities, and slightly menacing. Silly fashions and frivolity mask a society riddled with corruption and a Big Brother state that has outlawed religion of any kind. In order to escape a mind wipe, the siblings enlist the help of Echo, who has connections with the mafialike Dakine, and the "doctors" who are the underground preservers of religion that conduct like-minded believers out of the city to a safe haven. The twins' use of idiom as a means of secret communication is amusing, and the gentle romance between Echo and Sheridan will attract some readers, but the strong religious themes make this book a better choice for readers of Christian fiction looking for something with a sci-fi twist.—Caroline Tesauro, Radford Public Library, VA