Pros
- A solid resolution to The Timeless Void series that has been a little awkward with the time jumps and alternate universes
Cons
- A lot of subplots that weren’t quite completed or resolved, like the child Ryan rescues from prehistoric time
- Almost feels like this resolution is for this book or story arc where Ryan gets to experience a life with his first love rather than a resolution to the series
Ryan’s Resolution Review
Craig Robertson’s Ryan’s Resolution, as its name implies, is the conclusion to The Timeless Void series that has been, like many stories that deal with time travel and alternate universes, a little confusing with its jumps back and forth.
Ryan’s adventures throughout time have been entertaining, and his attempts to restore or re-right a timeline that has been corrupted encountered issues fans of science fiction are no stranger to. Changes to one seemingly insignificant detail in the past can lead to drastic alterations in the future, as Ray Bradbury reminded us in his short story A Sound of Thunder.
But one positive outcome of these time changes is the opportunity for Ryan to experience a life with a woman he loved, a life that was denied to him in a previous timeline because he failed to reach the lake in time.
The biggest obstacle in this story was how to convince Ryan to give up a seemingly idyllic life with a loving family, and it’s this struggle that takes up half of the story, with the other half being the resolution to the large superstructure swallowing up entire solar systems and civilizations.
Ryan is reunited with a different timeline Sapale in this story, and together with a familiar doctor and a few crew members,, they take on the large superstructure. What enables them to emerge victorious (was there ever any doubt?) is a disgruntled employee.
While Ryan’s Resolution provides a conclusion to the larger conflict in the story—the large superstructure—it still doesn’t address the problems that made this warped timeline possible to begin with—what about the initial attempts to fix the timeline? What about all the civilizations that were gobbled up by the superstructure? Surely the damage done to the current timeline far outweighs the original warped timeline Ryan sought to correct.
Ryan’s Resolution by Craig Robertson provides readers with a good conclusion to the threat of the large superstructure as well as its origins, but it doesn’t adequately address the other conflicts in the series, leaving readers with more questions than answers.
Read reviews of other works by Craig Robertson below.
