Review: Extracted – R R Haywood
Further to my Sunday Summary post, today I am reviewing Extracted by R R Haywood!
In 2061, a young scientist invents a time machine to fix a tragedy in his past. But his good intentions turn catastrophic when an early test reveals something unexpected: the end of the world.
A desperate plan is formed. Recruit three heroes, ordinary humans capable of extraordinary things, and change the future.
Safa Patel is an elite police officer, on duty when Downing Street comes under terrorist attack. As armed men storm through the breach, she dispatches them all.
‘Mad’ Harry Madden is a legend of the Second World War. Not only did he complete an impossible mission—to plant charges on a heavily defended submarine base—but he also escaped with his life.
Ben Ryder is just an insurance investigator. But as a young man he witnessed a gang assaulting a woman and her child. He went to their rescue, and killed all five.
Can these three heroes, extracted from their timelines at the point of death, save the world?
In 2061 the time machine is created. During testing it is discovered if time is allowed to follow its course, the world will end in 2111.
In order to save the world three of the best human beings ever to have existed are extracted from the point of their death; Mad Harry Madden is rescued from his mission during the Second World War in 1943, Ben Calshott is extracted during an attack on the London Underground in 2015 and Safa Patel is retrieved whilst defending the Prime Minister in 2020.
It was refreshing to read a completely different genre for a change. I think the last time I read a true science fiction book was when I read War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. That also happens to be the first book I downloaded on my first Kindle, ever. To my mind time travel is a subject that can get very complicated very quickly, and thankfully, so far this book was not difficult to follow. Equally there were elements of this book that I found disappointing, which I will go further into below.
I prefer books written in third person by default, but I found the perspectives between the three characters switched sporadically. I understand that during times of action you want the narration to be punchy and have impact, and of course all three characters will have their own perspective of what is going on, but I feel more structure could have been applied so that the point of view of the text didn’t change so frequently and unexpectedly.
I also found the book lacked the amount of progress I was expecting from it. In essence, our three heroes are tasked with locating the point in time at which the end of the world was made inevitable and have to change it. If you don’t mind me saying, this is a pretty big task. To my mind this first book spent too much time focusing on the personal developments of the characters following their extraction and as a consequence the plot was underdeveloped.
That isn’t to say I won’t be continuing to read the trilogy. What has been written is perfectly readable, if not the finest piece of literature I have ever read. This series has a lot of potential and now I have invested into the characters so much, I want to see how they achieve this seemingly impossible task.
What I will say of R R Haywood’s writing is that the time travel element is explained well. I always knew who was where and when, and even when there are a couple of overlaps I was clear as to who is where and what their purpose is at that time. As I mentioned before, it is a subject that can get very confusing very quickly, but I felt this was handled very well.
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