For the Time Being

By: Marie Desjardin

Narrated by: Jerry Sciarrio

The Pubbers, 10 gifted social misfits, set out one night to explore a set of steam tunnels beneath their campus, end up captured by aliens, and are transported by spaceship to another planet. Hoping to return home, they pool their talents to construct a time machine. The escape plan is discovered, and the Pubbers learn that building the device is why they were kidnaped in the first place.

Five thousand years ago, they had promised their captors they would build the machine to save their race from extinction. To get home they must unravel what they've done in the past, figure out a plan for the future, and get home in an alien spacecraft, all while eluding two warring races. Simple, right?

©2014 Books in Motion (P)2014 Books in Motion

Glee + Friends with Big Bang cast

For the Time Being is a lighted romp with college science geniuses abducted by aliens and forced to build a time machine in order to dominate another alien race - and that's about as deep as it gets.Throughout the story, time paradoxes constantly arise as the details for time travel are worked out. Both alien races have a fur fetish as well as one with a craving for mushrooms and another that goes through a tree phase.

The sci-fi elements are crude, more consistent with golden age sci-fi with humanoid aliens with odd peccadilloes, faster than light drives, and a time machine. The science is minimally rendered, most of which has little internal consistency, while the alien races make little sense with features created mostly for weirdness. The gang of college students start as a quarreling, oddball collection that over time, fall in love and work together, to outsmart two alien races, build a time machine, and eventually get themselves home.

The narration is adequate, but unremarkable with a good range of voices, although the aliens are rendered quite artificial. This is story that does not take itself seriously and neither should the listener.