Rewinder

By: Brett Battles

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

You will never read Denny Younger's name in any history book, will never know what he's done. But even if you did, you'd never believe it. The world as you know it wouldn't be the same without him. Denny was born into one of the lowest rungs of society, but his bleak fortunes abruptly change when the mysterious Upjohn Institute recruits him to be a Rewinder, a verifier of personal histories. The job at first sounds like it involves researching old books and records, but Denny soon learns it's far from it. A Rewinder's job is to observe history. In person. Embracing his new life with enthusiasm, Denny witnesses things he could never even imagine before. But as exciting a life as this is, there are dangers, too. For even the smallest error can have consequences. Life-altering consequences. Time, after all, is merely a reference point.

©2014 Brett Battles (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Critic reviews

" Rewinder has it all - plot, characters, settings, reversals, and a couple of scenes that could rank among the best in Orphan Black." - (Timothy Hallinan, author of the Poke Rafferty thrillers and the Junior Bender mysteries)

WOW!! A different type of science fiction.

I'm going to break one of own rules by spoiling some of the plot because this book is so different.

Brett Battles has written a story very different from his Jonathan Quinn series and his Project Eden series. It is about an alternate contemporary society existing in the area that now includes the United states. It is a monarchy with a strong and inflexible cast system that occurred because George Washington was killed before he could win the American Revolution. The alternate society has developed time machines that can carry designated people called Rewinders back to any time and place in the past, but cannot go into the future. Denny Younger, a recently trained Rewinder, goes back to the time and place of Washington's murder and changes events so that Washington lives. This throws Denny into the modern United States which he finds he likes. He is then faced with a decision on whether to undo the change he made causing the modern US to no longer exist or leave the change in place which means the society where he grew up would no longer exist. Other Rewinders are trying to undo the change he made in history.

Destroyer, the second book in the Rewinder series will be released on Jan. 12, 2016.

Science fiction is not now my genre of choice, but it was in my younger years. I've read a lot of Asimov, Heinlein, Card, and others and I still occasionally read some of Sarah Hoyt and Orson Scott Card. Rewinder is different!

Almost all of Brett Battles' other books have been narrated by either Scott Brick or McLeod Andrews, but he chose to go with Vikas Adam for the Rewinder series. Vikas Adam is certainly an excellent and very experienced narrator of science fiction audiobooks, so his selection is easily understandable.

I'm not sure of Battles' intended audience for the Rewinder series, but it would likely appeal most strongly to young teens (the same audience that appreciates Orson Scott Card's Ender's series and Robert Heinlein's Juveniles series).

Battles has already shown his willingness to expand beyond his hugely successful thriller series with the children's book Here Comes Mr. Trouble (not available as an audiobook) and his standalone novels The Pull of Gravity (Kindle only) and No Return. Now he is also writing science fiction. I admire his expansion into different genres, but I do hope he will continue to release a new Jonathan Quinn book annually.

Time travel, alternate history and a nest of parad

The rewinders are a group of scholars who go back in time to verify the lineage of the 21st Century British aristocracy who pay for the service. In this reality, the American Revolution never occurred and all is British and bleak. The rewinders must only observe the past and never risk changing anything. Obviously, that’s what happens.

Rewinder is a generally good twist on the much used themes of alternate history and time travel. The historical references and detail ring true and give the story weight. Within the time travel elements, there are plenty of paradoxes and self-duplications. Battles just explains them away as that’s just what happens when you time travel and they don’t matter. It does make you think about the difficulty of it all, that even a small change could affect everything.

The story is written in the first person, present tense, so you are inside the main character’s head the whole time. This can get claustrophobic at times. Other times it gets tedious, as he enters our time and explains what we call phones and cars. Uh, we know what a car is.

Narration by Vicas Adams, who does an adequate job. His voice has a specific tone and quality that took this listener some getting used to. It is recommended that you listen to the audio sample and decide if this is a deal breaker. The production quality is excellent and he is certainly a professional.

Rewinder is not ground breaking, but is a pleasant listen. At about the length of a cross country plane flight and back, it is easy to stay with it.

Audiobook purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

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Clever, Intriguing exciting and just plain fun!

Would you consider the audio edition of Rewinder to be better than the print version?

The audible versions seem to have more character if the reader is good like this one.I have read numbers of Brett's books and believe he is born to write clever, believable, exciting, suspenseful books you hate to have end.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Rewinder?

Rewinder had several special occasions. First when Denny first learned he was chosen to become a rewinder. The next is the conflict he had with himself over Iffy. Another was the turmoil of should I or shouldn't I "fix" the error in time. Last was when he fought with his nemesis Lydia near the end and won sending her off to???.

Which scene was your favorite?

When Denny realized Iffy had become his "companion" and how that brought them together

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

What time is it?

Any additional comments?

Great read by a great author and reader.Hurry up Brett with the next Rewinder!

pleasantly surprised, first book by this author

saw this book in the "recommended" section and decided to take a chance. I guess now I'm going to have to get more of his books. this one kept my attention, was entertaining and didn't lose me with too many details.

Enjoyed history undone and reclaimed

I'm not a fan of science fiction, but the story description intrigued me. I found the story equally intriguing. The alternate history of earth was interesting, and the history of our earth and how it ties in with the alternate history made me chuckle. Though I knew how I hoped it would end, I didn't know how it would get there. I love it when a villain gets his or her comeuppance. Enjoyed the story very much.

The narrator was good except with women's voices, which all sounded the same to me. Other than being occasionally irritating, it didn't detract from the story for me.

Average

I felt the plot was a good idea, however the execution was just ok.
The performance was not great either. Particularly the reader's performance of females was lacking.

Great setup for the series

I liked the plot and the setup for the story. It felt a lot like Isaac Asimov's End of Eternity book but less convoluted and easier to understand.

I do think this book needed some more world building especially if you are going to end a timeline, the audience needs to feel like that that's justified because of the world they are in. Because without that world building, it sure looks like Denny fell for insta-love within a week and ended his timeline because of a girl he knew for a week. The romance was pretty cute though.

Little worried at first...not going to lie.

it started a little slow and I was worried I wasted money. Within a few minutes that changed and I found the story holding my attention. finished in 1 day. like the author so I figured it was a safe bet.

Time Travel Adventure

Where does Rewinder rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Good, kept me interested until there very end. Historical notations and the way they were brought into the story also as interesting as the story itself.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Denny, he portrayed an innocent and believable character, ready to learn all about life. It allowed us to be even more wishful/hopeful for good things to come to him.

Which character – as performed by Vikas Adam – was your favorite?

Denny, the narration flowed nicely between the adult males and young Denny.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I really enjoyed the 12 second internal conversation. The believable struggle with the character trying to tell himself it was nothing rings true to life as we all try to talk ourselves into or out of decisions we make or made.

Any additional comments?

Female characters were narrated somewhat poorly but the narrator had a wonderful voice throughout otherwise. Also, I would consider this a nice Young Adult reading, if it isn't already catergorized as such (I believe I was attracted to it as a time travel versus YA at the time.

Really consistently rushed feeling. Unfulfilling.

I had an decent time with this book. The writing was so detailed and vivid allowing to be able to see everything going on.

I thought the world building at the beginning did a great job to clue you in on what's going on but still allowed enough room for surprises that you pick on later. I thought the world building was incredibly creative imagining a world like this and it spent a good enough time in this world to be able to identify it clearly before it jumped into the time travel stuff.

One glaring big thing that was lacking I guess was some other characters. I felt like there was one character in the entire book and everyone else was sorta background noise that had no expansion as to who their are. The trainer, his sister, another student performing the antagonist role, some of the other staff and later on this female interest, all of them felt absolutely hollow and just there for plot because you spend absolutely no time really getting to know them.

To top off my complaints about the side characters, they also felt incredibly rushed. Like their was a narrative, emotion or feeling that needed to get across but instead of building it up its sorta told at you how you're supposed to feel about these people instead of any actual building of them up to take on the roles that they do. It was a little awkward and everytime it happened I couldn't help but look at the size of this book and think that these tactics were being used to save time in favor of building up a plot. By the end, i felt nothing for any of these people except for the main character. This all phased me when I got to this weird kissing scene that made absolutely no sense because just no building up really happened for it just like every character you meet.

The main character really is on his own in this entire book and the only character where any time was spent building him up.

The plot was fantastic, it felt tense at times, super interesting to watch the main character interact with his situation and fun to see where he takes it. One big flaw with the plot though is later on, during a moment that seems impossible to get out of, a Deus Ex Machina situation happens that magically resolves the plot tension and shows its card with how much plot armor this main character has. It felt a little cheap, i do sorta wish the main character got out on his own somehow with an expanded upon plot to get there. It didn't completely ruin the plot but made any tension I was feeling go away which was a shame.

The plot at times also felt a bit rushed too, it doesn't last as long as I'd like, as soon as it really gets going it resolves fairly quickly.

Overall everything felt rushed, fun, but super rushed and skimmed on a lot. Bottomline though is I definitely still had fun with it despite how rushed it felt.

By the end when I compared with how rushed everything felt, I sorta felt like I only got half a book. A lot needed expanded on, more time needed to identify with these characters, heck some characters are just sorta dropped on you without explanation towards the end that would be nice to know too.

It very much felt like I was getting teased to get the next book if I wanted a bigger picture narrative on all the stuff that was skimmed over. Left me feeling unfulfilled but at least I had a lot of temporary fun.