SOME SECRETS AREN’T MEANT TO BE KNOWN. A freak landslide at a remote mine site uncovers a strange machine to a group of paleontology grad students. Wary of corrupt school officials, team leader Barry takes the machine home to study it in secret, reaching only one realistic – and unbelievable – conclusion: It was designed to bridge the time-space continuum. It’s a time machine.Testing delivers … time machine.
Testing delivers disastrous results, sending one team member to the hospital and nearly killing another. When word leaks about the discovery, the ultimate power struggle ensues: the university wants it for funding, the power company wants its energy regenerating abilities kept under wraps, and a rival group wants to steal it for themselves. No one cares if Barry’s team comes out alive.
Fleeing for their lives, the students must fight the school, the police, and each other if they want to learn the truth about what they’ve discovered – a truth with more severe consequences than any of them can predict.
BEST OF YEAR – Happy Meerkat Reviews
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I listened to the audio book of The Navigators by Dan Alatorre. The reader had a pleasant voice and well paced reading style and this added to my enjoyment of this book.
The books starts off with lots of excitement when a group of paleontology students (4 males and 1 female) decide to set off to investigate a remote mine and see if they can unearth any unusual finds. The decision is fraught with anxious debate as it is an unusual, and potentially dangerous, time of year to set off on a dig. During the summer the site of the mine is extraordinarily hot and prone to unexpected and torrential downpours. The lure of turning up something special as a result of shifts in the soil at that time of year overcomes good sense and the group sets off on an adventure.
Two of the students uncover a strange machine and cause a landslide while trying to dislodge it. One of the students is injured quite badly but the group decides to try to recover the machine and then take him back to the hospital on the university campus. They manage to pull the machine out of the mud and load it into their vehicle. They store it at one of their own apartments instead of turning it over to the university to investigate. The group is desperate to discover the secrets of the machine and believe it will be taken from them as soon as the university becomes aware of its existence.
An unfortunate decision to involve a third party in determining the purpose of the machine and how it works sets the group, and other interested parties, down the treacherous path of greed, corruption and deception.
The Navigators is well-written and exciting. The plot is interesting and full of action. There is more to this book than initially meets the eye. There is a fascinating sub-plot of friendship, teamwork and learning to overcome disappointments in the present and the past. The twists and turns in this sub-plot, which spill over into the main story, are unexpected and keep you on the edge of your seat. The author also has a unique and compelling view point on time travel which really made me think.
The Navigators
From page 1, Alatorre intrigued me; in all the following pages, he mesmerized me and compelled me to keep reading.
“What would you do with a time machine?” College grad paleontologists dig up just such a machine and, one by one, they can’t resist taking a ride. The results are nasty, nearly fatal. Even so, temptation overcomes the danger.
The book also explores the very real, ferocious battles faced by paleontologists and archaeologists for ownership of their discoveries. Scientists, colleges, landowners, corporations and even the federal government get tangled up in espionage, with lots of lawyers thrown in. Nefarious elements try to flat-out steal artifacts.
The suspenseful plot twists around the motivations of human nature, the supernatural ability to transcend time, a blooming romance, and the desperate lies and greed in the fast-moving ownership face-off. The team needs to evade all of dangerous people to stay alive.
Mr. Alatorre has quickly become one of my favorite authors. His imagination astounds me, with each book different and original. His thorough research is obvious in the myriad of details that build the story. The characters are believable, the heroes very likable and the villains despicable.
The ending of this book is bittersweet yet satisfying. I loved every well-crafted word!