Time's Children by D.B. Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never read the author's other works but that doesn't really matter here. I was caught by the description alone.

It's a high-fantasy time-travel novel!

Yup. So we have all the goodies of messed up timelines, time-walkers, and similar time/space practitioners in a magic rule system seated in a heavily world-built fantasy world! All the benefits of a kingdom built from scratch AND the breaking of it several times during different periods of its history!

Yay!

And I wasn't disappointed in the text, either. It starts great with a kid on his effective journeyman quest, only when he's asked to break the rules, we're slapped in the face with the consequences of this particular magic.

Every day you go back in time ages you in direct proportion. A fifteen-year-old going back in time by 14 years will have lost half his life in a single jump. Ouch.

I can easily recommend this to fans of either Epic Fantasy or Time Travel SF. It combines the best of both worlds and with all the assassins, intrigue, and even love going on here, the novel entertains very roundly indeed.

Officially it could be classified as a "saving the baby" tale, but because we keep seeing the timeline change in future and the kingdom change with it, it gets very interesting.

My only complaint? The ending is only mildly satisfying. I'm not sure if it's meant to be a series or a single novel, but if it's a single novel, then I kind of wish it came with a more kickin' ending. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the beginning and the core. :)

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