The action-packed but formulaic sequel to David's time-travel novel Footprints of Thunder
(1996) once again races through rifts in the space-time continuum, which in the earlier novel deposited dinosaurs in the modern world and swallowed entire contemporary cities. Now, engineer and rabid environmentalist Vince Walters, with the help of his followers, hopes to return the world to a Garden of Eden via newly created black holes. It's up to Nick Paulson, the director of the Office of Security Science, to stop Walters and prevent further chaos. The key seems to lie in three rectangular anomalies—one in a crater on the moon, another in Alaska and the third in the Yucatán Peninsula. While Paulson and his colleagues rush against (and through) time to discover the anomalies' secrets, David keeps up a frenetic pace with rampaging dinosaurs, shootouts, missing nuclear weapons and human sacrifices. As the climax approaches, Nick "must rescue the girl, find the bomb, and save the world." Other characters worry about the traditional paradoxes of time travel: " 'What if I meet myself?'" one asks. The answer to that and similar questions is lost in the nonstop action of this derivative science fiction thriller. (Apr.)
