Maker (Daughter of Time, Book 3)

Waythrel, alien advisor to Ambra Dawn, the Daughter of Time, has been torn from friends and familiar reality by one of Ambra’s twisted clones. At the mercy of the clone’s unfettered, augmented mind, Waythrel is dragged by this captor through recursive loops of space-time in an effort to test potential vulnerabilities and prevent a future that has already occurred, a future that Waythrel helped to engineer, with consequences that stretch back seemingly to the beginning of time and force the alien to question everything it has ever understood about the workings of the universe.

Maker: Daughter of Time, Book 3 is a properly mind-bending science-fiction novel, one that eagerly, cheerfully strays beyond the bounds of what might be considered a linear narrative. Recurring dialogue, scenes, even seemingly entire chapters instill in the reader the disorienting sense of déjà vu that the characters themselves experience. It might prove difficult to wrap your brain around, but overall it is a fairly approachable read: though time and space may be bent and abused, and the characters themselves barely understand the concepts that they discuss, the language that carries it is quite straightforward. Even though it retreads the some of the same paths repeatedly, the story moves quickly through a plot of suitably grand scope. The alien narrator, Waythrel, is a very human and relatable character, repeated references to eyestalks and other alien anatomy aside.

Overall, the Daughter of Time series is what I’d call darned good science fiction; it’s fast-moving and fun with unexpected substance and depth, pushing the boundaries of description and readers’ expectations. Don’t try to jump into Maker without reading the first two books, though.