Review: The Navigators by Dan Alatorre

I was kindly sent a digital copy of this book by the author Dan Alatorre.  ‘The Navigators’ is a science fiction novel with action adventure and is thrilling throughout, here is my review:

This book is amazing, I can’t believe how engrossed I was in reading it!  ‘The Navigators’ is a science fiction novel which takes place in our own world.  Although about a time machine, the science fiction element is quite mild with the majority of the action taking place in modern day Florida and the story more about keeping the discovery hidden.  This doesn’t make it any less interesting for science fiction fans though, in fact this book will have wide appeal being more an action adventure thriller with a touch of sci fi thrown in.

The story starts off with a chapter where you get to know all the main characters.  Unlike some books where you get confused being introduced to several characters at once, this novel doesn’t do that, due to the different and believable character traits each of them has. The action soon moves on and by chapter two I was already hooked.

At first the story is told in the first person perspective of one character, ‘Peeky’ but when the group splits up and the action starts taking place in multiple locations, the view point switches to the third person.  The adventure is so thrilling that a lot happens and in some chapters you are constantly switching between different scenes, sometimes with only one paragraph a scene.  This is done really well though and I never found myself lost or confused, in fact in some chapters it only added to the excitement.  The only thing I found strange was that scenes with Peeky switched back into the first person perspective, and while this doesn’t confuse the story, it could have worked just as well being all third person for me.

I had a feeling I would like this book, given all the great reviews already, but I never thought I’d find it quite as gripping as I did.  It feels like an action adventure movie and I couldn’t stop turning the pages and reading on.  Although there’s a lot of serious action taking place, there is a lot of humour at just the right times.  Characters say and do things with perfect timing that while you’re gripped with excitement to read on you’ll also find yourself laughing out loud at some of the silly moments, I especially laughed at a hospital scene towards the end of the story.

The book has some uses of the f and s swear words, the scenes of violence are nothing too graphic.  There’s nothing too shocking and slightly older teens would enjoy this as much as adults.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and just couldn’t put it down.  The ending is a really satisfying one and so much happens in the story you really feel like you’ve been on the adventure yourself when you’ve read this.  I’d certainly recommend this book to everyone who enjoys any action, adventure or science fiction novels.  Even if you don’t usually go for science fiction the elements of that are mild and the plot and characters are really well thought out.  A really great book!

Rating: 5/5

Review published on Goodreads, click here

Author’s website: http://danalatorre.com/

Book Description:

A freak landslide at a remote mine site uncovers a strange machine to Barry’s group of paleontology students. Wary of corrupt school officials, his team 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.