"I believe you were a member of the 1929 Einstein-Carmichael expedition."
"Well?"
"There was a scientist in the party."
"That's right."
"What was he investigating?"
"He didn't talk much. Was only interested in the experiment. And his son. James, was it?"
"No, John. Very bright boy..."
Rip-snorting, high-seas, high-octane, time-travel, all-ages, hyphen-heavy yarn penned originally for The Phoenix Comic by His Dark Materials author (first and second volumes of the first part of that trilogy, NORTHERN LIGHTS, have been adapted for comics) and adeptly illustrated by able seaman Fred Fordham, who I must admit I wasn't familiar with, but certainly is a talent with his neat and tidy shipshape ligne claire linework.
I note, actually, it has just been announced Fred is going to adapt Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird as a graphic novel for Harper Collins, who clearly view him as a safe pair of hands on the proverbial tiller for tackling such a heavyweight literary title. I think that is probably more than enough sailing puns now...
Cast adrift on the oceans of eternity, buffeted by the ever-changing tides of temporal instability, boy genius John Blake is determined to get his millennia-spanning motley crew back home to their respective eras safely. There are others, however, who covet his time-travelling vessel, the Mary Alice, and will stop at nothing to get their dastardly hands on it!
Ah, this is a great bit of fun, speculative fiction with Bond-style delightfully preposterous 'espionage' elements, courtesy of secret agent Roger <ahem> Blake, and the main bad guy, multi-squillionnaire tech giant Carlos Dahlberg and his enormous super yacht and gigantic guided missiles. I would make allusions to him making up for some inadequacy perhaps, but let's keep this review as all-ages as the work itself!
Adults will undoubtedly love this boy's and girl's own adventure, as John teams up with a young lady called Serena whose daft dad managed to dump her in the drink without a life jacket in the middle of the South Pacific. Now she's part of the ghost ship's crew, criss-crossing time in search of safe harbour and answers to explain their peculiar odyssey.
Can John keep his crew, with the assistance of the eponymously named suave naval intelligence officer, out of Dahlberg's megalomaniacal clutches?! Or will Carlos finally break the maxim that money can't buy you everything and achieve his tyrannical ambitions of global, and temporal, total domination?! Why am I using a question mark as well as an exclamation mark?! The answer to the last question, dear reader, is that I am a idiot. For a resolution to the other two queries, however, you will have to read the book...
