Time Tunnel: The Twin Towers

LOCAL AUTHOR

In 2011, Stephen King published a book called 11/22/63, which is essentially a story about what if someone could go back in time and change the events of the assassination in Dallas so that President John F. Kennedy survived, and one of the most infamous moments in American history was completely erased. Ten years before this book was published, America suffered one of the worst attacks on its soil in its entire history. No one will forget where they were and what they felt when they learned, on September 11, 2001, that planes had intentionally crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. What if this dark stain in US History could also be changed, or perhaps even erased completely?

The Twin Towers, the first book in the Time Tunnel series from Richard Todd, begins with a pair of very recent newlyweds: Kyle Mason, a former Navy Seal who is now just enjoying time with the love of his life, Padma, a brilliant person in finance and has become very wealthy from it. As Padma is smoking a cigarette, Kyle is shaving and looks up in the mirror to see an exact copy of himself staring back at him in the reflection.

We then go back to 1947, when an unidentified aircraft crashed in a field in Roswell, New Mexico. After some days, the cover-up story of a downed weather balloon has convinced the public enough for it to become old news, and those who don’t believe have been pressured to keep their opinions to themselves. Four alien bodies are recovered, along with all the pieces of the crashed UFO. They are taken to a secret location in Groom Lake, Nevada, which will become a location known as Area 51. The decades pass, we meet new characters, and the research is conducted. Cut to 2008 when a time machine, reverse-engineered from the alien technology known as the Time Tunnel, is ready for its first mission. It can transport up to two people at a time to a moment in the past. Two elite soldiers are chosen: Kyle Mason and Annika Wise. Their job is to travel back to August 2001 to kill all the hijackers and stop the attack from ever happening. Kyle lost Padma on 9/11; her office was in the north tower. He’s been waiting for this very moment for a long time.

The chapters aren’t numbered but feature a location, a date, and a time. Because of this, the opening chapter would work better perhaps as a prologue, to better set up what is to happen later in the book. Regardless, The Twin Towers is a really fun read. It has clearly been well researched and, where possible, there are copies of documents, diagrams, and photos to help the reader. The story flow is constant and doesn’t lag at any point, and is also unpredictable, so the reader is kept hooked to the very end where there’s a great cliffhanger. There are plenty of details and jargon from various fields, like military and science, but all are clearly explained so the reader never feels lost.

The Twin Towers is a compelling, fascinating read that ends with the reader anxious for the sequel.