futurista

What would happen if you time traveled into the future and nobody remembers you? Such is the fate of Cheri-Ann, princess of the Kingdom of Ohio. Never heard of the Kingdom of Ohio? Yeah, that's one of the main problems. Cheri-Ann finds herself 12 years in her future, broke and destitute in an unforgiving New York City. And the only person that can help her, Tesla, doesn't seem to remember her. Or does he?

All in all, I enjoyed reading this book. I'd hoped for a happy ending, but I guess all books don't end the way that you want. I did, however, enjoy the nod to the "Croatan" mystery of Roanoake. I wish that the author had taken that thread of the story a bit further to its end rather than merely insinuating the answer to the mystery. I would have liked another 100 pages to explore that idea. Oh well. I guess it's better to be left a mystery.

I have to admit that the inclusion of Tesla and Edison in the book did cause an eye-roll. People tend to "discover" Tesla, and they always think they're the first one to have done so. I was just glad to see that he was at least treated as a scoundrel in this book.

My main gripe about the book was the way that the author tries to incorporate historical notes and references into the novel with footnotes. The story would have been better written with the author incorporating the information in the footnotes into the narrative. I have to admit that I still don't know whether or not the sources were real or fake sources to give credence to the existence of a Kingdom of Ohio. Perhaps that was his point since the narrator is trying to convince himself that his encounter with Cheri-Ann was real. However, the flow of the narrative would have been much better if the information in the footnotes had been incorporated into the main story.

4 stars
-1 for Tesla references
+1 for Tesla being a scoundrel
+1 for Croatan references
-1 for not taking the Croatan thread far enough
= 4 stars