I cover Portal
24, Meredith Stroud’s young adult science fiction novel dealing with time
travel, and published by Hot Key Books.
When teen con-artist Darius is approached by a mysterious
government agent about joining a 'Project Oberon', he has no idea what to
expect. Certainly not that Project Oberon is actually a top-secret experiment
which sends teens back through time to prevent disasters before they happen!
Before Darius has time to wonder why he's been chosen, his first mission
arrives in the form of a huge electromagnetic weapon of mass destruction, which
will kill millions of people in New York - unless Darius and the team can stop
it. They're confident; it's all in a day's work for these teen wonders, but
what they don't bet on is evil mastermind Ludd. And what they don't know is
that Ludd knows the deadly secret behind Project Oberon. If Darius and the gang
don't make it back to the portal within twenty-four hours, then they'll be lost
in time forever...
I saw this one crop up on NetGalley recently
and it looked like it could be a fun, quick read, because I’m a sucker for some
good YA SciFi and my previous experiences with time travel-related stuff in general
recently have all been positive, like The
Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare, The Fifteen Lives of Harry August and
even the SyFy TV series 12 Monkeys has
started off strongly. Unfortunately, Portal
24, is not one of those books that will be added to the list, as it turned
out to be fairly underwhelming and quickly forgettable.
Darius Simms is the main protagonist, a
con-artist who was approached by a Government Agent who told him that his
girlfriend would die not long after. It isn’t long before one thing leads to
the next, and Darius finds himself plunged into the field as a backup agent
whose job, along with a group of fellow teens, is to stop disasters from
happening. Kind of like Person Of
interest, only with time travel rather than the Machine. However, he soon
finds out that his first assignment is a pretty big one, with less than 24
hours before the destruction of New York City (because it’s always New York City).
The characters were fun and could just about
make this book worth checking out, but none of them really stay long in your
memory and could easily be found in another young adult book similar to this.
You’ve got Bianca, the main female protagonist who knows her stuff when it
comes to fighting and dishing out commands, Leon, who doubles as the team’s
medic and hacker, and Malik, the team’s sniper. They make an interesting bunch
but given the fact that the book is quite short, it doesn’t really develop them
and you’ll struggle to remember even the main protagonist, Darius, a few days
after reading the book itself.
That’s in part because the book speeds by so
quickly. It will constantly have you flicking through the pages determined to
get to the end, but whilst it may be fast paced, it doesn’t really have much
depth to it. In short, it’s a summer blockbuster movie. Fun on the surface, but
there are plenty of problems that come when you go back and start to pick Portal 24 apart.
Despite the fact that the book may be quite
short, it could have been even shorter. There’s plenty of stuff that doesn’t
really add much to the story as a whole and it ends up feeling wasted. Darius
doesn’t really feel developed enough for us to care about him and neither do
the rest of the cast, with him and Bianca being the two that have the most
attention and the others seemed to be tacked on just to play certain roles in
the book.
There’s so many standard moments that you’d
find in any other young adult thriller – the ‘good guy’ con artist, the badass
female character who falls in love with the main one pretty much instantly, and
the unoriginal plot doesn’t really do this novel justice. Yes, it is
entertaining and you won’t be bored whilst reading it, but there isn’t really
enough there to make it stand out. It’s something that’s best for a quick read
and nothing more, and sadly, something that I can’t really recommend.
VERDICT:
4/10
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