4 Stars for NOAH ZARC: MAMMOTH TROUBLE

Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble 
Author: D. Robert Pease

Genre: Juvenile (MG) Science Fiction
Rating: 4 Stars

Summary:

Noah lives for piloting spaceships through time, dodging killer robots and saving Earth's animals from extinction. Life couldn't be better. However, the twelve-year-old time traveler soon learns it could be a whole lot worse. His mom is abducted and taken to thirty-first century Mars; his dad becomes stranded in the Ice Age; and Noah is attacked at every turn by a foe bent on destroying a newly habitable, post apocalyptic Earth.

Traveling through time in the family's immense spaceship, Noah, a paraplegic from birth, must somehow care for the thousands of animals on board, while finding a way to rescue his parents. Along the way, he discovers his mother and father aren't who he thought they were, and there is strength inside him he didn't know he had.

Review by Chrystalla Thoma:

Normally I don’t read juvenile fiction, but this book was a pleasant surprise. I really liked it and found myself reading way past midnight to finish it.

Let me elaborate (mild spoiler alert).

Noah is very young, only twelve, and he’s a paraplegic. But don’t think this handicap will hold him back, oh no. Especially not in a future where he can zip around in his magchair, float in zero-g and use electrical prosthetic legs. Besides, it’s not in his character. He is very dynamic, very mature and sweet as well, and he has some plans for the evening – like, save his mother who has been kidnapped, save a girl's life in prehistoric times (yes, lots of time traveling in this novel) and find out who Haon (the bad guy) really is.

The voice is fresh and natural, funny and just right for Noah’s age, never tiring and never confusing. Noah’s inner conflict is nicely juxtaposed to lots of fast-paced action scenes, and his emotions ring true.

The other main characters are also rounded and relatable, including Noah’s siblings and parents, the girl he saves, and even the bad guy, which I thought was great.

I admit that there were a few things that bothered me. One of them was the very obvious symbolism of the Arc of Noah, which was repeated through the story, from the family name (Zarc) to the ARC, the great spaceship with its unique mission, and the retelling of the story here and there. I’d have preferred a more subtle use of this. Furthermore, I found that the principal questions of time travel, which are complex and mind-bending at best when one tries to understand them, are treated a little too lightly for my taste here. If supposedly crushing a bug in the past can change the future, how about taking living creatures out of the past, how would that affect the present?

Yet, keeping in mind that this is a story for young teens, and that these questions have not been answered yet, I can’t complain much about this point.

After all, I highly recommend this story for young teens, and if a grumpy, hard-to-please reviewer like me enjoyed this novel, then I bet they will love it.

Where you can buy Noah Zarc: Mammoth Trouble:
$12.99 - Paperback
$2.99 - Kindle
$2.99 - Nook
$2.99 - iBookstore
$2.99 - Smashwords

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Meet the author:
Website: http://www.drobertpease.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/drobertpease
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/D-Robert-Pease/192175007474208
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5134726.D_Robert_Pease