Review of Alan Draven’s “Fractured Time”

Donovan Vicar is a man with a special gift.  He is a feeler, which the author describes as someone who feels the vibrations of those around him.  It becomes clear rather quickly that this is only scratching the surface of this gift…a gift he will soon need on a strange journey he must set out on across time.

Fractured Time begins in the present era, in the year 2007 in the city of Bitternest, Louisiana.  Donovan is working to manage his power as a feeler, which tends to knock him for a loop every time he is around someone who has a negative or evil aura.  So when someone walks by that has the most potently evil aura of anyone he has ever met, it compels him to follow them.  Donovan fears the danger they represent.  In the past, he has discovered too late that when he senses such evil, something horrible is about to occur.  Not long after this discovery, Donovan finds himself traveling backwards in time in pursuit of this evil man.  Fifty years in the past to be exact, to the Bitternest of 1957.  It becomes clear rather quickly that the man he was tracking is responsible for this new puzzle, and it is up to Donovan to figure out how to stop whatever foul plan the man has for the world and to hopefully find a way back home, to the present.

Fractured Time is a good old fashion mystery spiked with magic, imbibed with ancient evil, and with just the right touch of nostalgia mixed in for good measure.  Alan Draven has created a city shrouded in darkness and strange alien forces, and populated it with a cast of colorful characters that are quite entertaining.  I enjoyed the almost retro feel of this story, and not just because the vast majority of it was set in a world fifty years in our past.   This is a good old fashion tale of sorcery and evil men who crave absolute power who are willing use the blackest magic in their cause.

Naturally, no story is perfect, and this one suffers a bit from what I would say is the author’s enthusiasm to share with his audience as many details as possible about the world he has created.  The thoughts and motivations of not only the main characters are revealed, but those of most of the secondary characters are as well.  Mysteries are unraveled at a pace that is probably faster than I would have preferred for this type of tale, and leaving some questions left unanswered would have been just fine by me.  The epilogue is an example of this.  While probably necessary, to fill in all the blanks, some of the answers seem almost abrupt-loose ends that are sewn up in a hurry, so nothing is left to puzzle over.

Even so, I can understand the enthusiasm the author wants to share with us over his creation.  Bitternest holds up a strange, fun-house type mirror to what would be its sister city of New Orleans, another Louisiana city filled with oddities, magic, and strange tales of the occult.  Alan Draven has given us old magic and old gods that feel right at home in this strange city, and I can understand his passion for sharing every last bit of it with us.

Fractured Time can be found here:  http://www.amazon.com/Fractured-Time-Alan-Draven/dp/097699478X/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314631559&sr=1-7