The Twin Paradox is delightful sci-fi craziness, the first in a two-book series. A small group of honors high school students in an elite program learn that their destinies were created for them, prior even to their births. They are whisked away suddenly to a secret government facility, where they begin to learn the full story behind the mysterious Cornerstone Project. In short order, mad scientists playing God go too far, and the entire plot becomes a demented roller coaster ride into scientific implausibility.

Yes, it's implausible. It's science fiction. I feel certain the science is wonky. But it didn't matter, for me. I found the characters so much fun, the storytelling very imaginative, and the plot fast-moving and entertaining. I will definitely look for part two!

The book describes time travel like a spiral. That’s how it felt reading the story. Starting at the top, instantly pulling me in, increasing the action as I got further into the book, and ending the spiral with an interesting conclusion. I am definitely going to keep an eye out for the sequel that’s coming out in 2022.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I started reading this book, but boy did it deliver. It turned out to be just what I was in the mood for!

The whole feel of the book was very Jurassic Park to me. Lots of action, lots of gorgeous described scenery, unbelievable and yet believable at the same time.

You have a group of kids that are in a special program at school for those who are crazy achievers (you learn later why) a worker on an oil rig and his dad, and a corporation that has managed to control time. Oh and some Russians too.

It’s a fun read with lots and lots of cliffhangers, non stop action, but still plenty of character development.

I admit that most of the physics was over my head, but it was still fascinating reading about it!

If this sounds intriguing, I highly recommend it!

This is by far the best science fiction I have read in decades. It is incredibly unique, creative, and well written. The characters are interesting and well developed. I can't wait to read the sequel!

Normally I would suggest the idea of twinning famous people would be a bit contrived, but I like how the author brought this idea to life. I found the interplay between characters to be engaging. The sci-fi part of the story, with the relative nature of how time passes was intriguing (and, I admit, I kinda chuckled at the e=mc2 joke).

The science race is ON! The Gene-E corporation has discovered of how to manipulate time. A few decades ago, they also gained access to the DNA of the greatest minds in history and begun a cloning project. Now the seeds of the cloning project are ripe for the picking and Alastair and his friends learn the truth of their birth and embark on an internship to end all.

As any sci-fi enthusiast knows, you can’t manipulate time and Mother Nature without some unintended results. From species mutations to cannibals, the students soon learn exactly what secrets the Gene-E corp has been hiding. A sabotage had the kids on the run for their lives from all creatures great and small as they learn the true depth and breadth of the cloning project.

Action packed and entertain. A great YA read that would probably do well as a made for TV Adaptation.

A well-developed story that would be perfect as a movie or TV show (one that I would completely watch). Great characters, an interesting plot and action packed. Sometimes I felt the paced was a little fast and over-the-top, but if you keep up with it it’s worth the ride. I would definitely recommend this book if you like sci-fi and horror.

I want to thank NetGalley, the author and publisher for the e-ARC of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are honest, my own and left voluntarily.

Where has this sci-fi been all my life?!

This book is a nod to the greats. It’s like Michael Crichton, H.G. Wells, and Arthur C Clarke had a baby and named him Charles Wachter!

The world building in this is superbly done. You feel fully emerged in the otherworldly nature one would expect in a great sci-fi read. This would make an absolutely breathtaking game that any true gamer would go nuts over the plot and all the turns it takes.

This book while over the top and quite over some gives an ending that brings you around to creature feature like the later Alien movies have done.

Thank you Netgalley and Trevaney Bay for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4⭐️

This is a good book. I really enjoyed it and how it moved along at a great pace. The characters are well developed and the story is packed with action and adventure. The authors do a great job delivering a story with a solid plot and interesting subplots. Will look forward to the next book in the series to continue to follow the characters. Left the reader with somewhat of a cliffhanger, so hope it won't be too long for the next one!!

This was an interesting sci-fi that had time travel, which I love, and clones, which I don't love so much...So I wasn't sure how I was going to end up liking this one. It was, however, quite entertaining!

I liked the historical people that are pulled into the story, and I enjoyed the problems everyone had to deal with. There were parts that I felt slowed the story down some, but overall, this was really fun!

I found this to be a great concept with a few flaws in the execution. While the writing style at first was basic enough not to get in the way of the story, eventually I was looking for a little more from it. Also, some of the characters -- Isaac comes to mind -- had motivations that never seemed to change with the situation. I don't mind fantastical situations, but I do want characters to react to the in realistic fashion.

The Twin Paradox by Charles Wachter is a highly recommended, wildly entertaining YA techno science fiction tale that will make a gripping, engrossing movie.

Alastair, Leo, Milk, Kat, and Zack are high school students in an honors program when their whole class is told they will be graduating a year earlier. At their private graduation they learn that they aren't who they thought they were. They are all clones from the DNA of famous scientists and leaders, including in part Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Martin Luther King, Jr., Catherine the Great, and Isaac Newton. Their next year is to be spent as interns in research for the Gene-E Corporation. Seven members of their class will be headed to North Dakota, while Alastair, Leo, Milk, Kat, and Zack will be sent down to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Their first day of orientation in Texas, which is covered in entirety in the novel, is a time-bending, mind-numbing, action-packed adventure of unthinkable on-the-job training. The group along with a government representative is shown an example of what can be done by Gene-E founder, Ralls, and an older Isaac Newton clone who is considered the genius behind parts of the project. The teens are to be a part of the Cornerstone Project, where a large, powerful particle accelerator is used to control energy, mass, light and time. The eco-system and evolution in the area is manipulated by the particle accelerator.

Divided into six sections, The Twin Paradox reads like a movie and that is exactly what it should be. While reading I kept thinking of Malcolm's quote in Jurassic Park, "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." Which is a great intro to use for all sorts of unexpected events and heart-stopping struggles. The world building and the action are perfect for a series of action movie or a TV series. The plot zooms along at a break-neck pace, which I found thoroughly enjoyable.

Admittedly, the characters are light in development and you have to suspend disbelief, but that wasn't a detraction for me to enjoy the novel. I liked the teens; they are presented as enjoyable characters. There are so many twists and turns as the plot unfolds that I was totally engrossed in the story. The world building and plot make up for any deficits in writing and depth. What The Twin Paradox excels at is sheer adrenaline-packed action and an entertaining plot set in cinematic scenes.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Trevaney Bay.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, and submitted to Amazon.

Wow, what a wild, fast-paced, action packed thrill ride. Yes, I realize that sentence is filled with buzz words that typically go with a summer blockbuster, and quite honestly that is how this book reads. From the very start of the book, an old man robbing graves, collecting body parts of famous/important figures in history, the story grabbed hold and didn't let go.

That is the question asked: “Do we get to choose who we are?” in this science fiction novel. Alastair and his fellow twelfth-grade Honors classmates graduate a year early so they can work summer internships with Gene-E. The kids learn their parents are not their real parents at all, and their work will be in an area, where times travels in ten years. Alastair finds out he is the clone of Albert Einstein. His closest friends are clones of Leonardo da Vinci, Catherine the Great, Martin Luthor King, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, and Sakichi Toyoda. What started as a Cold War secret grew into a corporate to resurrect the DNA of the greatest thinkers from history. Five of them (one of them, Alastair) are sent to the Texas installation, while the other seven to North Dakota. Cornerstone, in Texas, is an area where time is leaped forward in ten years’ time, and things living in there can be dangerous. For thanks to another, earlier Isaac Newton clone, when ten years began passing every three minutes on the Texas coast, people died in the most vicious ecosystem ever made.

The Twin Paradox is written by an Emmy-winning television writer and is slated to be a motion picture coming soon. One can see this as a movie, it feels like that format. Sadly, for me, it has too much going on and gets confusing. I think some of the action needed to be cut away. It had the potential to be good if the author had written it less confusing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Trevaney Bay for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

//TW: death, torture, violence//

All quotes are taken from The Twin Paradox by Charles Wachter.

All spoilers are marked with *SPOILER*.

~Quick Statistics~
Overall: 5/5 Stars
Plot: 5/5 Stars
Setting: 5/5 Stars
Characters: 5/5 Stars
Writing: 5/5 Stars
Memorability: 5/5 Stars

“Albert Einstein, the second one, wasn't born yesterday. This was all bullshit.”

~Quick Review~
A timeless tale and a future classic, The Twin Paradox is an original and fascinating story that will stand the test of time. The Twin Paradox is full of adventure, science, theories, friendship, danger, and survival. Reminiscent of Jurassic Park, I could not stop reading this fantastically unique and vibrant novel.

“We are not built for this time period. This is a disaster. We should not exist. We died. Our DNA is outside its time period.”

~Other Information~
Publisher: Trevaney Bay
Page Count: 384 pages
Release Date: August 23, 2020

The Twin Paradox is the first novel in the Twin Paradox series. The sequel, Divine Paradox, is set to be published on January 31, 2022.

~Book Description (via Goodreads)~
With ten years passing for every three minutes on a remote stretch of Texas coast, planes fall out of the sky, evolved species are on the hunt, and people die inside one of the most vicious ecosystems ever grown—all a result of the government’s efforts to slow down time.

A lot can happen in ten years. That’s the point. Governments are always racing for supremacy, for scientific breakthroughs, for technological advantages—and these things take time.

Until something goes wrong.

With the grounded yet massive world building of READY PLAYER ONE, thrilling scientific questions of JURASSIC PARK, and the time-bending teen drama of BEFORE I FALL, Wachter’s THE TWIN PARADOX is a brilliantly plotted tale that is both intimate and massive, relentless yet deliberate, and explores the themes of self-acceptance, self- confidence, and natural selection in a richly hued and unforgettable world. Ultimately the eternal question of Nature versus Nurture is boiled down into this fast-paced thriller told over the course of five days and culminates in one single question:

Do we get to choose who we are?

~Characters~
The Twin Paradox has a large cast of characters: Alastair, Leo, Milk, Katherine, Zack, Isaac, Jimmy, Paul, and Ralls. Alastair, Leo, and Milk have been friends since they met at their school for super smart kids. Turns out, that school I mentioned? Well, it’s for super smart kids who are biological copies of history’s greatest individuals. Alastair is a copy of Albert Einstein, Leo of Leonardo Da Vinci, Milk of Martin Luther King Jr, and Zack and Isaac both of Isaac Newton. Jimmy is an ex diver for an oil rig, Paul is someone from the Pentagon, and Ralls is the manager of Cornerstone, a top secret project that practically consumes anyone it involves.

In terms of Alastair, Leo, Milk, Kat, Zack, and Isaac, it is very interesting to analyze their characters. On one hand, they are normal kids and act like it. On the other hand they are very similar to the historical figures that they are replicas of. The Twin Paradox begs the question: are we born the way we are or do we evolve into ourselves? It handles this question beautifully and shows that our environment truly does have an effect on us. *SPOILER* When Alastair discovers that he was the control in the experiment, and not truly a biological copy of Einstein, he is still himself. He is still an intelligent and stubborn kid.*

Milk, the intelligent, beautiful, and humane character that she is, was by far my favorite. Throughout the novel she is constantly calling Ralls out for his inhumane and possibly illegal experiments. Raising a class of kids as an experiment? Probably not the best thing to do. Running an experiment that accelerates time in an enclosed area, allowing that area to be evolved far past everywhere else? Most definitely not a good thing to do. Speaking of Ralls, I absolutely hated him (which I was probably supposed to, anyways). He was constantly concerned only about himself, and didn’t at all care how his actions affected everyone around him. I hated him so much!

“There is nothing special about us. There are no rules that keep us alive. Everyone dies. But because we are the center of our own story, we feel special, like we will buck the odds, but we’re not and won’t.”

~Writing and Setting~
The Twin Paradox, though written a little too sciency for my taste, was super visual and creative. I felt transported into the story, which was slightly terrifying, but I couldn’t stop picturing myself in the scenes.

A large part of the novel takes place in Cornerstone, a large circular jungle that is enclosed by Texas and the sea. Inside Cornerstone, ten years pass for every three minutes on the outside. After running the cycle at 3 pm for 8 months, millions of years have passed and millions of years of evolution have taken place. The once familiar ecosystem morphed into a dangerous, unfamiliar, and undiscovered biosphere. Navigating Cornerstone is a challenge that the characters must endure. And when it comes crashing down around its manager, Ralls, it becomes even more perilous to be inside Cornerstone.

“It’s called the Twin Paradox. If one twin left earth on a spaceship at the speed of light, time would pass slower for him, dilating to accommodate the speed, and then eventually, when he returned, his brother would be much older, or dead. Here, this is backward. Time passes faster.”

~Plot~
So much goes on in this novel, it’s hard to keep track. The novel was fairly fast-paced; I think the frequent changes in point of view allowed for that. Alastair and his friends are sent to Cornerstone by Ralls, unaware of what truly lies there. Once Jimmy’s workplace (an oil rig) sinks, and he sees some of the creatures from Cornerstone, Paul, from the Pentagon, is enlisted to hire Jimmy and his father to work at Cornerstone. However, despite the apparent smooth sailing the kids endure, *SPOILER* in secret, other countries are racing to keep up with the American’s and Cornerstone. This conflict causes the kids to become trapped in Cornerstone with the cannibalistic ‘humans’ that live in Cornerstone, not to mention the other creatures.*

“I am now alone in an infinite hell of your creation. You are the great Satan. I come to haunt your soul.”

~Overall Review~
I love this novel so much; it has the perfect mix of adventure, science, horror, friendship, and discovery. Personally, I cannot wait for its sequel, Divine Paradox. I need to know more about this world that Charles Wachter has created and brought to life, for it is so creative, unique, and sprightly that I feel so connected to its characters.

“The past is a terrible prediction for the future when it comes to complexity.”

The Twin Paradox is a wild ride! I loved the concept of using DNA from past geniuses like Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton to create current day ‘twins’! These twins were cloned as part of a secret government project to figure out how to slow down time and get ahead of the rest of the world.

Super unique concept and very action-packed. The only downfall for me was that I thought the author went into hyperdrive at moments and tried to do a little too much causing some parts to be a bit too far out there. However, it was definitely intriguing and I will be curious to see how he continues this concept in the sequel - The Divine Paradox.

Thanks to #NetGalley, Charles Watcher, and Trevaney Bay Publishing for the ARC of #TheTwinParadox in exchange for an honest review.

There comes a point in some works of science fiction when you’re better off not trying to understand the physics behind a particular concept, and just run with whatever point the author is making. It’s enough to know that they know what’s going on. It’s at this juncture that we decide to sit back and be entertained. In Jurassic Park, we were there for the dinosaurs; not so much for the science behind their creation or whether or not it is ethical to recreate them for the modern audience, as interesting as these debates undoubtedly are.

The Twin Paradox by Emmy Award-winning TV executive producer Charles Wachter is a pretty good example of what I’m talking about. At its heart, it’s a hugely entertaining book set in the very near future where brilliant minds from the past live among us in the form of clones. By snatching body parts from such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Leonarda da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King, and Catherine the Great, scientific minds from the United States have been able to use this DNA to create cloned copies. These children are nutrured and schooled by Gen-E Corp, run by the billioniare and slightly megalomaniciacal Teigen Ralls (a villain James Bond would be proud to know). They are clueless to their origins until the day they are put on a plane that’s taking them to a location on the coast of Texas. Alastair is Einstein, Milk is MLK, Kat is Catherine the Great, Zach is one of two Newtons in the book, Leo is, obviously, the Italian da Vinci. Together they are brought to Cornerstone, where they must solve the greatest problems humanity has ever faced.

Wikipedia describes: In physics, the twin paradox is a thought experiment in special relativity involving identical twins, one of whom makes a journey into space in a high-speed rocket and returns home to find that the twin who remained on Earth has aged more. You can follow the link and go down the rabbit hole as deep as you wish. All you need to know for the story at hand is that the children are taken to an ecosytem that exists in a time and space continuum of its own. For every three minutes that passes in our world, ten years passes inside Cornerstone. Therefore, millennia can pass in mere days and weeks. Living within this system are creatures not meant for this world, including a race of humanoid cannibals, related through time to a group of immigrants who were crossing the US-Mexico border at a time when the system was created.

The clones are given free rein to research for themselves and Gen-E, but the world is in grave danger. The Russians and Chinese are conducting their own experiments within the ecosystem, and when Isaac Prime betrays the new kids on the block, it becomes a race against time to learn the truth behind Cornerstone and escape the jaws and claws of monsters and men. The scope is breath-taking and the chapters fly by, as long as you don’t think too hard on the physics. I’m sure it all makes sense, but I like my brain where it is, not coming out of my ears.

The Twin Paradox is the first in a projected series, with a sequel, The Divine Paradox, due for publication early next year. I will certainly read it, for I found this book fun and engaging. I was happy to review it for the publishers, author, and NetGalley.

Possible spoiler involved here. Please check with the author as to its isolated import before displaying this review.

Spoiler sentence: "As i finished approximately about one third of the book, I came to the ending paragraph in that chapter and among a list of other nefarious individuals from the past was the name Adolph Hitler."

This will be short and "not so sweet" as I read only about the first third of the novel.. I am an aficionado of good, well researched, "hard" science fiction. Finding a balance among good plotlines, adequate character development, and the hard science nuts and bolts is no easy task. This tome starts out with a fascinating premise with a bit much, yet understandable level of background melodrama and continues to follow-through well on establishing and making the hard science understandable. As i finished approximately about one third of the book, I came to the ending paragraph in that chapter and among a list of other nefarious individuals from the past was the name Adolph Hitler. At that point, my "suspension of disbelief" was not broken but shattered beyond repair. I closed the book with deep regrets as to the promising initial premise and chose not to journey farter to see how this all becomes resolved. At that juncture, this became one of those "just not for me" books.

I love a great sci-fi book that has some technologies that seem plausible but this book was not one of them.
Ideas were a little too far fetched for my taste and I’m also not a big fan of fantasy.
But credit to the author for creative thinking and if your into fantasy, this msg be enjoyable to you.

The book is an interesting mix of science fiction, adventure and thriller.
It’s written in a very visual way, sometimes I felt like I was watching a movie rather than reading a book. It's a fast paced book ; things are always happening. However, the characters have not fully captured me.
That being said, the book has had me hooked from its intriguing beginning and I look forward to reading the sequel.