Official Review: The Theta Timeline by Chris Dietzel

[Schmidtra92]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Theta Timeline" by Chris Dietzel.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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“The Theta Timeline” by Chris Dietzel is an excellent fiction novel about an ordinary man who thinks he can make extraordinary changes to the world around him. I give it 4 out of 4 stars. The main character, Springfield, lives in the very distant future where everything and everyone is monitored very closely by the government, to the point that the country is ruled by a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. This government, known as the Tyranny, starts wars on a whim, invades citizens’ privacy to identify supposed threats, and above all, kills anyone who is suspected of being or associating with a group called the Thinkers.

In Springfield’s society, everyone is taught to just believe what the Tyranny tells them. The Tyranny stopped funding education so that future citizens would not be smart enough to detect the government’s lies. These people just kept their heads down and followed all of the Tyranny’s laws. But the people who had parents who were killed by the government, or were taken to a secret prison and never heard from again, usually grew up to join the Thinkers, a group of people who remembered the principles that their country was founded on and believed that they had strayed very far from those principles.

The Thinkers developed a way to go back in time, with the hope of changing the way their country turned out. It was very dangerous, with a very low survival rate, but they began sending groups of Thinkers back in time anyway. Springfield is one such Thinker. He is sent into the past with no way to return, and begins his mission to change the future. After a while he begins to wonder if anything he does will be big enough to make a difference in the world, and in the end realizes that he cannot give up whether it will change anything or not, because he wants to make a better life for his parents and his girlfriend.

The story is told in a very interesting way, with chapters about life under the rule of the Tyranny interspersed between chapters of what Springfield is doing in the past. It greatly resembles the novel “1984,” except that the characters try to take action instead of just accepting the way that things are. It was a little scary because you could really see how the country got from our current society to a society where freedom has been taken away without anybody even realizing it. However, it really makes you think and raises some good points about why it is important to understand history and not repeat the mistakes that have already been made, and about why it is important to stand up for what you believe in, because if you don’t, maybe nobody will.

What I loved most about the book, aside from the plot, was the formatting. It really holds the reader's interest by jumping around between descriptions of the awful laws passed by the Tyranny and Springfield's adventures. What I could have done without was the very vivid descriptions. There is a lot of violence in this book, which makes sense, considering it is about a dictatorship, but I didn't like how graphic all of the descriptions were. It helped get the point across about how horrible the Tyranny was, but it got to the point that it was a little unnecessary. But overall this was an excellent book and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes history, politics, or dystopian fiction.

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The Theta Timeline
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Like Schmidtra92's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Dietzel]

Thanks for the great review. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.

[bookowlie]

Great, insightful review! The plot sounds very absorbing. Since I loved "1984", I may have to add this book to my crazy long reading list.

[Cee-Jay Aurinko]

Dystopian novels are slowly becoming my favorite. The first dystopian novel I read was yes, 1984. This one like it's got a bit of Terminator thrown into the mix as well. Sounds fun.
I enjoyed your review. Thankx.