One of our favorite sci-fi genre’s is about time traveling.  In pop culture entertainment, we have a fetish for the “past”, like what if we could travel to the 1950s era or Roman times and so on, and then have the ability to change the future?  I remember having a dandy of a time reading Timeline (1999) by Michael Crichton.  A footnote, please do not watch the lame movie adaptation of Timeline (2003), but do read the book instead.  In the vein of Timeline and Jurassic Park, Daniel Godfrey’s New Pompeii is this and more.

The protagonist Dr. Nick Houghton has been stuck in limbo as a part-time college intern and researcher, due to his dad’s outspoken negative comments against one the world’s biggest energy company Novus Particles.  NovusPart has created technology to grab matter from the past and bring it into the future.  For instance, the company saved the ancient Roman town of Pompeii which was destroyed by volcanic eruption.  NovusPart was able to build a replica town called New Pompeii and saved many of the townspeople.  With this incredible technology, history buff and researcher Dr. Nick Houghton is offered a job to see New Pompeii.  He’s excited to see what real Roman’s are like and to learn how they interact at pubs, bath houses and in the homes. But as he steps into New Pompeii, he notices some discrepancies in the town and among the people.  He wonders what happened to his predecessor Dr. Samson?  And why are many buildings empty, when many of the poor townspeople have nothing?  Nick begins to wonder if there is deeper conspiracy by NovusPart.  It’s up to Nick, Roman leader Barbatus and his daughter Calpurnia to stop NovusPart from changing history and the timeline.

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