The Navigator Bk. 1
by Eoin McNamee

    THE NAVIGATOR by Eoin McNamee
    Category:  Fantasy
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 6+
    Release Date:  4/22/08
    Publisher:  Yearling
    Reviewed by:  Candace Cunard
    Rating:  5 Stars


    Owen is ostracized by the other children around him for his father’s death long ago, a presumed suicide that resulted
    in his mother being thrown into a haze of depression from which she cannot escape.  By his young teens, he’s quietly
    self-reliant, managing the house on his own and taking care of his mother who is forgetful and not always lucid.  He
    spends his time wandering around the terrain outside of his house, by a river and an abandoned old building that was
    once a workhouse.  
          
    One day, Owen meets a strange man near the river right before witnessing a strange flash of darkness.  The man,
    who introduces himself as the Sub-Commandant, explains to Owen that the mysterious flash signifies that a group of
    creatures known as the Harsh have succeeded in turning back time to before human habitation, so that they can live
    alone in solitude and turn the Earth to a barren, ice-encrusted waste.  Owen does not believe the Sub-Commandant
    at first, but when he runs away to find his home, he is faced with nothing but ruins.
           
    The Sub-Commandant brings Owen back to the Workhouse, which Owen learns is situated on an “island in time”
    that the Harsh cannot touch, and home to the Resisters, a rag-tag fighting force whose purpose it is to defeat the
    Harsh and prevent them from tampering with Earth’s timeflow.  Owen quickly becomes swept up in the affairs of the
    Resisters, who do not understand why he did not disappear along with all of the other people and signs of human life
    in the world.  Some even suspect that he is a Harsh spy, and mistrust him.  Along the way he meets with several
    compelling characters, including Cati, the Sub-Commandant’s daughter, and Dr. Diamond, an expert in the science
    of time.  While with the Resisters, Owen learns things about time that he can barely believe, and begins to delve into
    the secrets of his past and his father’s connection to the strange object known as the Mortmain that will allow the
    Resisters to defeat the Harsh once and for all.
           
    The concept for this book was quite inventive, and I enjoyed the author’s concept of a world in which time itself is in
    danger from antagonistic forces.  The action moved along at a good pace, and although some of the scenarios were
    initially confusing, the reader learns more about the situation as Owen does, and things start to fall into place, leading
    up to a conclusion that closes up enough loose ends to be satisfying but leaves enough new possibilities open to be
    interesting.