The Flight of the Silvers by Daniel Price

Published by Blue Rider Press on February 4, 2014

The Flight of the Silvers is the sort of offbeat science fiction that Robert Jackson Bennett or Tom Holt might write. Both of those writers, like Daniel Price, have used the multiverse theory as a basis for letting their imaginations soar. The Flight of the Silvers is perhaps a bit more conventional, the story more like a comic book without the graphic art, but its strong characters and swift pace make it a riveting read.

The Givens sisters are saved from a traffic disaster by three strangers who place them inside a bubble of slowed time, letting them walk away before the disaster engulfs them. When we pick up their lives seventeen years later, the world experiences a ten minute loss of power (electricity, batteries, magnets, and jet engines all stop working). Hannah Givens doesn't make the connection to the events of her childhood until one of the strangers appears with a silver bracelet that protects her from a falling sky. Hannah soon finds herself in a San Diego that isn't quite like the one she left behind (flying cars are an early clue that things have changed). There she encounters a cartoonist named Zack Trillinger who is wearing a similar bracelet and who has had a similar world-ending experience.

Hannah and Zack are collected by temporal physicists and taken to a building where they meet other bracelet-wearing "Silvers": Mia Farisi, fourteen and chubby; a brainy teenage Australian named David Dormer; a Filipino named Theo Maranan who has dedicated his young life to wasting his potential; and Hannah's sister Amanda. They are on a version of Earth in a different part of the multiverse that, until 1912, shared a history identical to our own. An event occurred in 1912 that eventually helped scientists learn how to mess around with time. The Silvers have been chosen (although why or by whom is not immediately clear) to live in this time-bending version of Earth because they possess certain innate abilities -- temporal superpowers of various sorts -- that are revealed as the story progresses. Theo, we hear repeatedly, is destined to have the greatest power, assuming he survives in the timeline we are following.

There are other differences between our familiar Earth and the parallel Earth that are meant (and well-taken) as cautionary statements. The parallel America has walled itself in to keep foreigners out, creating a homogenized, stagnated, and downright boring culture. That makes for an interesting setting even if it isn't what the novel is about. Perhaps this would have been a novel with greater depth if those themes had been fully explored, but that would also have added unwieldy length to the story.

At nearly 600 pages, The Flight of the Silvers might be longer than it needs to be -- and the story isn't close to being over when the novel ends -- but it never feels padded. Action and character development are well balanced. A few parts of the story are a little schmaltzy, but only a few. Most of the story involves a quest -- the Silvers are trying to reach someone named Peter Pendergen while being pursued or assisted by temporal security forces (the Deps), other empowered individuals (the Gothams), Evan Rander (who has been living the same five years over and over), and the Pelletiers (who seem to be responsible for moving the Silvers between multiverses) -- and the difference between friend and foe is often unclear, both to the Silvers and to the reader. All the action and intrigue doesn't leave much opportunity to worry about time paradoxes and all the other uncertainties that would arise if a reader gave the plot too much thought. That's probably a good thing. The action and the strong characters kept me engrossed in the novel, logic be damned.

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