Review: The Bureau of Time

The Bureau of Time by Brett Michael Orr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is how you can tell a young male millennial YA writer a la Taran Matharu - he's got a story jam-packed with elements borrowed from just about every other story you can think of, but thrown together in a way that still feels fresh and hyper-awesome.

Brett Michael Orr and his Bureau of Time are no exception.

First and foremost on my list of "Hey, This Sounds Like X!" comparison titles, Bureau of Time edition: Fringe. This book exists in a world of weird science words suspended in colorful gel screens, all set to the tune of an ominous piano-driven JJ Abrams theme song.



And, of course, there's more than one of everything in this book too.



Then we get a little bit of Divergent in our heroes. Here we have a girl who starts out going into a paramilitary environment more than a bit over her head, and is forced to toughen up extra fast. We also have a guy who's already quite capable of kicking major ass, and with all his scars, he looks every bit as dangerous as he is.

And let's not forget today's biggest fictional defier of the space-time continuum...the Flash. Especially with the creepy-ass villain, Zero, who feels so much like Zoom by way of Ultron. Not only that, but this book very easily compares to The Flash's famous fifteenth episode in terms of ultra-high Holy Shit Quotient.



No, seriously. The way that last scene of "Out of Time" had me screaming at the screen was the way I reacted to the final two or three chapters of this book.







And not just because a lot of the climax was set in San Francisco, but also because of the way my ship was being shelled with extreme prejudice. I love these poor characters so much, and Brett Michael Orr is not only subjecting them to a Matharu-level cliffhanger, but also to Riordan-level "This guy is not to be trusted with the lives his super-cool characters."

It's a shame there's no physical copy of this book yet. It deserves to share bookstore shelf space with the best of them. Seriously. I really hope that changes by the time Book 2 comes out.

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