Dean Wesley Smith, writer of Star Trek and some Marvel Comics characters such as Spiderman and a few others, has written a series of books under the title Thunder Mountain, a time travelling duo who contact bright, educated historians and others and tell them a secret – a crystal cave that if properly manipulated will take you to one of possibly billions of alternate realities on the timestream.

The Thunder Mountain book series by Dean Wesley Smith includes books Thunder Mountain, Monumental Summit, Grapevine Springs: A Thunder Mountain Novel, and several more. See the complete Thunder Mountain series book list in order, box sets or omnibus editions, and companion titles.

Story & Plot:

These time travelling pair are named Duster and Bonnie, two mathematicians who stumbled onto this cave and built a machine to travel and have adventures in other times and places. Interesting that not a lot of explanation goes into this, not a lot of background either. Interesting tidbits are thrown out by the author to keep me interested but nothing of real substance.

The pair could live an entire lifetime in another century but return to present time with only two minutes having passed since they disappeared from the cave. Not only that, but if you die you immediately return to present time, alive and well as you were when you left. They claim they’ve been living many lifetimes, thousands of years’ worth.

So, they take two folks, historians, Dawn Edwards, a woman who has no love life, lives on campus basically and is deeply interested in the histories of the Old West, especially in the Idaho area. We follow her along as she wonders what life was like for that time period.

The other, Madison, we don’t get as much characterization for, and when they meet the “romance” is too pat. And same phrases are repeated repeatedly to a point of being annoying.

“Best looking woman on the planet,” he thinks. “Best looking man she’s ever seen,” she thinks. It goes on like this for a few pages. Sigh.

The other interesting aspect is these two, once they go to the past, interact with the locals only sparingly, which is too bad. The novel could have been more interesting and more conflicting with this aspect.

People die in this novel, but not to worry. They’re back in present time alive and well. OK then.

Final Thoughts:

Bugged me some the simplistic writing and slapped together plot, the simple and repetitive words and phrasing when some ten-dollar word Merriam Webster would have proudly added is missing.

And the Kindle version has some spelling and grammar errors that any good editor should have caught.

Regardless, the concept of two time travelling mathematicians interacting with historians to give them a tour of some past historic time to help them write accurate papers of the time they’re exploring. At least that seems their purpose.

The other Thunder Mountain books are standalone novels with I’m assuming Duster and Bonnie and whatever else they’re planning with other historians. Four novels in the series. Next up: Monumental Summit.
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