The Time Hunter series focuses on two characters, Honoré Lechasseur and Emily Blandish, and their adventures through time. Both characters have unique time travel related abilities. Honoré can sense multiple variant time lines, stretching before him like worm trails. Emily can travel through time. When the two touch and think about the same place, they’re taken and stuck there, until they find a way back.
Tunnel at the End of the Light is a case study in a functioning time travel paradox. The main characters, in order to prevent a ghastly set of events from happening, travel to stop the person that introduced them to the events. In the book’s short space, we are given monsters, mystery and some magic to chew on while the characters go about and try to put the pieces together.
The book kicks off with a bang, literally, as a German V2 rocket is accidently discharged near an unused subway station in London’s Piccadilly Lane. The resulting explosion opens a subterranean complex that houses small, apelike creatures. After a few raids, the papers start calling them Subterraneans or Troglodytes.
Honoré and Emily become involved after they are approached by reclusive poet, Randolph Crest. Crest believes himself to be a target of the creatures and hopes that the time traveling spivs can lend a hand to extricate himself from the Subterraneans plots. The two are oddly struck by Crest’s subhuman appearance, but mark it up to a reclusive lifestyle and hideous parentage.
The two start following minor leads, candy bar wrappers and reported sightings of the creatures. This trail leads Honoré to discover that these creatures have started to kill instead of raiding the sugary treats that they had been. The trail leads Honor and Emily to uncover an occult or mystic connection with two victims (one happened to be assaulted while the pair were present in his home), and other one is taken to be sacrificed. Both Honor and Emily attend a poetry reading of Crest’s and believe that he is connected with the killings, as he enters a trance while finishing his reading.
After an encounter trying to keep the kidnaped victim safe, the pair managed to capture one of te creatures. By using his ability to sense people’s lifelines as well as time lines, Honoré learns that the sacrifice is to happen in the subterranean lair of the creatures. Following the creature to its lair, the duo discover that an old foe of theirs is behind setting these creatures to complete the ritual. The ritual takes the creatures’ hive-mind intellect and places it in a stony replica of their missing king.
The new king goes on a citywide rampage and tries to kill the old king, Crest. Honoré and Emily touch a helpless Crest to discover when he had made his way to the above world society. The two then travel and stop him from that course of action, and sealing the way for the Subterraneans in the future once the V2 rocket is detonated (again).
This novella is surprisingly mind twisting for being a scant few pages. Overall, the characters were fun to read, though a bit flat and underdeveloped (which leaves room for other authors in the series). The action was good, and the descriptions fair. The Tunnel at the End of the Light is a nice book to read for those into pulp-styled or time travel-orientated adventures.
