TIME CHASERS

Teen interns chase a pair of fugitives—and each other—up and down the timestream.

Following on previous encounters with aliens and cryptids, in this third series outing, Viv, Ray, Charlotte, and Elijah discover that Area 51 includes time travel too. And so, in a tale that features encounters with their past and future selves as well as several historical figures, narrow escapes galore, and regular puking, they pile into a TARDIS-like machine to hare after Viv’s errant parents. Sacrificing elegance for speed (“She floated along in a hapless path,” “They collided into each other,” and “Viv squirmed in her skin”), the authors send their bumbling quartet from a prehistoric extinction event to a far-future one for a climactic battle with bad guys while the swelling sun “plunges the Earth into an uninhabitable chunk of rock.” They then rewind it all for a happy reunion. All this wraps up just in time for a new crisis to set the stage for a lead-in to the next world-saving exploit. Meanwhile, scenes in which the kids help out Einstein, the Wright brothers, Beethoven, and Leonardo da Vinci make fun set pieces, as do Spaziante’s full-color files on the time travelers’ futuristic iPhone 42s and other high-tech gear that appear at the end.

High-speed hijinks, albeit in low-rent prose.