I’m honestly not sure what I think about N.D. Wilson’s newest book, the beginning of a series called Outlaws of Time. The story is really dark and violent, and as with some of Wilson’s other books it moves too fast for me with too many layers of meaning. I feel as if I’m missing something when I read Wilson’s fantasy, in particular. Actually, I feel dumb. On the other hand, I loved Boys of Blur and Leepike Ridge, especially, and this one has some of the elements that I liked from those: a very American setting, brave kids, adventure, lots of good writing with good metaphors and similes. I just feel as if I have whiplash from trying to follow all the symbolism and hidden meanings and the time travel.

For example, Sam Miracle (his real name) begins the story as a resident (inmate?) of Saint Anthony of the Desert Destitute Youth Ranch, SADDYR. And it’s a sad place, governed by your typical fictional orphanage parents, Mr. and Mrs. Spalding. There are twelve boys at SADDYR, including Sam, and the others are Pete, Drew, Jude, Barto, brothers Jimmy Z and Johnny Z, Flip the Lip, Matt Cat and Sir T(homas), Tiago Lopez, and Simon Zeal. They’re all juvenile delinquents, but they have the names of the twelve apostles in the Bible, minus Judas Iscariot. Yes, I noticed that little naming trick immediately, and it’s kind of cool. But why? Why do Sam’s friends and cohorts have the same names as Jesus’ twelve disciples? What does it mean? Sam isn’t Jesus or a Christ figure, or is he? The priest, Father Tiempo, that Sam meets in the desert is kind of a Christ figure who gives up his life/lives to save Sam and the rest of the world through Sam, but then the priest turns out to be someone else, not Jesus at all. Sam is the one sent to save the world from the evil Vulture, El Buitre, but he’s a violent and at the same time, vulnerable, savior, sent to use his deadly snake arms to kill The Vulture. Even though he’s mangled and wounded by the bad guys in the story, and handicapped by his unreliable memory and his lack of confidence in his own abilities, Sam is a survivor, redeemed and resurrected multiple times. I suppose I’m trying to make the story too simplistic, the characters too allegorical. But allegory is implied in the names and actions of the characters. (I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’s professed hatred of allegory in all its forms while at least parts of his Narnia stories are clearly allegorical in nature.)

Then there’s the time travel, enough time travel to make Hurley’s head hurt a lot (LOST reference, there). This book reminded me of LOST–way too much to figure out, and maybe half of it doesn’t mean anything, just the author playing around. Sam and his friend Glory travel though time, around time, behind time, on the edges of time, and through the cracks between times. I’m a straight-forward, A-Z kind of gal, and although I can handle one time jump, or maybe two, the ramifications of all the time travel in this book make me feel as if I’ve lost my grip on reality. Sam Miracle certainly loses his mind and memory and his sense of what’s real and what’s a dream quite often throughout the course of the story. And since Sam is the main viewpoint character, so did I.

PC critics are going to hate all the guns and all the bullets flying. Even though one of Sam’s snake arms, Speck, is a little bit goofy and doesn’t want to hurt anyone, the other one, Cindy, is “a killer, a nightmare.” Speck shoots the weapons out of the bad guys’ hands, but Cindy shoots to kill. Again, I’m tempted to draw allegorical parallels or symbolical confusion from the contrast between Sam’s left arm, vicious sidewinder Cindy, and his right arm, distractible pet snake Speck, but I will refrain.

Do I think kids will like Outlaws of Time: The Legend of Sam Miracle? Yes, I think so, but I’m not sure what exactly they will get out of it. Maybe that’s good. Maybe that makes me a little uneasy as a parent who’s tempted to give them a neat little book in which I know the “moral of the story”. Maybe one moral of this particular story is that life isn’t neat or predictable, and neither should the stories that we share with each other and with our children be unsurprising and tidily understood. Or maybe, like the authors of LOST, Mr. Wilson is just playing around, having fun with the names and the nicknames and the numbers and the times and the snakes and the guns and all the things that make me want to read the next book in the series.

However, I would warn the author that playing with guns can be quite dangerous.

“You know,” Glory said, watching. “There’s a difference between real life and books. Don’t act like they’re the same.”

“Sure,” Sam said. “Getting life right is a lot harder.”