Summary (from Goodreads):
You ever open your locker and find that some joker has left something really weird inside?
Seventh-grader Dorso Clayman opens his locker door to find a dead body.
Thirty seconds later it disappears.
It’s not the first bizarre thing that has appeared in his locker and then vanished.
Something’s going on.
Somebody has decided to make Dorso and his buddy Frank the target of some strange techno-practical jokes. The ultimate gamesters have hacked into the time line, and things from the past are appearing in the present. Soon, the jokes aren’t funny anymore—they’re dangerous. Dorso and Frank have got to beat the time hackers at their own game by breaking the code, before they get lost in the past themselves.
My Review:
This was the first Paulsen book I've ever read, and overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with the ending. The story had a good amount of suspense and intrigue, but the resolution was a bit flat and unsatisfying overall. The story could be a good jumping-off point to learn more about the infancy of cybersecurity (the book was published in 2005, so it's quite out of date in some ways), and it would be entertaining for those readers who like time paradox stories. The book is not hard science-fiction, so there are a lot of relatable aspects that readers will be able to envision without much difficulty, and the story may be a good entrance into science-fiction for readers who have not explored the genre.
Read: March 2022
