The Caves That Time Forgot by Gilbert L. Morris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Seven Sleepers, seven ordinary kids in an extraordinary post-apocalyptic world, find themselves sent by the mysterious but good Goel to the island of Mordor, a place no one wants to talk about, and fear few to tread. However, the Seven Sleepers are needed to fight the Dark Lord on the island, because an entire race of people are on the brink of destruction unless they can stop it.
Book four, The Caves That Time Forgot in The Seven Sleepers series picks up right where book three, The Sword of Camelot left off, sending the Sleepers into another adventure where they must fight the forces of evil in Nuworld. This entry in the series was more interesting than book three, but not as earth-shattering as books one and two. Dave is the lead character in this book, and while he has a “development” of sorts, by the end he seems somewhat the same as he was in previous books.
There are dinosaurs and interesting plot developments here which will definitely be fun, if not reminiscent of other dinosaur fiction, such as Laura Martin’s The Ark Plan Series or Madeleine L’Engle’s Many Waters, with a touch of Don Richardson’s Peace Child. However, a few other plot elements are seen a million miles away, and are fairly guessable. What is missing here is further development of the overall universe the sleepers now inhabit. We gain no further insight into the Dark Lord or Goel, although the allegories are fairly clear at this point.
The other interesting plot development to note is the discussion of courtship throughout the book. The characters seem somewhat young to be talking about courtship in view of marriage. If the conversations are stayed to dating that might have made more sense, but the courtship conversations for fourteen and fifteen year olds came across somewhat creepy.
While The Caves That Time Forgot certainly held my interest more than the previous book, it still fails to hold up to the stellar introduction this series had with book one. Here’s hoping the next entry, Winged Raiders of the Desert proves to be more engaging.