Hodder has passed Wells as the greatest time-travel writer of all time

The fifth installment in Mark Hodder’s ongoing “Burton & Swinburne” series, “The Return of the Discontinued Man,” hit bookstores earlier this month, and this latest novel is arguably Hodder’s best.

Published by Pyr Science Fiction & Fantasy on July 8, this 340-page novel is the fifth book in Hodder’s freebooting “Burton & Swinburne” series of adventure novels. The first book in the series, “The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack,” which won the 2010 Philip K. Dick Award, was released in September 2010, and the second book in the series, “The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man,” was published in March 2011. The third book in the series, “Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon,” appeared in January 2012, and the fourth installment in the series, “The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi,” was released in July 2013.

The main characters in all five books are fictionalized versions of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Charles Swinburne. In real life, Burton was a man among men. Best known for discovering the source of the Nile River, he was also a tough-as-leather adventurer, explorer, soldier and writer. Burton, who spoke nearly 30 languages, was sort of like James Bond, Bear Grylls and Indiana Jones all rolled into one.

In Hodder’s “Burton & Swinburne” series, Burton, a special agent to the king, is assisted by his trusty sidekick, the famed redheaded poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. More often than not, Swinburne is “three sheets to the wind,” but this doesn’t keep him from being Burton’s capable and comical comrade.

In “The Return of the Discontinued Man,” Burton finds himself the target of Spring Heeled Jack, who repeatedly leaps back in time and unsuccessfully attempts to take down Burton. Aided by the members of London’s famous Cannibal Club, Burton and his colleagues proceed to leap through the future aboard a steam-powered craft called the “Orpheus” to take down Spring Heeled Jack in the year 2202. Throughout the novel, Burton and Swinburne cross paths with a number of remarkable real-life Victorian characters, including Charles Babbage, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Bram Stoker and H.G. Wells.

“The Return of the Discontinued Man” is so entertaining and well written that I can say without hesitation that it’s the best time travel novel that I’ve ever read. H.G. Wells, who wrote “The Time Machine” in 1895, appears prominently throughout the novel, but I think that Mark Hodder has passed H.G. Wells as the greatest time-travel writer of all time. Years from now, Hodder’s “Burton & Swinburne” series will be considered classics of the time travel genre.

Before I wrap this thing up, I want to remind you that this book is the fifth novel in the “Burton & Swinburne” series and while you don’t have to read the first four books to enjoy the latest, I highly recommend that you read all five so that you get the most out of this great series.

In the end, I really enjoyed “The Return of the Discontinued Man” and highly recommend it to readers who like adventure, alternative history, fantasy and science fiction with a heavy dose of time traveling.