REVIEWS FOR EPIWORLD

by Debbie for Amazon.com, ReviewtheBook, LibraryThing and other sites NEW!

In the rush of trying to get away from the android guards, Travis and his friends in the Rockets were hiding out when suddenly everything went black. Discovering that is was an epileptic seizure was a surprise. In the year 2099, most all of the illnesses and diseases have been eradicated. Anyone found sick is shipped off to institutions that resembles a prison. Being placed in Number Forty Institution, Travis quickly became acquainted with the new rules and Emmett Hudson. The offer from Dr. Alexander to help him escape was an interesting prospect. Finding that it was through a time portal that his epileptic seizures created made the whole prospect more fantasy than reality to him. Traveling back in time changed his mind, appearing in the year 2009 and meeting Demi Fraser on the isle of Barrasay and then just as suddenly jumping ahead again to 2010, and then 2014. The experiences in the past soon makes him realize how much he doesn't belong there, he really only belongs in his own time, in his `corrugated city' with the Rockets, now how to get back.

What an interesting concept of a futuristic world. The story was fairly easy to follow even with all it's twists and the adventure was really creative. Really enjoyed the concept, Travis, Hudson, and Demi where good characters, I just had a difficult time getting into the story. It was written from the point of view of Travis and the simplicity of the story telling made it easy but that may also have something to do with why I had difficulty becoming more emotionally invested in the characters. I would put this in the category of young adult because of the easy writing style as well as the teenage characters. This is not the first work by Tracey Morait, wonder now if all the books have the same simplistic writing style.

by Carol for Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

I was drawn into this book from the first page. The story kept me wanting to know more every step of the way. I really wanted to know the ending; but on the other hand that meant finishing the book! An excellent all round read. I highly recommend this book. I will certainly be reading more by this talented author.

by Helen Bryen for ReviewTheBook, Amazon.com, LibraryThing and other sites

As Epiworld opens we meet Travis as he runs with his gang, the Rockets, in a brutal and heavily policed future version of England. In this future all disease has been eradicated and only the ‘clean’ are allowed to lead a normal, unencumbered life. Those unlucky enough to be deemed unclean are kept in institutions which sit somewhere between hospital and prison, with guards and nurses in the form of unfeeling droids.

Each member of this future society carries under their skin a probe. This is Big Brother on a very intimate level. A probe knows when you are doing something against the law, it knows when you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, and it knows when you are ill.

When Travis is hurt in a gang fight he ends up in an institution for treatment of his epilepsy and comes under the care of Dr Alexander, a human and sympathetic psychiatrist. With his help Travis is put into a permanent state of ‘fit’ where he finds he can live in the world of 2009. This time travel experience puts him directly in the path of a young Professor Chase, the Director of the institution where he is house back in his own time. Professor Chase is also about to undertake a dangerous and illegal operation on Travis in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. Can Travis stop Chase in 2009 and save his skin?

Epiworld is an exciting read. The language and thoughts of Travis and his supporting cast put it very much in the realm of the Young Adult novel, but without painting the characters too heavily as ‘childish’ and thereby making it unenjoyable to older readers. The story is fast-paced and easily relatable. The relationships Travis makes throughout the story help in moving it along nicely, each person has their part to play in this tale where everybody’s future is at stake.

by Maggie Desmond O'Brien for ReaderViewsKids

It's 2099 in a bizarre imagining of the future where almost all diseases have been wiped out by genetic cleansing. Travis, our hero, has the misfortune of an epilepsy diagnosis--epilepsy being one of the few diseases doctors cannot cure. He finds himself locked away with the rest of the "unclean," subject to freaky robot nuns for nurses and sadistic doctors, until one--Dr. Alexander--helps him escape. What follows is a somewhat confusing, surprisingly excellent thrill ride through time as Travis discovers that his seizures have the miraculous ability to open portals to other times and places, all the while hunted down by Chase, another doctor who holds a terrible secret and burning hatred for our hero.

"Epiworld" possesses an unusual storytelling combination--decent writing and unfortunate plotting. While it frequently surprised me with its ideas, especially the role of epilepsy in time travel, it bounced around from place to place painfully fast. It's nice to skip the backstory and begin in the midst of the action, but as soon as I'd gotten used to the dystopian setting we were bouncing away again, meeting character after character that I couldn't keep straight. Are they actually from the future? The present? The past? Are they a character's secret ancestor? Could we throw a few more paradoxes into this equation?

My other problem was that Travis is a jerk. While I could sympathize with him--epilepsy is no picnic, and I can't imagine time travel is any better--I had a hard time putting up with his hatred of Chase, his treatment of Demi (his on-and-off love interest), and his self-pity. Not to say he didn't have reason to pity himself, and that teen boys aren't jerks, so it's probably the author's keen observation skills at work--unfortunately, that doesn't make it any easier to read. A side note is that it's very British, and while I luckily have family and friends across the pond, words like "knackered" and "naff" might leave your average American reader a little lost.

That said, while I don't read much of the action/adventure genre, it was clear that "Epiworld" was a standout. It's fast-paced, grim and entertaining by turns, a little raunchy, and original--in short, while I hate to label books by gender, it's perfect teen boy fare. While I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, I'd certainly pass it on to my guy friends, and it would make a great gift for a less-than-motivated reader.

by Flamingnet Student Book Reviewer (CBess_RPEMS)

The book that I am reviewing is called Epiworld. This book is about how a boy named Travis has seizers that could almost kill him. He is sent to an institution where people have human diseases. He is locked away in the institution until his Dr. Alexander, his professor, helps him to escape. He goes on an adventure so he could find and kill the man that created the instituton.

I thought the book was pretty good even though it was kind of slow in the beginning. It wasn't a page-turner but it was still good. The vocabulary is kind of age appropriate if you are mature to handle it. The strength of this was that it made you visualize the setting and also the characters' actions. I would recommend this book for readers who are more on the sciece fiction and adventure side.

I gave this a 2 content rating because it used some strong language in this book.

by JRFrugalMom for Story Time Under The Stars - site now closed! :(

The future seen through the eyes of a young man with epilepsy makes for a very interesting, constantly changing and quite different young adult novel. When I first held Epiworld in my hands, I will admit that I did not know what to do with it. This book was so far from the genres that I usually read that I was a bit intimidated, and I feared that it would be so far out of my comfort zone that I would not appreciate the story at all.

Nevertheless, after a bit of a rocky start trying to become familiar with Tracey Morait’s writing style geared towards a young adult audience and coming to terms with the futuristic aspects of Epiworld, I actually became comfortable with the story.

Epiworld by Tracey Morait is the story of Travis, a young British man (teenager perhaps) suffering from epilepsy, who is living as an outcast in 2099, and because of his epilepsy he is eventually caught and transferred to an Institution for those with incurable diseases and psychiatric problems. In an age where genetic cleansing has been effective there is no room for those, who are deemed “unclean”.

Through his epileptic seizures Travis is able to travel through time, and he does so in order to escape surgery and even worse faith in 2099 because of his epilepsy. His time travels help him unravel mysteries about the world and about his own heritage, which he did not even know existed.

Morait has managed to put together a time travel novel that keeps the reader wondering and wanting to know more. The intricate way that she has braided epilepsy and some of the issues that epileptics face everyday into the storyline make Epiworld a very unique and memorable story.

To my own surprise Epiworld got the best of my curiosity, and my hesitance was put aside somewhere in the middle of the story With her clever plot and constant surprises Morait managed to keep me reading from beginning to end, and the surprise ending made Epiworld come to a full circle.

by Gill James for Amazon.co.uk and Self-Publishing Magazine (printed review)

This is a face-paced adventure Young Adult time-slip adventure. There are plenty of thrills and spills and many curious and puzzling questions about time travel.

There is the intriguing questions of the link between epilepsy and temporal displacement - already explored to some extent in Debz Hobbs-Wyatt's short story Jigsaw and Adam Rapp's 33 Snowfish.

There is a good balance throughout of dialogue, description and action, though just occasionally a character speaks out of voice. The characters are on the whole likeable and rounded, - even the "baddies". The story arc is satisfying and the resolution works. This is perhaps particularly more so because Morait has drawn on the archetypal Oedipus story. Travis falls in love with his mother and kills his father.

On the whole, the novel is extremely well crafted though one more edit may have benefited it well. Nevertheless, a good read.

by Rutlandbelle "LGV" for Amazon.co.uk

Although older than the target age group, I bought this book after reading the 'search inside' and wanting to know what happened next. It's an ideal length for the target audience, not too long to be boring, but long enough to tell a cracking good yarn. It held my interest to the end with plenty of twists in the plot and with a complex enough story to keep you thinking all the way through. I love time-shift stories, and this one was no exception.

by John Rogers ClarkIV "Seawizard" for TCM Reviews and Amazon.com

I received a copy to review and took it with me while waiting for my wife to have her eyes tested. 45 minutes later, she nudged me and pulled me back from an amazing world created by Tracey Morait. I finished the book in three one-hour sittings and was amazed at the quality. This is an excellent book, not only for young adults, but for adults who enjoy reading in the YA genre. The plot theme, time travel caused by seizures experienced by Travis, the protagonist, could easily have come unraveled. Instead it is the center of a riveting nonstop action tale which ends in a very satisfying manner. I will be happy to add it to our collection at the Hartland Public Library where I'll be suggesting it to a number of patrons.

PRESS RELEASE

Epiworld: a new novel for teens by Tracey Morait

Can the exciting new life in Travis’s head change his past and help to shape his future?

Inspired by her own personal experience with epilepsy, ‘Goalden Girl’ and ‘Abbie’s Rival’ author Tracey Morait has created a thrilling, futuristic fantasy story about Travis, whose epilepsy renders him ‘unclean’ in twenty ninety-nine Britain. All diseases have been wiped out, and the country has reverted to its past in its treatment of the condition when epilepsy was considered to be a madness, and sufferers were locked away in asylums. Travis is sent to Number Forty Institution to live out his days as an inmate, but he’s determined to escape, and get back to his gang, the Rockets, who roam the streets trying to outwit the robot police guards.

Whenever Travis has a seizure strange things happen. He sees bright lights, and a world he doesn’t understand. He is used to a dark, depressing life in a country with harsh laws where the population is ‘probed’ to keep track of its behaviour. The world in Travis’s head is a colourful place, and although there is law and order, the people are happier. Dr Alexander, the institution’s psychotherapist, finds a way for Travis to get to this new world by inducing a massive seizure with an old-fashioned course of treatment, before the institution director, Professor Chase, can perform an outlawed operational procedure on Travis which is certain to kill him.

The new world turns out to be Britain in the year two thousand and nine on a Scottish island with a beautiful beach, a cave, and a pretty young girl called Demi. They all play major parts in Travis’s story. His seizures have the power to take him on a quest through different timelines with Demi at his side, until he must finally face the person he is destined to wipe from existence to prevent his own life from being destroyed.

When someone suffers a tonic-clonic seizure their brain has a sudden burst of excess electricity. Their mind goes blank and time is taken away from them. The idea for the novel is to imagine what it would be like if that electricity could be generated to propel the mind to another place. The author has given Travis back his lost time, so that he has the chance to solve a problem and change his life for the better. He tells his own story as though he’s living in the present day, or what seems to be the present to him.

As a sufferer of epilepsy herself, Tracey Morait has tried to give the condition a profile through the medium of fiction, without wanting to glamorise it.

Published by UK small press K&T Mitchell, ‘Epiworld’ is a book for young adults aged twelve and over offering action, tension, trauma, mystery, and hope. Look out for it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, WH Smith, Waterstones, Blackwell and all other major online stores around the world from July 2010, ISBN: 9780955855016, price £6.55.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tracey Morait was born and brought up in Liverpool, England, and writes full length novels for children and young adults. For more information about her work please see http://traceymoraitnovels.blogspot.com/

Review copies are available.