Common Sense Media Review
By Carrie R. Wheadon
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Fab art and cool new world as time periods collide.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 9+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Read
What's the Story?
In TIMELESS: DIEGO AND THE RANGERS OF THE VASTLANTIC, Diego has a disturbing dream right before waking up on his 13th birthday. He gets an amazing floating gravity board from his father, Santiago, the great inventor and engineer of New Chicago, but then he watches time stop, people panic, and his whole world end. Time is already fractured in Diego's world after a Time Collision that melds different times together: dinosaurs roam the earth and people from the Victorian, Mid-Time (now), and the 23rd century intermingle in the cities, but not always peaceably. Things start out better than Diego's dream when he does get a gravity board from his father. But the good day doesn't last. When Diego meets Santiago at the harbor after school to impress a new engineer, George Emerson, with his robot-handling skills, a fighting force kidnaps Santiago and the engineer. And worse, Diego finds out the government won't go after the captives themselves. They're sending pirates instead and paying them with a giant robot Diego made. A little on purpose and a lot by accident, Diego, his friend Petey, George Emerson's daughter, Lucy, and Lucy's friend Paige end up stowing away in a compartment of the robot. When the pirate captain finds them aboard his ship, he's furious. Either they learn some seafaring skills in a week or he's throwing them overboard.
Is It Any Good?
Major kudos to a new writer who knows how to play to his strengths, with 150 pages of full-color art that more than make up for some hiccups in the adventure storytelling. Armand Baltazar, a seasoned Disney and Pixar illustrator, populates his post-Time Collision world with giant robots and dinosaurs wading through a harbor full of tall sailing ships. His main character, Diego, takes a mini-submarine to school and swoops over a jungle island on a gravity board. Baltazar's art pulls this curious sci-fi world together beautifully, but not seamlessly. He often relies too heavily on the art to move the action scenes and makes the beginner mistake of not carefully orienting the reader in a scene, especially when the action gets high. This makes the big battle finale more confusing than exciting. Also, in the middle of the story, as the main characters prepare for their jobs at sea, the primary objective feels lost. Urgency to rescue the prisoners should have been foremost on their minds, rather than whether Diego can fix a robot or stop making a fool of himself in front of Lucy.
It takes time, patience, and attention to detail to build a world both visually and through the written word. Once this talented artist balances the two skills, this series will soar like one of Diego's cool gravity boards.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the illustrations in Timeless: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic. How do they add to the world building in the story? How do they convey the action? Would you know what was going on without the illustrations?
What would you do without electricity? What would you miss most? How does this world after the Time Collision work without electricity? What inventions is Diego's father responsible for?
Are you looking forward to another adventure? What do you think will happen to all the Rangers next?
Book Details
- Author :
- Illustrator : Armand Baltazar
- Genre : Adventure
- Topics : Transportation ( Cars & Trucks ) , Animals ( Dinosaurs , Ocean Creatures ) , Fantasy ( Magic ) , Adventures , Friendship , History , Pirates , Robots , STEM
- Book type : Fiction
- Publisher : Katherine Tegen Books
- Publication date : October 10, 2017
- Publisher's recommended age(s) : 8 - 12
- Number of pages : 624
- Available on : Nook, Audiobook (unabridged), Hardback, Apple Books, Kindle
- Last updated : September 30, 2025
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