Wasting Time (Physics, Lust and Greed #2) by Mike Murphey - Review

❋ ❋ ❋ 

I received an ecopy from Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review. 

When time travelers fail test after test to significantly alter the past, most financial backers abandon the Global Research Consortium leaving veteran traveler Marta Hamilton to administer a vastly scaled-down project. She must protect the past from a greedy future, fend off political meddling, and foil a murder plot originating in a parallel universe. She presides over a conspiracy to hide the truth of her best friend’s death while coping with a confusing and discomforting romantic entanglement involving fellow traveler Marshall Grissom. 

Marta, who has by professional necessity always distanced herself from emotional commitment, lapsed by allowing herself the luxury of friendship with Sheila Schuler and a night of wild sex with Marshall. Now, Sheila is probably dead, and—according to a genius physicists’ theory—Marshall soon will be. As she assumes her role as administrator of the time travel program, Marta must choose between the risks of loving someone, or the lonely safety of emotional solitude.

Wasting Time (Physics, Lust and Greed #2) by Mike Murphey is a good follow up to its predecessor, Taking Time.  I appreciated the first installment enough that I'm glad I decided to come back for this solid sequel.  As with the first installment, there were elements that didn't quite work for me, but there were also elements here that I enjoyed a little bit more.  Now that I've officially completed the novel, I would say I prefer it to the first book but not quite enough to bump it up to four stars.  That said it is a must read if you're a fan of the science fiction genre and time travel like I am.  I know I've said it before, but I can't resist well done time travel.  Luckily, Murphey does a good job of pulling it off.  

My favorite aspect of this novel is easily how the author presents the parallel universes.  It's a lot of fun to see the differences between our cast's home world and the parallel worlds they find themselves coming into contact with.  They get to do and see some very unexpected things on top of the standard time travel exploits that they've come to expect.  I greatly appreciated that this is a much more action packed read in comparison as well.  Honestly, I think I preferred the cast of characters a little more this time around.  Originally, they could grate on me but I found that to be a little less so here.  We get to look a little deeper this time around and that helped make up for some of the elements before.  As for what I didn't care for this time around, much of it amounted to exactly the same thing as with the first novel in the series.  The nudity doesn't bother me all that much, but I could have done with less of a focus on that element.  There are some pretty cringey things that I could have totally done without to be honest.  Basically, I'm in it for the time travel and parallel universe travel, not so much the other stuff.

Overall, Wasting Time (Physics, Lust and Greed #2) by Mike Murphey is a solid sequel that allows us to explore more with the characters in both in time and in parallel universes.  It's quite creative and a must read for fans of the sci-fi genre, time travel, and the multiverse.  Although, it isn't one of my favorites of the year, I still had a fun time exploring more of Murphey's world.  I'm looking forward to seeing what's next in the future.

This novel was originally released on October 1, 2020 and my review is also on Goodreads.