Time Bound

Time Bound: The Cognizant's Choice is set in a time when time travel is real, the traditional setting of the society is drastically changed, and technology is so advanced that bio-integrated AI exists among several other new technologies. EOS is a ship that is becoming self-aware and going against the wishes of its makers to find out the origins of humanity. Jay Aldan is sent on a mission with the ship to prevent a mishap while plagued with fragments of memories from the past. His mission gets complicated when he meets Aurelia as they become fugitives in a race against time. While revolution looms in the future, different parties with diverse interests race to influence the past. Will Jay and Aurelia survive through the perils? Find out in Book 2 of Mario Diana's Time Bound series, The Cognizant's Choice.

It takes a great level of expertise and ingenuity to bring together different storylines and merge them into a complete, perfectly harmonized story. Prepare for a fast-paced plot that will get your heart racing and have you eager to see how the protagonists survive their dangerous situations. Mario Diana projects an interesting set of themes in The Cognizant's Choice, including sci-fi, politics, religion, love, predestination, cults, and more. I particularly loved the AI character as I enjoy stories about AI developing self-awareness. Also, the personalities of the characters are depicted realistically and developed through a captivating plot that carries the audience along. Finally, The Cognizant's Choice is a beautifully written narrative that is perfect for lovers of sci-fi, time travel, and AI stories.

In his last trip, Jay Aldan discovered his captain was a traitor, his ship had mutated into a self-aware cognizant, and he almost lost his life trying to retrieve a mysterious watch. This time, in Mario Diana’s Time Bound: The Cognizant's Choice, the World Administration sends Aldan back to the past to the Roman province of Sardinia. His mission: terminate a woman named Claudia, whose descendant threatens Chancellor Thalia’s power. But at the same time, his encounters with Aurelia, a nursing student, complicate his job, as his suppressed romantic feelings conjure crucial images about his past. Claudia and Aurelia bear a synchrony connection that reveals the descendant’s existence to the Chancellor. Meanwhile, the ship’s EOS will uncover new information about the Maker by taking advantage of the Administration’s lust for power and reveal what the Chancellor knows about an ancient prophecy.

Mario Diana’s The Cognizant's Choice is a smart sci-fi story that tackles the complexities of time travel and embraces its feasibility. You have seen and read similar themes in films and books, and they often have trouble with the denouement when the resolution of occurrences becomes difficult to string together. This second volume has a satisfying conclusion that makes you believe all that talk about time loops. You have to give credit to Diana’s ingenuity. The story gains depth as this ongoing series explores Jay and Aurelia’s relationship that crosses the boundaries of time and what they will do to protect it against the corrupt forces that run the whole show. You can say that the female characters in this series are in charge and that Aldan simply gets most of the running time. Overall, it is refreshing to read Time Bound: The Cognizant’s Choice as it tries to make sense of time travel even if it is still impossible.

When a time-traveling captain goes rogue, another captain and his androids are sent on a mission to counteract and eliminate the effects of the previous captain's contact in the fascinating science-fiction novel, Time Bound (The Cognizant's Choice: Book 2) by Mario Diana. While seeking the secret to immortality, a tyrannical ruler recognizes a connection between two young females born thousands of years apart. This anomaly may have a significant impact on the Collective society so far ahead in the future. Commissioned to locate the fifth-century girl, Captain Aldan and his android team travel to the Sardinia Province of the Roman Empire. However, when Captain Aldan and the cognizant onboard AI computer detect the synchrony, they disregard orders and follow it to the twenty-first century. Now an admiral and his crew are on their way to eliminate Captain Aldan, his synthetic team, and both women. Why are the two girls so important? How do their lives affect the Collective so many centuries in the future?

Set in a dystopian society, Time Bound (The Cognizant's Choice: Book 2) by Mario Diana is a fascinating science-fiction novel with a Christian twist. Combining the intriguing aspects of self-aware Artificial Intelligence and a non-religious society seeking humankind's origins, the plot is stimulating and provocative. Filled with dramatic action-packed scenes, the story gradually builds to a thrilling crisis, ultimately leading to an astonishing conclusion. Part of an enthralling series, the book has an engaging and compelling plot, an exciting storyline, and interesting characters. Even though it is the second book in the saga, the story does fairly well as a standalone. It is a stunning novel that promises to entertain young adults and everyone else who enjoys futuristic science-fiction stories with a dystopian feel and a Christian undertone.

Time Bound: The Cognizant's Choice by Mario Diana is the second book in this science fiction time travel series, preceded by book one, Time Lies: The Cognizant Awakens. The book revolves around a deeply dystopian future where what's left of humanity lives among a Collective society, one in which artificial intelligence units called Cognizants have been honed to near perfection in their appearance, capabilities, and necessity. The future sets the stage but the protagonist, a young time traveler with orders from the Collective's ruler to eliminate threats to her power, Jay Alden moves through the past. When an unprecedented revelation is made while on a mission in ancient Sardinia during the time of the Roman Empire, an unauthorized decision is made to fast forward—quite literally—to the 21st century. Voiced through multiple points of view characters across millennia, the story breathes life into the power of AI, the hunger for more, and a revolutionary series of acts meant to counter the despotic human nature of the Chancellor.

In the interests of full disclosure, I read Time Bound before reading Time Lies, which I realized was a mistake pretty quickly into the story. This is not because it is difficult to follow without book one under the belt; on the contrary, it actually reads just fine. But it did not take long to see the brilliant quality of Mario Diana's work and the fact that I had essentially robbed myself of the full experience. The descriptions are phenomenal and often feel like an armchair tour of Italy, and the characters are well developed to the point where even the Cognizants are difficult to distinguish from humans. Of course, one of the primary Cognizants, EOS, doesn't actually have a body, which makes the distinction a bit easier. The power struggle between human/AI/human is not a new concept in science fiction, but the time travel aspect and the reasoning behind all of it is a fresh twist that is wildly compelling. The banter between Aurelia and Jay is hilarious and there were many times where I laughed out loud, with one scene in particular where the pair are in a stateroom and they volley childish quips back and forth like angry little siblings...but they are not siblings. And Aurelia is in real danger that only Jay can protect her from. Very highly recommended.

Time Bound: The Cognizant's Choice is the second novel in The Cognizant series by Mario Diana. The story follows Captain Aldan and his android team as they are tasked to locate a girl from the fifth century and eliminate her before her future generations threaten the Chancellor. So, they traveled to the Sardinia province of the Roman Empire. However, things changed when Aldan and his AI computer found a new development and abandoned their task to travel to the 21st century, where they found someone else who could be just as important as the girl they needed to find in Sardinia. But that one decision made Aldan a target. Now Aldan was on the run to save his life from a crew explicitly sent to kill both girls and Aldan. Aldan didn’t have enough time, but he needed to determine why they wanted to kill these girls? Why was it necessary to eliminate their generations from the future?

Time Bound is the first novel I have read by author Mario Diana, and I was surprised at how enjoyable his writing style is. I found his narrative perfect for a young adult audience, but I also found it very entertaining for readers of all ages. The author introduced complex ideas and then effortlessly integrated them into the story. EOS proved to be my favorite character. This self-aware cognized machine was too calculating and cunning for me to not keep an eye on it. The action in the story was relentless; it evolved with the story and moved it forward. There wasn’t a single moment in the plot when I felt confused or lost. The author created a cohesive plot, gave his characters a direction, and allowed readers to travel through time with his characters. Time Bound was an extraordinary reading experience, thanks to its fantastic structure, incredible characters, and brilliant execution!