This was an ok middle grade book - I thought it was way too long though. Its 600 pages, although it does have illustrations there was still a good portion of text that I think could have been condensed or perhaps split into multiple books. I'd say this is on the higher end of middle grade, there is a little bit of romance and little bit of juvenile swearing (eg. bastard).

The premise is pretty cool, a cosmic event meant that the past, present and future were all thrown together in what was called the Time Collision. The people from all the different times in history need to work out how to live together.

On the back of the book its recommended by several film directors including Ridley Scott. I did really enjoy the illustrations (maybe even more than the text) but I found the text dragged. I feel like it may have been a better film seeing as all these directors are praising it.

The art is gorgeous; the writing is...not. But this book's real failing comes down to character -- to emotion. It's a long book and a lot happens in it, but the reader is never given much of a reason to care. By which I mean, often it's not entirely clear what the characters are actually trying to accomplish in a given sequence; they're just doing a bunch of vaguely steampunky stuff? And even when the objective is obvious -- RESCUE DAD -- there's no emotional weight to the prose. Baltazar's pictures really are worth thousands of his words: there's more feeling packed into the simplest image than in all the text in this book.

I really wanted to like this book; it had a lot of great elements. I appreciated the rich world-building, with its parallels to today's racism, extremists who want to return to a romanticized past that was only good for the dominant groups, and the experiences of immigrants with complicated feelings about the places/cultures they left and commitment to building a new life/world. I also appreciated the strengths of a variety of characters including 13-year-old Filipino-Irish main character, Diego, talented and brave fighter-pilot mom Siobhan, Filipino genius engineer Santiago, and fearless loyal call-outer-of-BS Black Paige. The steam-punk vibe was cool.

Despite the format, which looks like an illustrated book, some of the action actually happens within the illustrations like a graphic novel. There are some important pieces of the narrative that are not addressed in words at all. Other times, the pictures are just pictures, illustrating what is already written. This caused me to flip back and forth a few times.

Unfortunately the book also contains a fair number of problematic elements that use tired tropes and/or reinforce American dominant culture, such as:

***a shaman tells a main character about a special power they have "I was volunteering to help build a well for the Natives living in the western territories...The Steam-Time engineers said it was a miracle or maybe witchcraft, but an old Algonquin [note: in the west] shaman there called it something else...the Maker's Sight...The shaman said that she'd seen this kind of thing before, but she wouldn't speak of it further, except to warn me to keep the power secret." (p. 60-61)

***"Natives" are portrayed as specifically dangerous, likened to animals/pre-humans: "'...lots of different kinds [of dinosaurs]. Man-eaters, giant herbivores that could squash you with a single step.' 'It's not that bad...they usually keep to themselves. It's actually more dangerous if you cross into Algonquin lands without permission, or run into one of those Neanderthal hunting parties.'" (p. 97) "a band of Algonquin warriors inspected a caged beast" (p.115)

***A group of "neutral" mapmakers travel in a large zeppelin-like ship called The Magellan, and one of their smaller ships is actually a canoe suspended by a flotation device. In the canoe, a person with healing knowledge named Kiyoshi appears (p. 290-293), and part of The Magellan's crew, first mate Clementine Van Jensen, is "dressed in a deer-skin shirt and pants, wearing high boots" and is described as "the deadliest shot in the West" (p. 302).

***A westward expansion-type explorer is revered as a hero: "first explorations across the fantastically changed American landscape by the great explorer Bartholomew Roosevelt" (p. 36) "Here's the route Bartholomew Roosevelt took through the California Territories, across the Native American territory." (p. 214)

***Exploration is portrayed only from a Western European perspective "If you want to talk about real explorers, Roosevelt has nothing on Sir Francis Drake. Not only did he discover your California and claim it for the queen, but he established the northern route from Britain to New Chicago. Far more impressive, I'd say." "Drake may have found the way to New Chicago, but the Portuguese got to California before Drake ever did in the old world anyway" (p. 214)

***"'You said your father was important'...'He was...He worked as a cartographer for the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and mapped the Louisiana Purchase in 1800. He met my mother in New Orleans...' 'Sounds like you had a fortunate upbringing'" (p. 308)

There is also a section on pages 451-454 where a Black character describes his past where, after escaping enslavement, he joins the 54th MA infantry in the Civil War. He describes his post-Time Collision situation (which includes working as a ship engineer with a white captain and white first mate, where he spends most of his time belowdecks in the engine room) as "what true freedom could be." The discussion he and Paige have about freedom, choice, and how "bound" to history they are might not land well with everyone. For example, he said, "The captain put me in a school ..." This sounds a lot like white saviorism to me.