Time Salvager by Wesley Chu

Time Salvager by Wesley Chu is the story of James Griffin-Mars, a professional time traveler in a future world in which Earth is a toxic, mostly abandoned world and governments and huge corporations must go through time to salvage technology and goods needed for survival today. Our alcoholic, disillusioned, burnt out protagonist breaks several time traveling laws in an effort to attempt to save Earth (and, in a horribly cliched twist, get the girl).

I wanted to like this. I liked that Chu had clearly thought through the logistics of time travel. I liked that there was a bureaucratic agency in charge of regulating time travel. I liked that the writing was crisp and clear at the individual sentence level.  I liked the scene setting, especially of the future colonies and technology development (or lack thereof). 

But I didn't like it on the whole. I thought the brash, carefree Griffin-Mars was unlikable. I thought the novel was filled with cliches.
1) He basically broke time traveling laws because he just couldn't let this beautiful woman go. Gag.
2) Of course the government is super corrupt and beholden to giant corporations.
3) Earth is a disaster and we're turning all the other planets human colonize into equal disasters.
4) Only one person can save us! Our main character knows exactly how to get this person!
5) He sees ghosts. Talks to ghosts. Interacts with ghosts.  I just...can't.
6) Our hero gets into scrapes and just barely ekes out alive. Every. Time. He never just destroyed them or gets destroyed, but it's a near miss with him escaping in every scene.

So, props to Chu for attempting something this ambitious, but I'm not definitely not going to recommend this to anyone or pick up the next book in the series.