I just finished this last night. I agree with pretty much everything you said, good and bad - so won't repeat it. But I was struck by the way in which Anna seemed (in her very first conversation with Jamie) to be amazed at his having a computer in his room, as if she had arrived on his doorstep with a 1950s mindset - whereas in fact we learn that she's been zipping back and forth through history, including her own future, for decades. This seemed like a first-draft fossil, to me.

So they're going back to 1596 next, eh? (Can encounters with the Bard and Good Queen Bess be far behind?) Presumably at some point they'll travel into Jamie's future, too - I'll be interested to see how he handles that.

I wonder if this person is a DWJ fan? The set-up seemed like a curious mix of The Homeward Bounders (even the hero's name) and A Tale of Time City. But that's probably my own parochialism showing.