2013 science fiction, second in the Chronicles of St Mary's series.
Max, time-travelling historian, kills Jack the Ripper, sorts out an
attack from the future, and puts history back on course by making sure
Mary Queen of Scots gets married on schedule to Bothwell.
Or does she? Because for all the talk about the potential for
paradoxes, we've not actually seen one yet…
But there's one huge thing wrong with this story, and that's on the
emotional level. Max is supposed to have found the love of her life,
but if they're going to have profound and complete breakups and then
reconciliations every book, particularly when they both need to be so
stupid to make the breakup work in the first place, I'm not sure I
want to go on with the series. It's too much whiplash. But then I'm
not a person who likes drama in relationships in fiction in general,
or in real life either.
The rest, though, continues to be quite fun, a romp of bare competence
and muddling through in spite of an appallingly high rate of deaths
and injuries. Things go wrong and there don't seem to be good recovery
plans. "Only a short observation mission" seems to me no excuse for
not learning the local language or at least carrying some local money.
The strange pacing continues – as with Gallagher's Torchship series
which I've recently reviewed, there's no real sense of crescendo,
climax or coda. Things happen, then more things happen, then the book
ends. Someone dies and it's meant to be a Great Tragic Moment, but
we've barely heard of him before and it's not clear why he's dying
anyway.
Even so, I found a perverse enjoyment in the book even though I almost
gave it up during the emotional baggage, and I'll probably continue
with the series. Followed by A Second Chance.
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