The Time Police are used to travelling into the past, but this time history has come to them. What links a dinosaur discovery in Wales, Romulus of ancient Rome, a conspiracy involving the Princes in the Tower, and a cover-up at Time Police headquarters? The team must untangled these seemingly unrelated threads to discover the truth – and find out what is wrong at St Mary’s.
This month’s book was a donation from the publisher in return for an unbiased review.
We were a small group this month, probably due to holiday season, but those of us who made it mostly enjoyed reading Out of Time. Several commented on the dry humour and sarcasm which permeates the book, and makes the characters seem more realistic – or as realistic as you can get when someone is plotting how to steal the Princes in the tower, or examining a dinosaur corpse (fresh, not fossils)
Some of the group had read previous novels in the series, but we agreed that the recap at the start of the novel wasn’t particularly helpful to either previous readers or new ones. That said, it did feel a bit like we were starting partway through, which made it a bit hard to engage with the story. Even those familiar with the characters and series felt that this instalment wasn’t as strong as previous ones, although it was enjoyable. Another member said that though the book was amusing and made them smile, it wasn’t in the same league as Terry Pratchett‘s Discworld series. Keeping track of characters was occasionally difficult, but we liked the way that the different teams interacted.
We discussed (and went off at a bit of a tangent) about what was the main focus of the book – we expected it to be the Princes, but this didn’t really seem to be the case. Tearing ourselves away from Richard III and Peter Sellers (I said it was a tangent), we agreed that we liked the idea of time travel where the events are mostly present day as it was easier to follow. The idea of having dinosaurs wandering around in the present day gave a bit of an enjoyable flashback to the later Jurassic Park films.
We gave Out of Time 3/5, as unfortunately none of us really felt that it lived up to the hype on the back of the book. From the comments about the book, we had been expecting a mixture of The Ministry of Time, and Loki and unfortunately this wasn’t that. We would give other books by Jodi Taylor a read – in fact one of the group has been reading one of her Pennyroyal and Smallhope books – the second of the new series is out this month.
Our next meeting is on Wednesday 16th September at 1pm when we will be discussing The Players Club by Rachel Mills.
Beth Greenwood has always dreamed of being someone else, and when she discovers the secretive Players Club, she is given the chance to step into lives she never imagined possible. From extraordinary careers to glamorous lifestyles, the club offers excitement, escape and the opportunity to live out your wildest dreams. However, as the line between self-invention and self-deception starts to blur, Beth must decide who she really wants to be.
Copies are available from the Education Centre Library at Warwick Hospital – and as this book was donated to us by the publisher, you can keep your copy!
As always, you are welcome to take a copy even if you can’t make the meeting – we appreciate thoughts shared by email, in person, and on our new padlet
Previous book reviews are now up on the Library Blog
