Monday 29 June 2015

Currently Reading

Just One Damned Thing After Another 
by Jodi Taylor

I'm currently reading, as quick as I can, Jodi Taylor's Chronicle of St Mary's series because her publisher sent me a preview of book 6 and I'd never heard of them.

Whether I'll finish them in time to blurb (or not) the latest I don't know but I'm enjoying them so far.

Here is blurb for book 1....

Behind the seemingly innocuous façade of St Mary's, a different kind of historical research is taking place. They don't do 'time-travel' - they 'investigate major historical events in contemporary time'. Maintaining the appearance of harmless eccentrics is not always within their power - especially given their propensity for causing loud explosions when things get too quiet.

Meet the disaster-magnets of St Mary's Institute of Historical Research as they ricochet around History. Their aim is to observe and document - to try and find the answers to many of History's unanswered questions...and not to die in the process.

But one wrong move and History will fight back - to the death. And, as they soon discover - it's not just History they're fighting.

Follow the catastrophe curve from eleventh-century London to World War I, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake ...

4 comments:

Vicki said...

Don't know if you have seen Diamond Geezer's Unlost River of London posts this year?

Links below as not easy to find them on blog:

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/river-rom.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/dollis-brook.html
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/dollis-brook-part-2.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/mayes-brook.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/river-pinn.html
http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/celandine-route.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/pool-river.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/river-beck.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/river-moselle.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/wealdstone-brook.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/mutton-brook.html

http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/river-shuttle.html

And the one very close to where I live: http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/dagenham-brook.html

Federhirn said...

I really enjoyed the first, but lost some enthusiasm when our heroes start being quite ruthless about killing their enemies. They fell into a bit of a moral vacuum there.

Since then, I have read two of Connie Willis' Oxford Timetravel novels, and I realised that Jodi Taylor's books are basically a light-entertainment copy of Connie Willis's ideas and rules. I know that many books within similar genres will have similar themes, but the number of similarities ended up quite jarring for me, personally.

Still, they're fun, and I suspect I'll read some more of them sooner or later.

Unknown said...

'"I haven't had the interview yet" I said, just to let them know I'd been paying attention.'

Yeah, I think I might like this :D

@Federhim: Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give them a look after

Victorix said...

You know, I'm loving these books, I'm so glad you mentioned them. I take the point from the second comment above, but, it wasn't done lightly and the morals of the situation have been/are being considered. They have a strange realism to them, especially the descriptions of the historical events visited (especially Troy and Agincourt in book 3).