Limited Wish

Will review at www.fantasyliterature.com.

The Impossible Times Trilogy is fast becoming my favorite books written by Mark Lawrence.

This is the second in the trilogy and in this instalment of the story, the character of Nick is developed further. Some of the other characters in the first book do not feature as much, such as Mia and John, but this does not impact on the story.

Mr Lawrence' writing is as excellent as ever. Whilst there is the timey wimey stuff in it, it does not take centre stage in the books. This is left to the characters. We get to learn how much of a maths genius Nick is and the story moves along with his move to Cambridge. Mia becomes the DM (and is pretty good at it too, does she want to come and DM for me, please!), and there are new characters introduced that all have an impact on Nick and take the story in a new direction.

I think that one of the best things in this is how sensitively the author deals with disability. In numerous cases the disability is obvious, but it does not define the characters and is accepted. Simon, for instance, shows all the signs of being Autistic, but this is never mentioned and it is just there and everybody adapts. NIck's leaukemia is a barrier that he has to overcome, but never once does it define Nick's character. He doesn't fall into despair and lie there moping about (he does on some occasions, but hey wouldn't you).

The setting of 1986 works well and I think that this is something that I connected with completely and the depiction of Cambridge highlights class differences that are still there.

I think the books remind me of a lot of things that have really struck a chord. There seems to be some Sue Townsend in there along with Stephen King (and I mean this in the best sense in that SK does some brilliant depictions of childhood) and I think that this is just as good.

Can't wait for the next book.

I am officially loving Mark Lawrence's take on time travel. We region Nick and his gang, with Nick now a young prodigy in the field of time travel research. This book takes the action to oxford and looks at the idea of paradoxes produced by multiple competing timelines.

The novels are short enough to be really easy to digest. As someone who mainly reads fantasy were long books are common I really appreciate the way that the story develops in a nice and compact way, feeling expansive even within a shorter word count. A sign of good writing!