Sunday 3 October 2021

Jodi Taylor - A Second Chance

 

Rating: 4/5
 
Review: Good, but...
 
I enjoyed A Second Chance; some of it was quite brilliant, but I was a little less happy about some other parts.

This time, we follow Max to Troy and then the aftermath of the trip for much of the book. Jodi Taylor’s capturing of the feel and events of the Trojan War is excellent; I found it involving and thoroughly convincing, and her rewriting of why Troy fell is an interesting take on the Trojan Horse story. Some other aspects, directly contradicting classical sources were a little harder to swallow, but it’s a cracking story which I was happy to go along with.

The mayhem and humour of St. Mary’s is as enjoyable as ever. In contrast, the course of Max’s love never did run smooth and there are some genuinely affecting parts, both to do with this and with other aspects of the story.

I am becoming a little less comfortable with the way time travel is handled. It becomes very confusing at times and I’m not sure it all made logical sense (although that may just be me being dim). Toward the end, though, we get not only leaps in time but the introduction of parallel universes with alternative histories ,and mystical interventions by Klio, the Muse Of History, which rather undermines a lot of the premise of the stories so far.

I’ll certainly try the next in the series, but I’m not quite as enthusiastic as I was. Nonetheless, I can recommend this as an entertaining and rewarding read.

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