Impossible Times Series Review

Title: Impossible Times Series (One Word Kill, Limited Wish, Dispel Illusion)
Author: Mark Lawrence
Date Purchased: 2/17/2020
Price Paid: $6.33 (total)
Date Finished: 1/6/2022
Rating: 3/5

In an effort to make things a little more manageable I’m going to start reviewing books that are a series in one post instead of three different posts. It’s too much for me to keep track of and I don’t have the free time I used to have. So that being said, let’s jump into the Impossible Times series.

My friend Ben has a tendency to dislike certain themes or plot devices in books and one of the biggest offenders to him is time travel. I am typically much more forgiving of an author handwaving away potential problems with plot devices, so I have always picked on him about this.

Ben, if you’re reading this, I suggest you avoid these books. Even with my low standards? I wound up having a lot of questions about how the author implemented time travel. Let’s dig in, shall we?

I’m going to preface this by saying two things: first, obviously, there will be spoilers. Second? I have no clue which book any of the things I’m going to mention are coming from, so I will be discussing the series as a whole instead of talking about each one individually.

The story revolves around Nick Hayes, a math-whiz teenager who is fifteen when we meet him in 1986. Oh, and he’s also dying from cancer. He and his friends get together to play D&D and one day a new member joins their group – her name is Mia. So far we’re talking about pretty pedestrian stuff here. But then it takes a turn.

Nick discovers someone has been following him and skulking around…and when he confronts the person? It turns out to be Nick from the future! DUM DUM DUMMMMMM. I’m being a bit glib here because I’m always tired lately, but if the author was trying to hide this from people he did a pretty poor job of it. Anyway, Future Nick (or Demus, as he’s known) needs help from the kids to put a plan in motion to save Mia’s life. Well, Future Mia – current Mia is still fine.

You can already see how this is going to get confusing.

I’m not going to go into all of the plot details, but for the most part these books were enjoyable. It’s not like they are going to make you think too hard as long as you avoid the nature of how time travel works. I still have a problem with how he describes traveling backwards in time, at least as much of a problem as I can have with a fictional concept.

The bits with the D&D were fun, the jumping around to different points in Nick’s life were handled rather well, and for as flat as most of the characters were I didn’t hate any of them.

Final Thoughts: I got the series for a total of $6. It was worth that much though I wouldn’t pay more.