Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor

   2013; 273 pages.  Book 1 (out of 11, and soon to be 12) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres: Time Travel; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    You know what would be an excellent career choice?  Being a historian.  Especially if you like to read, because let’s face it, “history” is not about the present, it’s about the past, and the only way learn about the past is to read books about it.  And who writes those books about the past?  Historians, that’s who.

 

    Of course, it would be even better if you could journey back to some important event and witness it firsthand.  We’ll leave the mechanics of how to do that to the technical folks, or maybe learn it from some time-travelers from the future who stop by to visit us in the here and now.

 

    The one thing we don’t want to do though is change anything in the past.  You never know if a bit of tinkering, no matter how slight, might cause us to wink out of existence via altering the timeline.  So our motto should be: “observe, document, and record, but never get involved.”

 

    Because History might be capable of taking care of itself, and anyone messing with it could find his or her lifespan significantly shortened.

 

What’s To Like...

    Just One Damned Thing After Another is the initial book in Jodi Taylor’s series "The Chronicles of St. Mary’s", where, according to the blurb on the front cover, we “meet the disaster-magnets of St. Mary’s as they hurtle around History”.  The organization’s full name is “St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research”, and the agents they send out on time-traveling (they prefer to call it “investigating major historical events in contemporary time”) excursions are academic historians rather than armed personnel.  The book’s title comes from an Arnold Toynbee quote: “History is just one damned thing after another”.

 

    The protagonist is Dr. Madeleine “Max” Maxwell, and the book is her first-person-POV account of her recruitment, training, and first couple assignments for St. Mary’s.  There are lots of other characters, including Max’s fellow trainees and the staff of the various departments at St. Mary’s: Administration, History, Technical, Medical, Security, R&D, IT, and Kitchen.  That’s a bunch of peeps to meet and greet; but fortunately there’s a handy “Dramatis Thingummy” section at the start of the book (you’d probably call it a Cast of Characters).  Bookmark it, you’ll be utilizing it a lot.

 

    Time-travel books inherently have to deal with temporal paradoxes (what happens if I go back in time and shoot my parents before they had me), and I liked the innovative way Jodi Taylor handles it here.  You can’t bring artifacts from the past back to the present.  If you try to, History itself will find a way to stop you, maybe by dropping a ten-ton chunk of the temple rooftop above you on your unlucky head.  I was also impressed with the training: if you’re going back to ancient Rome, you better speak Latin with an authentic Roman accent, and your clothing and travel items better match up perfectly with those times.

 

    The book is written in English, not American, and I enjoyed learning lots of new words and phrases from across the pond.  A few examples: “the dog’s bollocks” (“the best”), “blagged”, “pillock”, “hammered”, “seven bells”, “tossers”, “grass me up”, “balls to the wall”, and “sarnie” (a sandwich).  I was introduced to the 20^th century Polish classical composer Henryk Gorecki, whom I had neve heard of, and to the parlor game “Shoot, Shag, or Marry”, which you can read about in Wikipedia under its more colorful title “F**k, Marry, Kill”. 

 

    There's lots of time-traveling expeditions to tag along with.  I won’t list them all, but will say that you'll cross paths with some dinosaurs and brave a burning library.  Max’s personal “dream assignment” is to visit ancient Troy.  That doesn’t happen here, but I’m willing to bet it’ll show up in one of the sequels.

 

    Everything builds to an exciting and tense ending, with a couple of twists thrown in for good measure.   Some good guys die, some baddies live to fight another day.  Not all the plot threads are tied up, but the story ends at a logical point, so I’d label this both a standalone novel and the introduction to a promising series.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Blagged (v.) : obtained by wheedling or cadging (a Britishism).

Others: Sclerotic (adj., medical); Pillock (n.); Doddle (n.); Gobsmacked (adj.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 3,881 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.88*/5, based on 29,061 ratings and 3,922 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m advised by Mrs. Partridge that some of the forms you were asked to complete as a preliminary need … more work.

    “Your personal details update form … Mr. Sussman: you are not a Jedi Knight.  Kindly amend the details in Box 3 – Religion.  Ditto Mr. Markham, Mr. Peterson, Miss Maxwell, Mr. Dieter, and Miss Black.

    “Miss Maxwell, Box 5.  You are not five feet seven inches tall and never will be.  Live with it and correct your paperwork.

    “Mr. Markham, the box marked “sex” is not an invitation.  Please amend the details and apologise to Mrs. Partridge.”  (loc. 1725)

 

    “Listen, Dieter, this is important.  If I pass out you must make them download the tapes first.  I know we've got live cables everywhere, but if they switch the power off then we might lose all our data.  I’m sorry, kiddo, but it’s more important than we are.”  Silence.  “Dieter, I’m sorry, but you’ve just become an honorary historian, which means you rank somewhere between blue-green algae and the duck-billed platypus in the scheme of things.  The Boss must see those tapes.”  (loc. 3216)

 

Kindle Details…

    Just One Damned Thing After Another sells for $4.99 at Amazon right now.  The rest of the books in the series are all priced $5.99, except for Book 11, Plan for the Worst, which is also $4.99.  The twelfth book, Another Time, Another Place, is tentatively scheduled to be released on April 15, 2021.  In addition, there are about 16 short stories based in the same St. Mary’s setting, all of which are priced at $0.99 each.

 

Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people.  (loc. 267 )

    The nits to pick are minor.  The front cover blurb's mention of “disaster magnets” led me to believe the tone of the story would be slapstick comedy.  That wasn’t the case, but I don’t mind - the dialogue and “chronicle entries” are witty, which provided a nice balance to the darker tone of the storytelling.  Journeying to the past as a historian-observer is a hazardous job.

 

    I thought the visit to the Cretaceous era could’ve been more detailed.  Heck, we didn’t even get an answer to one of the biggest questions from that time: what color were the dinosaurs?  But perhaps too much attention to the paleontology would've blurred the storyline.

 

    Finally, be aware that there is some cussing and “adult situations”, although it’s not excessive.  I only counted nine swear words in the first 25% of the e-book, but I still wouldn’t let little Timmy or Susie read this book: you might have to answer their questions about some sexual …um… practices.

 

    8½ Stars.  I’m not little Timmy or Susie, so I enjoyed Just One Damned Thing After Another just fine.  It has lots of action, lots of wit, lots of time-traveling, the writing was top-notch, and there were enough plot twists scattered throughout the story to keep me turning the pages.  If you’re a history buff or chrono-hopping enthusiast, you'll find this book is your cup of mead.