And The Rest Is History - Jodi Taylor

   2016; 432 pages.  Book 8 (out of 14) in the series “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s”.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; British Humor; Historical Adventure.  Overall Rating: 9½*/10.

 

    Clive Ronan is the biggest enemy that the Historians at St. Mary’s (don’t call them time-travelers!) have.  He routinely jumps through the security measures of St. Mary’s as if they weren’t even there.  And today is no exception.

 

    He apparently knows what jogging path his archenemy Dr. Maxwell (“Max”) uses, and has plopped himself on it.  Clive meets her as she comes trotting along, and has a surprising proposal for her: how about a truce?

 

    Naturally, Max is leery of it.  Neither one trusts the other, and both have good reason not to.  But she agrees to meet in a very open place of Clive’s choosing.  Namely, the Egyptian desert, 25 centuries in the past.  What’s the worst that could happen?

 

    Well, either party could arrange a double-cross.  Saharan desert storms can be killers.  The Time Police, who don’t particularly like St. Mary’s or Clive, could try killing two birds with one stone.  And the anthropomorphic muse called “History” might override everyone else’s plans in order to keep the correct timeline unchanged.  And you really, really don’t want to mess with History.

 

    But don’t call it Time Travel.

 

What’s To Like...

    And The Rest Is History is the eighth book in the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor.  To no one’s surprise, the hastily arranged meeting betwixt Max and Clive runs amok immediately.  Clive feels that Max set him up, and vows revenge.  And if you’re reading this series in order (which I am), you know an angry Clive is a dangerous Clive.

 

    There is a pleasant balance of time travel and personal interaction ion the storyline.  Various St. Mary’s employees are in various relationships with coworkers, which can be a hazardous situation when you’re traipsing all over the historical timeline.  I like how Clive’s character is being developed; his “all black” persona is starting to turn just a bit “gray”.

 

    Once again, Jodi Taylor doesn’t skimp on the time-traveling.  The reader is treated to eight chrono-hops, including one to the future, one by others to St. Mary's, and several of them chronicling events leading up to the historically crucial Battle of Hastings in 1066 CE.  Yes, this is fiction, but it’s obvious the author did some deep research of the lives and aspirations of both Harold Godwinson and William of Normandy, and I learned a lot because of that.

 

    And The Rest Is History introduces three new characters to the series.  The first is Max and Leon’s son, Matthew.  The storyline hints that since he was born at an impossible time (due to his time-traveling parents) he has some very unusual talents.  Then there’s Adrian & Mikey, who reminded me muchly of Bill & Ted from their most excellent adventure movie.  They make only a cameo appearance here, but I have a feeling all three of these will play important and recurring parts in this series.

 

    The ending is, as always, exciting, historically enlightening, and spine-tingling.  St. Mary’s and the Time Police, who tolerate each other grudgingly at best, are forced to team up to carry out a rescue endeavor which turns out to be quite a gory affair.  Once the crisis is resolved, both agencies are more than happy to get back to their normal bickering and feuding.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 5,774 ratings and 476 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.44*/5, based on 9,083 ratings and 687 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty person?”

    I said, “Well, it depends where you are at the time.  The Technical Section will say never mind whether it’s half empty or half full, the glass was obviously too big in the first place.  Dr. Dowson will tell you it’s not contemporary to the time period and you should be using a goblet.  The History Department will enquire what bloody glass?  The Security Section will be gloomily surveying the broken shards on the floor, and Mrs. Mack will just tell you to get out of her kitchen.”  (pg. 111)

 

    It takes a lot to catch St. Mary’s off balance.  Over the years, we’ve been attacked, blown up, gassed — several times actually, because Professor Rapson just can’t work out where he’s going wrong — mobbed by swans, crushed and drowned by a runaway monolith, the list is long and we’ve risen above all of it.  We’re St. Mary’s, we say, and our proud boast is that we can handle anything, and that’s true, but you can imagine my surprise and consternation when, out of the blue, a bloody great teapot materialised.  Right in front of us.  Right in the middle of the South Lawn and flattening a croquet hoop at the same time.  (pg. 325)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Firkled (v.) : searched; rummaged

 

I’ve been at St. Mary’s long enough for the kookaburra of caution to hover over my head occasionally.  (pg. 352)

    The cussing in And The Rest Is History is negligible.  There were only three instances in the first 25% of the book, all of them “hell”.  Later on a couple more profanities were used, mostly the scatological word.

 

    As always, I greatly appreciated Jodi Taylor’s inclusion of a Dramatis Thingummy.  Here, however, it felt like the list of “Security Department” personnel was for some reason omitted.  The spelling typos were few: see/seen, though/thought, and, incredibly, Ort cloud/Oort cloud.  Punctuation typos were more numerous: at least one missing comma, one missing period, and a slew of missing “close quotation marks”.

 

    But these be quibbles.  And The Rest Is History was sheer delight to read, and fully deserving of those lofty Amazon and Goodreads ratings listed above.  The series shows no sign of succumbing to the “let’s just crank another one out” syndrome, I’m so wrapped up in this set of stories, I haven’t even had time to explore Jodi Taylor’s related series: “The Time Police” (5 books) and the “Frogmorton Farm” series (2 books).

 

    9½ Stars.  Acronym Appreciation Moment.  On page 317, the acronym SPOHB is used, which is short for Society for Preservation of Historical Buildings.  Shortly thereafter, the acronym BDSM is used, causing everyone at St. Mary’s to get all excited.  It turns out it stands for… well, we’ll let you read the book to find out, but its not what you think.