Jennifer Lee Rossman

This is one of those books that you have to just give yourself up to. It's an unusual story, told in an unusual way but if you let that put you off, then you'll miss out on the fun.

The writing style is so energetic and enthusiastic that it just rolls right over some of the rules of grammar that might otherwise have slowed it down. It reminded me of the quote about Gladstone being 'inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity'. The thing is, it works. The same way that spinning a show more plate on a stick works - energy stops it from falling but you're always waiting for it to crash.

The plot is a dizzying ride that manages to balance on the edge of being too chaotic to follow. This is a story for readers who are well-versed in time travel stories. Much of the humour comes from our eighteen-year-old heroine constantly referencing famous time travel plots and Science Fiction tropes as she tries to figure out what's going on and who she should believe.

The reader is kept off balance by the fast pace, some very unlikely events and a self-declared time traveler from the future who speaks English in a way that suggests he was raised by stern grammarians with a predilection for polysyllabic verbosity. It's all great fun, until people start dying.

A major feature of this book is that it had a very surprising twist before the end. I won't say what it was but I liked it, It made me rethink everything I thought I knew but didn't leave me feeling cheated.

'Anachronism' is original and brave and occasionally a little ragged at the edges but its energy more than makes up for that. show less

I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I'm sorry to say I was very disappointed in this book. It had a lot of promise, but really, really needed looking at by a better editor. The writing was all over the place. There were sections that were well-written and seemed to work well within the plot, but there were oh-so many tangents that led nowhere and pieces of sloppy writing that the editor should have picked up on.

The worst part for me, was an early segment in show more which the main character was talking with a market trader. During this segment - a few pages - the author point blank refused to assign a gender and corresponding pronoun to said trader. The result was that this person was referred to as "they" the entire time.
Now I am fully aware that the assuming of people's gender thing is a big issue at the moment, and possibly the author was trying to comment on that in some way, but the result was the most irritating few pages I have ever forced myself to read. There is a reason we use gender and pronouns. It makes reading/speaking easier, for both parties involved. Without them, the text does not flow, the mental images will not form, and the story falls flat. Dead. Kaput.

It took a lot for me to continue reading after that.

But all that aside, the ideas are definitely there, and there were definite signs of writing talent amongst the chaff, so hopefully, with more experience and a better editor, future books by this author will be well worth reading.

1.5 stars. show less

I really enjoyed a lot of parts of this book and other parts I really disliked.
Likes-
*creative premise and interesting characters- The characters are so original and I loved finding out about their talents and skills. I was totally surprised by a couple of revelations about a few characters towards the end.
Dislikes-
*uneven pacing- Some parts I was very into and then suddenly I find myself in a new setting and I don't know how they got there or when it is. For example, I'm reading about show more the MC being on a certain planet and then a new scene starts and they are now on the MC's home planet with no lead in to why, how, or when they got there. I think it just needs some more editing.
*random discussions or comments about character's gender and sexual orientation and habits. It wasn't worked into the storyline but rather felt like the parts were just inserted to be politically correct. These references could have been removed and the plot wouldn't have been affected at all.

(I received a free ebook copy in exchange for my honest review.) show less

This was a pretty intense book. I had to read it twice to get all the details, and shall probably read it again because I think there is still more in there for me to discover. Well worth the time and loads of fun to boot!