Eva St. John

St. John, Eva. The Quantum Curators and the Missing Codex. Quantum Curators No. 3. Kindle, 2021.
Missing Codex is a good wrap up for this slight but entertaining trilogy. The stakes are raised in Alpha Egypt, a city in a universe that took out Julius Caesar early, and left Egypt as a world power that lasted into the 21st century. Somewhere there is a missing document by an alternate DaVinci that explains how to hop between elements of the multiverse without a bunch of cumbersome machinery. show more Some nefarious types may already know how to do it. Can a kidnapped curator from something like our own Cambridge U survive long enough to help solve the mystery? Is it a derivative premise? Yep. Is it fun anyway? Yep. 3.5 stars. show less

St. John, Eva. The Quantum Curators and the Fabergé Egg. Quantum Curators No. 1. Mudlark Press, 2020.
What we have here is an alternate worlds romantic caper fantasy. That is a mouthful, and I am sorry. Think The Librarians series meets the historians of St. Mary’s series, and you will be about right. In fact, there is a Fabergé egg hunt in one episode of The Librarians TV series. Homage happens. We live on Beta Earth. On Alpha Earth Julius Caesar drowned before he could conquer Egypt. In show more the 21st century, Alpha Egypt has time travel and an enlightened Pharaoh. They raid Beta Earth to retrieve artifacts that would otherwise be lost. Neith is a time-traveling curator from Alpha Earth who gets involved with Julius, an archivist from Beta Earth’s Cambridge U. There is, of course, a meet-cute and the two join forces to find a missing Fabergé egg. Adventure and humor happen. It is an enjoyable popcorn read. 3.5 stars. show less

I really am enjoying this series. A lot of people said it was just a copy of what Jodi Taylor was doing with her St. Mary's series (which I love btw), but this book really proved that wrong. The two series are quite different. This one focuses much more on an internal mystery on the alternative earth known as the Alpha Earth (as opposed to the earth we know, which they refer to as Beta). Despite believing themselves to be above the unevolved primitive flaws of our earth, such as greed, show more jealousy, corruption, and so on, it appears that Alpha version of Earth is more like us than they thought.

In the first book, a mystery began... one that left some of the main characters wondering who sabotaged the mission they had been sent on... to rescue a rare Faberge egg from destruction and bring it back to Alpha for display and preservation. When things started going wrong, the quantum curator team began looking at each other, trying to figure out if one of them had done what seemed almost inconceivable... become a traitor! The first book ended dramatically, with Julius Strathclyde. a Beta earth academic pulled through into Alpha world by Neith, one of the top quantum curators.

This book carries on with that storyline and opens with Julius working his way through courses and classes and simulations to attempt to become a quantum curator himself. He has some advantages, as he and Neith ended up trading certain parts of themselves when they came through the "stepper" that allows them to travel between the two parallel earths. But in other ways he struggles with a world so different than his own. And due to the fact that he is from Beta, he's able to recognize and identify corruption happening much more easily than the others, who can't seem to believe that anyone on Alpha would be so crass as to actually sell off rare Beta artifacts to private collectors to enrich themselves. Greed and selfishness are just not concepts they feel open to accepting, but it's clear that something is happening and together they need to figure out what. Meanwhile, they have no idea who can or cannot be trusted, which makes the book quite fun to read, as you are trying to figure out who the bad guys are and what is going on.

As the team members come to accept the idea that there are some corrupt people in power, it opens a can of worms that makes them question all kinds of things they hadn't considered before... lost teams that they had assumed were the result of accidents are suddenly since in a more sinister light, especially when Neith and Julius find themselves almost becoming such a statistic themselves.

I'm really looking forward to the third book, especially in light of a few things revealed at the end of this book! show less

I wasn't sure at first if this was going to be sort of a copy of Jodi Taylor's St. Mary books, but the more I got into it, the less similar it became. In this book, the Quantum Curators are sent back to retrieve things for the Library of Alexandria. It's a little more cutthroat, with the teams being more skilled in combat and espionage, as well as having far more advanced surveillance tech. They aren't travelling to the past of their own world, but a Beta world, which is less technologically show more advanced, and whose history diverges. There is more science and thriller aspects, whereas the Jodi Taylor books are a little more cozy and humourus, imo. I like both styles. Jodi Taylor's St. Mary books are favourites, and they are why I looked for other time travel books, and came across this one. I'm glad I took a chance. I enjoyed it and as it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger in terms of trying to figure out who the real villain or villains actually are that were trying to sabotage the team, I am really looking forward to getting the next book and reading it! I think if you take this series on its own and allow that despite some similarities, it's actually quite a different world that Eva St. John has created for her Quantum Curators, that you will enjoy it. I found it creative and it kept me guessing constantly with all the twists and turns towards the end. Recommended! show less