Nocturnal Book Reviews

This is all my fault, ladies and gents.

Somehow, when I read the description on Netgalley, all I could see was that this was the book about time travel. Woohoo! I love time travel books. Well, what I failed to notice was that it was a collection of short stories from Kage Baker.

I hate short stories with a passion, that's why I avoid anthologies and rarely review novellas. There is just never enough time to immerse yourself into the story and fall in love with the characters.

In this case all the stories were connected to The Company which dabbled into time travel among other wonderful inventions. However there was very little actual time travel involved, and really the stories were pretty dry and reminded me of Gordon Dahlquist's style (although the latter is a much better writer).



The only story I enjoyed and appreciated was The Women of Nell Gwynne's. All the heroines were prostitutes employed by The Company, who were stuck in the castle trying to prevent a major invention being sold abroad. One of them - Lady Beatrice, was the most striking heroine, and I instantly fell in love with her spirit and her brazen red dresses.

Otherwise, this is not the most entertaining book, and I'm hesitant to recommend it to anyone who isn't a loyal fan of Kage Baker's works.