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A review by sil_the_lobster
Escape in Time by Robyn Nyx
4.0
This is a tricky book to rate. I liked it and I disliked it, in equal measure. I couldn’t put it down and I had to take breaks from reading.
Why did I like it?
It’s got time travel. I love time travelling stories because they offer a wealth of opportunities and make for great plot twists.
The pacing of the story is perfect; it’s quick but not so quick as to make you motion-sick or to rush by without noticing the details. If this were a historical (romance) novel, I would have expected a bit more landscape and attention to detail because those were slower times, so to speak, but this is a quick world with advanced technology to make things even quicker and so I was perfectly happy with the tempo.
The world-building and science-building (can you say that?) is very well done, just enough detail to make everything come to life but not so many details to make your eyes glaze over. See above—this is not a Regency novel. I don’t need detailed explanation just how Pulsus’ time travel technology works. I was perfectly happy with the tidbits I got here. No need to go into detail.
That goes for character depth, too: there’s just enough info to make the characters come to life in your mind. (Although, now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s much of a back-story for Delaney. Maybe there is and I’ve fogotten? I remember Landry’s family story, what with going back in time and save her mother and how her father was not all he appeared to be…but Delaney? Hmmm.)
I like books that have strong female (lead) characters but do without man-bashing. No man-bashing here, luckily. Griffin is a side character but comes across likeable, determined and—as it turns out—pretty heroic, too.
I like books that take me back in time to make history come to life, even more so if the author has done her homework. I cringe when I read books set in Germany and the occasional German phrase thrown in is all off and makes me laugh rather than add authenticity. No such thing here. Ms Nyx has done her research!
(Notice there’s a lot “coming to life here”? Takes a good author to turn letters on paper into life.)
Why did I dislike it?
It’s got time travel. I hate time travelling stories because the more I think about what happens and what will happen if this happens and what did happen because of what’s happened, the more my head starts hurting. And to travel back in time to change the course of history, no matter how small? Prime directive, anyone?
I wasn’t too fond of either of the main characters who are friends with benefits and friends with angst. Now, while I don’t need a likeable character to be a trilling Disney princess, she should have a few things about her that I find likeable. Sadly, neither Landry nor Delaney have anything to offer me on that scale—I just couldn’t connect to either of them. Landry’s commitment-phobic and runs away from anything that so much smells of anything more permanent than a fling; and Delaney, whose feelings for Landry are way stronger than Landry’s feelings for her, drowns her sorrows in booze and jumps into another fuck buddy relationship with Simson, another time travel agent with a strong inclination towards the sadistic. Sigh. Over the course of the book, both Landry and Delaney fall for ‘regular’ women, i.e. neither soldier nor time travellers, but somehow these love interests stay sort of one-dimensional and I wasn’t really convinced as to why Landry comes to care for Jade so much, and why Delaney falls for Ilse. Their stories got lost somewhere along the way.
Then, there is a little too much of graphic violence. Maybe I’m getting squeamish as I’m getting older but I would have preferred the torture chambers’ doors to close mercifully.
And of course there’s the setting as such. Nazi Germany. Now, I am German and reading a book where a large part of the story is set in a concentration camp makes me want to cry because I know damn well this isn’t fiction. It’s not thought out. It’s not some distant fantasy villains taking it out on some distant fantasy peasants. These things happened for real, and no matter how detailed Robyn Nyx writes her torture and abuse scenes, she won’t even come close to what really happened to real people in my country and carried out by my people, “just following orders”.
I’d take 1.5 stars off for the graphic depictions of violence that I found too much and too often but as that’s not possible, I’m giving 4 out of 5 stars because I like the tempo, the world-building, the overall writing and the potential of the series. I know there’s a sequel coming out and I hope we’ll learn more of Pulsus, the team and the missions. Hopefully there’ll be more time travelling, hopefully there’ll be healthier relationships…and hopefully less gore and cruelty.
Why did I like it?
It’s got time travel. I love time travelling stories because they offer a wealth of opportunities and make for great plot twists.
The pacing of the story is perfect; it’s quick but not so quick as to make you motion-sick or to rush by without noticing the details. If this were a historical (romance) novel, I would have expected a bit more landscape and attention to detail because those were slower times, so to speak, but this is a quick world with advanced technology to make things even quicker and so I was perfectly happy with the tempo.
The world-building and science-building (can you say that?) is very well done, just enough detail to make everything come to life but not so many details to make your eyes glaze over. See above—this is not a Regency novel. I don’t need detailed explanation just how Pulsus’ time travel technology works. I was perfectly happy with the tidbits I got here. No need to go into detail.
That goes for character depth, too: there’s just enough info to make the characters come to life in your mind. (Although, now that I think about it, I don’t think there’s much of a back-story for Delaney. Maybe there is and I’ve fogotten? I remember Landry’s family story, what with going back in time and save her mother and how her father was not all he appeared to be…but Delaney? Hmmm.)
I like books that have strong female (lead) characters but do without man-bashing. No man-bashing here, luckily. Griffin is a side character but comes across likeable, determined and—as it turns out—pretty heroic, too.
I like books that take me back in time to make history come to life, even more so if the author has done her homework. I cringe when I read books set in Germany and the occasional German phrase thrown in is all off and makes me laugh rather than add authenticity. No such thing here. Ms Nyx has done her research!
(Notice there’s a lot “coming to life here”? Takes a good author to turn letters on paper into life.)
Why did I dislike it?
It’s got time travel. I hate time travelling stories because the more I think about what happens and what will happen if this happens and what did happen because of what’s happened, the more my head starts hurting. And to travel back in time to change the course of history, no matter how small? Prime directive, anyone?
I wasn’t too fond of either of the main characters who are friends with benefits and friends with angst. Now, while I don’t need a likeable character to be a trilling Disney princess, she should have a few things about her that I find likeable. Sadly, neither Landry nor Delaney have anything to offer me on that scale—I just couldn’t connect to either of them. Landry’s commitment-phobic and runs away from anything that so much smells of anything more permanent than a fling; and Delaney, whose feelings for Landry are way stronger than Landry’s feelings for her, drowns her sorrows in booze and jumps into another fuck buddy relationship with Simson, another time travel agent with a strong inclination towards the sadistic. Sigh. Over the course of the book, both Landry and Delaney fall for ‘regular’ women, i.e. neither soldier nor time travellers, but somehow these love interests stay sort of one-dimensional and I wasn’t really convinced as to why Landry comes to care for Jade so much, and why Delaney falls for Ilse. Their stories got lost somewhere along the way.
Then, there is a little too much of graphic violence. Maybe I’m getting squeamish as I’m getting older but I would have preferred the torture chambers’ doors to close mercifully.
And of course there’s the setting as such. Nazi Germany. Now, I am German and reading a book where a large part of the story is set in a concentration camp makes me want to cry because I know damn well this isn’t fiction. It’s not thought out. It’s not some distant fantasy villains taking it out on some distant fantasy peasants. These things happened for real, and no matter how detailed Robyn Nyx writes her torture and abuse scenes, she won’t even come close to what really happened to real people in my country and carried out by my people, “just following orders”.
I’d take 1.5 stars off for the graphic depictions of violence that I found too much and too often but as that’s not possible, I’m giving 4 out of 5 stars because I like the tempo, the world-building, the overall writing and the potential of the series. I know there’s a sequel coming out and I hope we’ll learn more of Pulsus, the team and the missions. Hopefully there’ll be more time travelling, hopefully there’ll be healthier relationships…and hopefully less gore and cruelty.