Limited Wish by Mark Lawrence – A Book Review

Blurb:

One choice. Two possible timelines. And a world hanging in the balance.

It’s the summer of 1986 and reluctant prodigy Nick Hayes is a student at Cambridge University, working with world-renowned mathematician Professor Halligan. He just wants to be a regular student, but regular isn’t really an option for a boy-genius cancer survivor who’s already dabbled in time travel.

When he crosses paths with a mysterious yet curiously familiar girl, Nick discovers that creases have appeared in the fabric of time, and that he is at the centre of the disruption. Only Nick can resolve this time paradox before the damage becomes catastrophic for both him and the future of the world. Time is running out—literally.

Wrapped up with him in this potentially apocalyptic scenario are his ex-girlfriend, Mia, and fellow student Helen. Facing the world-ending chaos of a split in time, Nick must act fast and make the choice of a lifetime—or lifetimes.

Game on.

 

Author: Mark Lawrence

Publisher: 47north

Release Date: 28/05/2019

Pages: 222

My Rating of ‘Limited Wish’: 5 out of 5

My chosen Format: Kindle

Purchase: Amazon UK, Amazon US

 

Review:

Much like Mark Lawrence’s ‘Book of the Ancestor’ trilogy … this is fast becoming one of my favourite trilogies. Maybe it’s a Lawrence thing? I’m curious if anyone ever challenged Mark to make maths cool, and if they did just how quickly they ate their words. Because Mark Lawrence has made maths cool.

‘Limited Wish’ starts of shortly after ‘One Word Kill’ ended and sees Nick, prodigy that he is, skipping the rest of school and being fast-tracked straight into college to work with a professor that is considered the rock star of the maths world.

There is no second book syndrome, something I would not associate with Mark Lawrence, anyway. Instead, we get a whole new depth to the characters already solidified in ‘One Word Kill’ and a few new faces that you can’t help but to love/hate in ‘Limited Wish’. I think if the series was viewed as a race, Simon would just have his nose out in front as far as my favourite character goes. Some of the things he comes out with are hilarious. Not that he would know it, of course.

The science/maths behind the time travel is delved into a little deeper, but nothing too deep and murky as to put a reader off or break the flow in the narrative. It wasn’t even that much of a struggle to keep up with all the time and paradox-related happenings. And there are a lot of them. You need to keep your attention on the book because, as easy as it is to keep up, it will run away from you if you don’t keep an eye on it. You’ll not find it hard to keep your attention firmly locked on this as it is so addictive. I love first-person narrative and Lawrence has done it superbly.

There was only one slight gripe I had and it was so slight that I didn’t let it hurt the star rating. At one point a character mentions how radiation ‘killed’ their phone. A few pages later they are happily using said phone to have a chat. I might be being too picky or I may have read it wrong, either way, it didn’t upset me anywhere near enough for this awesome book to not earn a 5-star rating.

I can’t wait to get stuck into the third book and wish this trilogy would get made into a TV series. It would work so well.