Christmas Present (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #4.5)

This is a pretty important mini-story in this series as it sees the return of two historians who have been missing and presumed dead for the last 10 years.

While I genuinely loved the story, I did have a hard time believing that NO ONE else thought to do what Max did in their search for the lost pair. 10 years and a whole lot of extremely intelligent historians, IT people and the Director himself, and not a single person thought to check the jump AFTER Jerusalem?

Not to mention theyre tagged. St. Marys employees are traceable whether dead or alive thanks to the tag under their skin. If they werent picking up the tags in that location, then wouldnt that mean they werent there?

Anyway, logic aside, if you just read the story for what it is, a light (but important!) filler between books 4 and 5, then its a touching and sweet story, with some humor thrown in. I just love this series, so while I found it hard to believe no one else thought to check the Pod Archive, I still enjoyed the story and DEFINITELY recommend it be read in order!

How do you balance the heavy subject matter of lovers lost in time, potential suicide, and imminent attack by Boudicca’s army?

Add a giant pig, of course.

This Chronicles of St. Mary’s short story plugs a hole in the narrative that is touched upon in the main books, featuring our heroes (Max, Peterson, and Markham, obviously) on a rescue mission. Christmas Eve seemed like an odd time for such an attempt, but Taylor’s deft use of (literal) deus ex machina made for (literal) perfect timing on all accounts.

Though I wouldn’t have made this story into a novel, I think there was room in the narrative for a bit more length. Or perhaps that’s because I’m happy to spend any time with these characters.

(No, I’m not going to stop making time puns in my review of this series.)

Well, I can’t really give an objective review because I’m addicted to the St. Mary’s stories and eagerly grab any new version that comes out. This is in keeping with the rest of them in terms of style and so forth, and I loved it; they only problem with it, as you’d expect, is that it’s a short story for Christmas and is only about the length of 1-2 normal chapters. It’s in the same tradition as last year’s “When a child is born,” which I also enjoyed. I like both her characters and the idea that, as a nice side effect, I learn some interesting history as well. My only negative with it as that the story costs 99 cents; not much, to be sure, and I’m happy I spent it, but I think something this short should be given away free to her fans.

This is the first St. Mary’s book I have read (or even heard of), having picked it up when it was available for free. It was a delightfully snappy romp and I’ll be checking out the others. I’m not sure whether this is the ideal entry point to the series, but it explained just enough that I was able to get a good feel for the characters and the high concept. I recommend this to anyone who likes humorous adventure stories, as well as those who enjoy the study of history and don’t mind looking at the subject with a playful eye.

(Incidentally, I have these vague memories of a TV series, probably British, which aired ‘news broadcasts’ from historical periods; this book brought back memories of that program. If anyone knows what I’m talking about, I’d love to know the name of the show.)

I’ve always enjoyed the St. Mary’s shorts that give us crumbs of their antics while we wait for the full-length novels. But usually it’s just a fun adventure with the usual humour and disasters the crew often encounter – enjoyable, yet not a necessarily needed to understand the series. This one however addresses a minor issue that has been mentioned on several occasions throughout the series and also helps set up some background info for future books, so definitely a good addition to the series.

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