Book Review
Title: Dispel Illusion (Impossible Times #3)
Author: Mark Lawrence
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi
Rating: *****
Review: I read both One Word Kill and Limited Wish in less than a day, so I had to jump into the conclusion straight away. I had some theories coming into Dispel Illusion and I wanted to see if I was right about them. I was right about Nick being older in this book just not as old as I thought he was going to be, when we re-join the group Nick is 22 and still working on the same project from Limited Wish only there has been a time explosion and Guilder is currently running a cover up on it so the information doesn’t get out. I was surprised that the group still meet for D&D despite having gone to university and starting their own careers now but guess it shows how strong these friendships are. While we are being reintroduced to the group, Nick gets a phone call from Dr. Creed letting him know they have made a breakthrough, obviously he rushes down to see what it is with Mia and John in tow. It turns out that Creed has managed to send Dr. Halligan into the future, only to the following morning but they have done it. However, Nick knows with their current power output it shouldn’t even be possible and it turns out Guilder insisted on it since he is dying now but all Nick can do is run the number and hope Dr. Halligan returns safety and in one piece.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Dr. Halligan does return safely although he is over a minute later than they expected, we then get to witness one of the most amusing groundhog moments I have ever read. John who was fiddling with an old helmet in the lab is the only one not affected by Halligan’s return which sets off a five minute loop where time continually resets itself and it is left to John to get Nick to break it and while they eventually do, it does make us realise the implications of what Guilder is doing with his impossible timeframe. We also get a dual timeline in this book split between 1992 and 2011. That year is significant as it is the year that Mia has her accident as we see Nick has developed quite a lot of resentment towards Demus and the way he let things play out. Nick was hoping to make through the year and prove to himself that he isn’t Demus and at some point, their timelines split but he is then informed of Mia’s accident. Back in 1992, we get to see why Guilder is pushing the group so hard because he wants to travel forward to a time where he can be cured, however, he discovered in a cave over a hundred naked time travellers, at first I thought they were statues but since two of them, the last two are Mia and Nick were know these 107 people are travelling back in time and these statues are the frozen images of themselves but Nick has no idea why or how they are there. Guilder wants the answers to these questions quickly as he only has six months left at most, but it is completely baffling even to a genius like Nick.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, we are back in 2011, where Mia was in a car accident, but it wasn’t anywhere near as fatal as Demus described as there is only the possibility, she has broken her arm. Yet, the Nick there is concerned they are being followed by someone possibly through time and they have to make a break for it while they still can. Back in 1992, Nick has figured out what the statues are and what they are doing there, he also knows why he and Mia are the last ones in the line as he knows about the barrier that can cut time travel off in both directions which is exactly what Guilder doesn’t want to happen and it seems like he has seen Rust to kill Nick. He manages to escape through the tunnel and is trying to get back home to warn Mia of the danger they might be in. However, we can see strange things happening again, first in their D&D games where a character called Boris appears and Nick doesn’t remember him but the others insist he has been a part of their game for years and the appearance of a black Land Rover, very similar to the one the second Demus was driving in the previous novel. We then jump to a different time period of 2007, and to me it seems like the different timelines we have been presented with in 1986, 1992, 2007 and 2011 might all be converging for some reason allowing things and people that weren’t present in one timeline to sudden appear without branching off into new timelines which might just be causing a new paradox even larger than that one Eva and Demus had to fix in Limited Wish.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, we learn from Nick in 2007 that Guilder did go forward in time and Nick made it his mission to destroy everything Guilder left behind even taking the land where the cave is for himself. There he builds a house with Mia and begins sending people to the past where the time trials can be fulfilled and vanish from the world. All this is going smoothly until one day a man who is one of the statues Nick finds in 1992, is unsure of whether he actually wants to go back. This is dangerous as it could split a new timeline and cause a paradox since Nick has known since 1992 that this man does travel back through time. However, we don’t get to see the consequence of this action or what Nick does about as we are returned to 1992. With several different timelines now in play, things were getting a little confusing to follow but essentially Nick learns from Anna, a woman Demus sent back that Guilder and Rust are heading into the future tomorrow which they do since the 2007 Nick knows they have gone but not when or where. However, there is something very strange at work as Nick in 1992 refuses to believe that Boris is a character in their D&D games and we the reader can support that as true and yet everything he tries to prove Boris is an illusion, it only makes him appear more real than before and even we are questioning now whether Nick now what truly is the present. We also get another timeline from 2009 thrown into the mix and at this point I honestly had no clue where Lawrence was taking this story.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, before Nick and Mia started spending people to the past, they found a skeleton and as the passengers begin to arrive, they try and uncover who it is. It turns out to be a young hacker called Sam, who they send to the past but inadvertently kill as Nick forgets that Guilder found the cave in November 1991 not in 1992 meaning when Sam arrived back in the cave in December of 1991 he would have been trapped with no way out. Even knowing this it does seem to affect Mia and Nick much since another one of the passenger Ellery dies, not due to them but because he decides not to take his time trial and the universe kills him off the same way it tried to do to Nick. Back in the 2010, the time is drawing close for Mia’s accident and Nick decides to send her a year into the future so she will emerge at the dawn of 2012, safe and sound. However, during that time someone erects a barrier that prevents Nick from travelling back and stops everyone else travelling forward meaning Mia is still in danger. Nick also knows that is Guilder is affected Rust will be coming after them even though there is nothing Nick can do and nothing, he could say to Rust to convince him of that. That is exactly what happens as Rust tracks the couple down and plans to use Mia to make Nick do his bidding, but it turns out Demus lied as there was no accident only Rust caving Mia’s head in. However, at the last moment when even Nick had given up all hope of saving Mia, his mother arrives and shoved a bloody pitchfork through Rust explaining to Nick that he asked her to come back to that moment and save his life and she did what any mother would do.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, we see Nick’s story come almost full circle as Mia does have an accident, not because of Rust but being hit by an old lady while trying to help Nick into their car after being released from the hospital. In the days after the accident, Nick realises that there was never any doubt about him going back to 1986 and anything he told himself against that fact was just lies. Nick doesn’t go immediately as he has to find the person responsible for the barrier and get them to bring it down which he does but he also instructs Elias to keep it down for a week and then put it back up forever, ensuring that even if Mia recovers she can’t follow him into the past, plus he knows the barrier will keep Mia safe from the paradox effects. We then get to experience most of the first book again but this time through the older Nick’s or Demus’ perspective and given everything we know that has happened and everything we know about the characters, this held so much emotional weight that it made me want to cry. However, during this time Nick gets an idea, one that hinges of lies but he thinks he might just be able to right some of the wrongs in his past without fracturing the timeline causing it to split into a new one. We then jump back to 1992, where we see the gain playing D&D and arguing over how real Boris is, it soon comes to light that even though Elton hasn’t been an active member of the group for years he has been helping Mia with the story he began as the Dungeon Master and it all comes full circle before we jump back yet again to 1986 where the future Nick is waiting to carry out Demus’ plan all over again to save Mia.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, I had no idea how the book was going to end but there were a few things I was hoping for. I honestly can’t talk about the final section of Dispel Illusion as we see so many minor and major plot lines coming together seamlessly, in ways not even I could imagine. I have to save that Mark Lawrence’s writing was outstanding and his character work was sublime, if his other series are like this one then I have no doubt in my mind that I am going to absolutely love them. I have been repeatedly recommended the Ancestor trilogy starting with Red Sister and that is going to be the next work I pick up by Mark Lawrence but it probably won’t be for a little while as I have quite a few blog tours coming up in October including Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco which need to be read as soon as possible. Overall, this was a solid 5-star book and a 5-star series for me and I highly recommend you check it out even if you aren’t a fan of Lawrence’s fantasy books, the Impossible Times series is something else entirely.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kommentare