Book Review
Title: Limited Wish (Impossible Times #2)
Author: Mark Lawrence
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi
Rating: *****
Review: After reading and loving One Word Kill, I could wait to jump into Limited Wish and see whether Demus’ plan actually works. Limited Wish starts with some jumping timelines, we open in June where Nick is working with a Professor at Cambridge University despite only being just 16, but we also know that between February and now, he has lost his friendship with Elton and broken up with Mia who he worked so hard to save in the first book. We then jump back to February where we learn Nick wanted to get into university early so, he could start working on inventing the headbands Demus gave him and prove time travel was real and possible. He manages to do this by crashing one of Professor Halligan’s lectures in order to talk to him, but he soon realises that his new research is incorrect and corrects it for him. At that point the Professor demanded that Nick be allowed to work with him or he would resign so Cambridge allowed it but being on the youngest people there Nick is having a hard time fitting in as we see in the opening chapter where he is rescued by 17 year old Helen for some third year students. Nick gets the same déjà vu feeling with Helen as he did with Demus when they first meet so I have a feeling she is going to be important to this book. So far, the opening of Limited Wish was great, and I can’t wait to see where Nick goes in this instalment.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Nick dries off his clothes in Helen’s accommodation and he begins talking to her about everything that has gone on with Demus even though he didn’t realise he was doing it when he suddenly remembers why Helen looks so familiar. It turns out in February, Nick saves Helen from being chased down by echoes of herself and something else that he doesn’t quite understand, while Helen sees this as a bit mad, it also happens with John on their way home and other strange things have also been happening to Nick but now there is no Demus to explain them. When he brings this up at their next D&D game, now minus Elton, everyone including Simon is very concerned for Nick and it seems like Nick has turned himself into a statistically outlier meaning there could be many more unpleasant and dangerous thing in store for Nick as time goes on. While the first book didn’t feature the dual timelines, I am rather enjoying it as it will take a bit longer for the puzzle to come together as the clues as scattered over two distinct time periods. Nick is beginning to notice more of these impossible events happening to him but every time he is saved my time fragmenting and showing him the way out. He also begins to notice that these events are more violent in nature whenever Helen is around. We get our first clue that she is just like Demus, in the fact she comes from the future by the band t-shirt others see her wearing referencing The Red-Hot Chilli Peppers and Lady Gaga which weren’t around in 1986.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, Nick is trying to pin Hellen down to try and figure out what the hell is happening when they are together and what the link is between them but she always manages to evade him by simply disappearing whenever he tries to chase her down. The next he is at Simon’s for D&D, they have a new player in the form of Sam, Mia’s new boyfriend which upsets Nick, but he doesn’t say anything. The echoes and strange things haven’t stopped happening and even Simon who has no interest in the outside world warns Nick that someone is protecting their investment and that investment is him and he should watch himself and follow the money since his project has an unknown financial backer. Nick gets even more concerned when he realises, he is begin followed but it turns out to be Demus, not the one from the first novel, but a different Demus who believes a paradox is in effect since he is missing memories that Nick has especially surrounding Helen. This means that this Demus and Nick aren’t the same person and the future Nick worked so hard to protect in the first book might be in trouble now unless they resolve the paradox. I am almost sure that Helen is the paradox since she is clearly from the future and somehow is disrupting the timeline that Nick wants to protect.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, I was enthralled by the characters and where the story was going. I also have the mention that the science presented in this novel isn’t hard to understand at all and is extremely fascinating and I hope that Mark Lawrence write more science fiction in the future since he seems to be really good at it although I will withhold my final judgement until I have completed the trilogy. Demus was right to tell Nick to listen to Simon's advice since night when he returns home, he realises that the mysterious girl was in his home and left him a book on mathematics written by none other than Lewis Carroll in 1888. However, Nick can't touch the book without receiving a massive shock, but he decides to take it to university the next day. On the train there he meets an unsavoury character called Charles Rust who seems to be working on the behalf of Miles Guilder the man backing their research. Rust explains that his job is one part to protect Nick and the other part to intimidate him and I am getting some really bad vibes off this guy as he proves he can get to Nick and anyone Nick cares about with ease. However, Nick has bigger things to worry about as one of the university boys runs him through with a sword and while it should have been a deadly blow it almost magically became a small cut but Nick is also told at the same time that his cancer has returned. This solidifies the message that the current Demus and Nick aren't same person and that they have definitely gone off course since the original Demus lived to be 40 whereas Nick might not even make 17 now.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Nick is in the hospital when he is rescued by the mysterious Eva who has been asking after him. It turns out that Eva is Nick’s daughter from another alternate timeline to Demus’ meaning that Nick himself is the paradox causing all these strange events. From what he can gather from Eva and Demus, it all centres around the May Ball, in one timeline he leaves the ball with Mia, lives 25 years until her accident where he comes back in time like the original Demus from book one. In another timeline, he leaves the ball with Helen, has Eva at 19 and dies from his cancer two years later. What they have to do now is create a time hammer and activate it at the precise moment the paradox occurs which is the evening of the ball but Nick also has to get Mia, Helen and his other friends to attend for it to work. Nick is also going to have to make the choice between the timelines at some point, but I am not sure which one he would rather choose right now. In addition to all this, he has Charles Rust, Ian’s older brother sniffing around and while Charles isn’t as crazy as his younger brother it definitely runs in the family and he wants to know what happened the night his brother was killed but Nick can’t tell him even if he wanted to because he erased those memories.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Nick knows what has to be done to repair the paradox, but it seems like absolutely nothing is going in their favour, although the universe has temporarily stopped trying to kill Nick. While he knows he has to go to the ball, Nick doesn’t feel well enough to do it but Demus and Eva break him out of the hospital again only for them to be jumped by Charles Rust, who has figured out that Nick is time travelling and the dead Demus and the current one are version of him and he is out to get revenge for the death of his brother. They manage to escape but it has thrown a spanner in the works since he needs to be dealt with in the current Nick’s timeline to prevent any problems after they unleash the time hammer. It turns out the best solution there is for Demus and Eva to jump back in time, Demus to his original point in January and re-live that timeline while Eva will jump further back to the 70’s and deal with the Rust problem. I did like that Elton made a reappearance in this novel, but still doesn’t really interact with Nick because of his ability to attract death and destruction but he still cares about his friend which is nice to see. At this point in the novel, the plot did seem really similar to that of the first book but I am hoping that the resolution will be different and provide a great opening for the last book in this series, Dispel Illusion which I will probably be reading right after I finish Limited Wish. I also really liked how the titles of the first two books somehow linked back to D&D which is something all the characters love and it makes up a huge part of the books. You don’t have to know anything about D&D in order to read these books as most of it is explained and you pick the rest up fairly easily and honestly it sounds rather fun.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, we get to see the pieces come together as Eva and Demus race to untangle their timelines while our current Nick watches from the side-lines. Their plan is interrupted as Charles Rust land a fatal blow to Demus, but he manages to complete his side of the arrangement allowing Eva to travel back through the cracks in time to where she needs to be. However, along the way she makes a small yet important change which has some amazing consequences. Ultimately Nick still has to make a choice between the two timelines, between Mia and Helen and the two lives he could lead. Despite not knowing that much about Demus’ life, his future life he chooses Mia which I had been hoping for although the introduction of Eva did make me question this. The ending of Limited Wish was great and leaves a nice opening for Dispel Illusion, I think the final book is going to focus on Mia’s future accident and where or not Demus’ efforts actually saved her but I am eager to see whether my theory is correct.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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