Limited Wish wasn’t quite as enjoyable to me as One Word Kill but it still carries some of the same magic I found in the first book. There is a paradox as two possible time lines are too close together and our Nick seems to be in both of them. He is the key to fixing things but since he is also the source of the paradox the universe is trying to kill him.

Nick and company are great again. I really like how most of this group of friends sticks together through thick and thin. Even Nick going off to university early is not going to mess up the Saturday D&D game, although the new Paladin might. Sam is Mia’s new boyfriend, yes you heard that right Mia has a new boyfriend and she invited him to the D&D game. I guess when the universe tells you, you’re going to be with a certain person sometimes you still fight it.
But now, it’s like… It’s like me and Mia are fated to be together. It’s like there’s no choice and we know where we’re heading.’
‘Pressure, dude!’
John always said ‘dude’ as if he were trying it on for size. But he was right. Romance and love can endure external pressure to end them. Being told no just made Romeo and Juliet get serious. But those emotions don’t do so well if that pressure is trying to make them happen instead of trying to make them stop. It’s like having a gun to your head and being told to laugh convincingly at a joke or you get a bullet.

So Nick is dealing with University, the girl he is supposed to be with fighting it, another girl who looks familiar popping up at strange times, a bully or two at school and just to round it all out a do-gooder Paladin.

The struggle I had with this book is that the tie in to the D&D game didn’t go along quite for me. Also, the dueling time lines starting to get a little confusing. The impending paradox and everything that entailed along with some of the other events like busting into a Nuclear Power plant did seemed a bit far out there too. But it was all entertaining, even if I possibly over thought some things.

Eva was a great character addition to the story and I was happy to see Demus again. I did like how this all hinged on Nick being in the right place at the right time to do ‘something’ to set both timelines right again
‘Hope,’ said Demus, ‘is an essential tool in any torturer’s kit bag. Hope is the thing that we will torture ourselves with after he’s knocked off and gone home for the night. That, sadly, is one of the lessons standing between you and me.’

One Word Kill had more of a Stranger things vibe to it. Still a decent second book to a series and enjoyable, but didn’t quite hold my attention as much. Looking forward to seeing what other time shenanigans our questing party will have in the next book of the series.

I received an arc from Netgalley. This does not affect my unbiased review of the book.

Nick Haye's mathematical ability has wowed Oxford and vaulted him into helping with a  series of experiments that may be the answer to his time traveling questions... but there's a problem. Ok, several problems. Echos in time, stray energy, temporal resonances, and PARADOXES! Possibly brought on by Helen, a new character who helps him out of a tight situation...running from some jerky, older Oxford dorks... coincidences become fate.

Will the "spanners in the works" mess up the ‘Save Mia’ plan... Chased by a government agent with past issues and rippling, mind-bending time loops, it’s up to Nick's friends and Demus and Mia and Helen and others to help him sort it out.

More D&D. More maths, More... I certainly liked One Word Kill, but I loved Limited Wish. The second book seems more introspective than the first; it concentrates mostly on Nick's timeline and honestly, more of the things that I found enjoyable in the first book. He now has the main goal of discovering time travel, yet there are several factors that may get in way, including most importantly, his health. Two things to love about his characterization: Lawrence's description of Nick's manipulation of numbers was an excellent way to help the uninitiated understand a sliver of the process. Nick's awkwardness in the face of infatuation, flirting, and love is heartbreakingly realistic. 

D&D. There's a big shift with Elton dropping out of the narrative and the friendship group. Mia takes over the task of DM, and the quest takes on a more symbolic twist on the story running in the forefront of Limited Wish... and when you get to the origin of the title, it is an awesome piece that links several threads together. Fun Stuff!

Note: A Mandlebrot reference made me happy... not that understand any of his work, but I read Ziemska's novella Mandelbrot the Magnificent last month and loved it. (Review can be found here: Mandelbrot the Magnificent: A Novella by Liz Ziemska)

I highly recommend this series and am eagerly waiting for the 3rd installment. 

4.5 out of 5 stars.

Following on from One Word Kill (so if you haven't read that go and avoid any people-who-survived type spoilers!!), Nick Hayes, 16-year-old mathematics genius, now knows that he has about 25 years to invent time travel before coming back to meet himself last month. So, he decides it's time to stop pretending to be 'normal' and accept early admission to a posh University filled with upper class nobs, where he can try to dumb down his explanations to his new maths professor. He also has to try to reclaim the girl that he was trying to save in the first book, but who is understandably a little freaked out by all the 'destiny' with their relationship.

Much as I enjoyed OWK, it didn't quite hit all the buttons I would have hoped for. Still, I was looking forward to this sequel to see where the story would go. And I was not disappointed! In fact, LW is the story getting much more into its stride, and as a result I enjoyed it even more.

Time travel has always been one of my favourite plots in speculative fiction, and I very much like how it's handled here. The characters feel a lot more grown up, too, despite the passing of mere months. And with different expectations after book one, the gentle nods towards the 'period' (hey - I lived through it, it's not exactly the Victorian age!!) made me smile rather than being disappointingly light. There is a great deal of amusement, I thought, from the mention of modern band names and how nonsensical they would be in the 1980s - Lady Gaga? Red Hot Chilli Peppers? Fnarf.

I also loved the way the D&D game reflects the events in real life for the kids, without being overly forced. This takes a while to show up, as in the first book, but is a nice little touch.

Recommended, and bring on the third installment already!

Well, even I don't understand D&D references used in this story, Mark Lawrence kept a compelling storyline than One Word Kill. The characters here are mature and more of the time traveling references than the first book.

This was a wonderfully fun read.
I love this series and am a huge fan of Mark Lawrence anyway and i enjoyed his trademark humor in this.

This story done so well it feels almost real in a way and is a refreshing change from much of what else is on the market at the moment.

Big fan, can't wait to read the finale

This book is a follow up to 'One Word Kill' and that book should definitely be read first to understand this book. While the author does give a helpful recap of OWK, it in no way replaces the full experience of the first volume of this planned trilogy.

I described OWK as Stranger Things meets Terminator 2, and many of the themes continue into this book. The first book introduced the overall arc and the mechanics of time travel. This entry into the series focuses more on one of the primary problems with time travel: paradoxes and multiple universes/timelines/realities. Between this book and Avengers Endgame, my head is spinning with trying to wrap my head around how it all works. Without delving into too many spoilers, it also has a great look into the Butterfly Effect and how small choices affect the future.

My best advice? Enjoy the ride and don't think on the mechanics of time travel too hard... That's generally a good rule of thumb for time travel. Mr. Lawrence does a great job of explaining it all, but it's best to just live in the moment.

The book is extremely well-written, combining Dungeons and Dragons scenes, "normal" teenage experiences, time travel, action/heist sequences, and the experiences of a cancer patient. Those all don't seem to go well together, but in this book, it does.

I definitely recommend this book and series to anyone. While it is marketed as YA fiction, there's enough there that can be enjoyed by teens and adults alike. I'm currently hoping I Can develop time travel to get to the last book in the series even faster.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC for me to review.

More time travelling and physics in the second book in this fun and mind bending series from Mark Lawrence. I will say that it is pretty essential to read the first book, One Word Kill , before tackling this one, as otherwise The reader would be pretty lost. Once again our group of D&D playing friends must complete a risky heist , this time to repair a fracture in the time lines that is causing ripples and trying to kill our protagonist in a series of increasingly unlikely ways. Once again there is a good blend of action and humour to hold my interest as a reader. This was a fun book, and I am thankful to the publisher for my copy supplied via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I read both of mark lawerance's new books in this series courtesy of herbalist and really enjoyed them! Such a great author.

5×10ⁿ STARS! This book will make you go round and round and round in a never-ending loop of paradox...and fall down dead; a “head-twister” is what I like to call it :)

“Time heals all wounds.” Sam offered the old cliché.
“Time causes a lot of them, too.”

J.D. Salinger wrote, “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” but when it does, it's an author who feels fabulously familiar, who understands you in a wondrous way, who you know you would have the most terrific talk with...and every time, every time, I turn the last page of a book by Mark Lawrence, that wish descends upon me like a vicious falcon, that cunning cruel creature, would upon its vulnerable prey.

Limited Wish is the best sequel One Word Kill I, this mulish maniacal meretricious mortal who would read anything the malefic munificent meritorious Mark would write—even pure poignant poetry (which he actually has and which are azure, ardent, and amazing), could have hoped for!
(Note: did I seriously just do that??)

“We humans care about what is, about what’s in front of us. Untouchable realities are too academic. If a man is starving to death on our street we empty the larder to feed him. Move him to a country a thousand miles away and our compassion shrinks a hundredfold.”

With his exquisite, flowing, and memorable writing that utterly traps you in its tale, throwing away the key (yay I stopped doing it!), and his glamorous gratifying grasp on anything from love, cancer, and humanity, to mathematics, physics, and paradox, and his incredible ingenious imagination to shape a singular strong story (nope...didn't stop), and with his tremendous talent in teaching to simplify the most complex concepts, Mark Lawrence has created magic in this book—more than ever before!

And I know that is a paragraph of praise, but it's true.

“A good mathematical proof is a gem. It sparkles in the same way, and like a diamond it’s impervious to time. It takes and multiplies the light of understanding, refracting it through many facets.”

There is the likely possiblity that this book might give you a headache, but in a good way! One Word Kill was much simpler and stood as an introduction to accustom the reader to the concept, aiming to explore its more complicated and fascinating side in the sequel(s); and thus there is more science in Limited Wish, and it's a unique book to truly challenge your mind, but you shouldn't worry—the author makes it all impossibly easy!

As Jane Austen said, “if a book is well written, I always find it too short.” and in this case it is too short :(
So I strongly suggest you pre-order it right now, because you are in for a ride unlike anything before.

The nostalgic fun continues in LIMITED WISH, the second book in the Impossible Times series by Mark Lawrence. The main character, Nick, has a lot on his plate: recovering from his recent bout with leukemia, falling for a girl but her dating someone else, and finding out that he is a time traveler in the future because his future self has visited him. Now Nick discovers there are multiple timelines and his head is spinning over which timeline is the right one. On top of it all, he has started research work at Cambridge and that quickly becomes complicated. Girls, physical recovery, time travel, friends, potential universe-shattering paradoxes. Nick has to balance it all and decide what are the right choices for him.
I really like how Lawrence has built the world that Nick lives in. Being in the 1980's brings back pleasant memories and having Nick still yearn to be a kid at heart by placing his weekly D&D game at the same level of importance to him as everything else. Nick is such a relatable and likeable character, through his struggles and successes, his awkwardness and bravery, and his sheer curiosity, the reader sees a teenager that we all once were. And all of the supporting characters are well developed and fun too. The action pleasantly builds to the climax of the book and there are some good twists along the way. Excited up until the end, the book also leaves a cliffhanger big enough that the reader is yearning to get their hands on the next book.
LIMITED WISH is not overly complex or epic in style, but it is loaded with exhilarating actions, endearing moments, and entertaining banter. I'm looking forward to the next Impossible Times book.

Limited Wish picks a few months after the ending of One Word Kill. Nick goes to Cambridge University where he impresses everyone with his almost preternatural mathematical skills. In the meantime he has to deal with the Universe willing to kill him (by all means necessary, Leukemia included), girls (yep, plural), D&D sessions and guests from the future.

Problems faced by friends during D&D sessions translate into real life decisions and titular spell Limited Wish has an interesting concept I’ll let you discover on your own.

I always loved mathematics and Lawrence shows it beauty without delving into complicated equations. Highly appreciated.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the ARC copy of Limited Wish!

So often book fall prey to second book syndrome, where the book really feels less like a book in its own right and more a transition between books one and three. This book did almost the exact opposite. In fact, it solidified Mark Lawrence as one of my favorite authors of the year.

This book takes all of the elements of One Word Kill that I loved and built on them, all while telling a new and intriguing story in this trilogy. It gives just enough to leave me wanting more while also wrapping up this chapter of Nick’s story without me having too many unanswered questions.

The. Writing. I’m the type of reader that cannot get into books with flowery prose, the type that feels like the author is trying too hard to show the reader how many big words they know. Lawrence has a simplicity to his writing in the best way possible. When he needs to get technical with the physics of time travel, he gets technical, but it never feels forced or unnatural. And it’s easy to follow even the more complex elements. I devoured this book because it was so easy to get into the flow of the story with the fluidity of the narrative.

I also really enjoyed how the old characters from the first book were developed more, while adding some awesome new characters. Eva’s my new favorite okay? Okay. She’s a total badass and I’d protect her with my whole life.

I cannot wait to see how this series ends! Luckily it sounds like I won’t have to wait too long!

Two books into this series, and I'm impressed by the courage of Mark Lawrence.  Having a story with time travel and parallel stories, I admire that he made a decision at the end, just like Life requires.

I've read a few stories like this, with a character's decisions causing changes in the future... in a way every story has this, as our actions change what happens next, but most stories don't discuss that in the story itself.  Stories with time travel tend to need that discussion though, at some point.

Without spoiling the story, the end of the book is foreshadowed and the main character will have to make a decision.  The effects of that decision will influence the future of everyone we've started caring about in this series.  I anticipated that Lawrence would chicken-out and have the decision either a) not matter, or b) be decided by the Universe.

To my surprise and happiness, this failure to commit didn't happen.  I admire the way the story came together and still gives us an ending that works for the story, even if it's not what we may want.

What a wild ride! 'Limited Wish' was full of adventure, mystery and adrenaline!

'Limited Wish hooked me in hard and fast from the very first page, in fact I think I even enjoyed it more than its predecessor, 'One Word Kill,' which I also loved. Nicks story continued, and not content with battling cancer, and being a maths genius, he also started Cambridge University at the tender age of 16! That's not even the strangest thing that happened!.This book took me on a whirlwind adventure, involving time travel, paradoxes, creepy villains, (like seriously that train scene 😮)creases in the fabric of time, and the possible destruction of the universe! Oh is that all you say?!

My heart was racing throughout the whole of this book, I was on constant alert, with the shocking twists and revelations. My head did nearly explode with all of the maths and science, but it was done really well so that non geniuses like me could follow and understand!

'Limited Wish' still had the great feel that the first book had, centred around Nick and his friends, and they still played D+D! I loved the friendships, and the love and support they had for each other! Amongst the action, science and maths, there was the usual teenage angst and relationship dramas. There was some great dark humour too, mostly from Nick, as he had to deal with his ongoing cancer, violence and the universe trying to kill him.

I actually lost all my highlighted quotes, but one that stood out to me was when Nick said, "My dad used to say that he didn't love my mum because she was perfect, he loved her because her imperfections were a good match for his."


Truly I was captivated by this mind bending tale, and found myself simultaneously wanting to race through it, and yet wanted to take my time so that it didn't end too soon! Highly recommend 👍

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review


I love that I got to read One Word Kill and Limited Wish so close together. I have no idea how I'm going to survive the wait until November to read Dispel Illusion. This trilogy is a masterpiece. And I'm saying that having not read the third book.

OWK ended on a hopefull but very bittersweet note. LW picks up a few months later. In some ways Nick's life has improved, in others it definitely hasn't. Nick is now an undergraduate in Mathematics at Cambridge, having stopped hiding his genius in the interests of working towards discovering time travel. A sixteen year old prodigy draws attention and not all of it good. Between girl troubles, DD sessions, working with a Cambridge professor and negotiating with his tricky health, Nick really has enough to worry about. It's a shame that everything suddenly seems to be conspiring to try and kill him really.
And then there's the anomalies, the weird energy surges and the phase shifts. Suddenly Nick isn't worried about living another 25 yrs - he might not make it to the end of the week.


Never let it be said that Lawrence doesn't put his characters through hell. He certainlg doesn't stay his hand for a teenage character! Perhaps that's what makes the pay off so satisfying, when clever plotting, witty narrative and great characterisation converge to race to the finale. One thing Lawrence always does is stick his books endings. The structure is always sound without sacrificing character voice or agency.

Another point I'd make is that a time travel plot is incredibly hard to land. When you start looking at quantum mechanics and temporal anomalies, not to mention sheer logic, most time travel plots grow overripe faster than avocados. I'm enough of a physics hobbyist (read: nerd) that it can throw me out of the book. Usually a good story and great characters will keep me on board. Lawrence not only delivers both of those things but his time travel narrative actually stays robust and carries the story to its conclusion.

I could go on but you'd better just read the book. I love the characters and their friendship groups. The writing was poihlgnant in places, hilariously laugh out loud funny in others but always engaging. The nerdery, DD, science and 80s refs are brilliant. And this has one of the most beautiful closing chapters of any book I've ever read. This is excellent. Highly recommend.

I enjoyed this sequel much better than its predecessor. I am not exactly sure why that is true: maybe I was already immersed in the story so a continuation meant more to me than the initial dive into a new tale? Perhaps my mind was already accustomed to time travel lingo and mathematical theories thrown at me every other page? Either way, this was a bit more action-packed than the first, the stakes were even higher, and was sucked up from the first sentence until the breathless end. I'm really looking forward to the finale in this crazy, superbly-written series!

Limited Wish is the second book in the Impossible Times series. I liked the first book better but this is a fine continuation of the story set a couple of months after the first book. Nick and the team are back, but instead of Elton, there are some new characters called Helen and Eva who have some very serious impact on Nick’s life.

Thanks to NetGalley, 47North and Mark Lawrence for my copy.

First I want to thank Netgalley and the publishers, and author Mark Lawrence for the opportunity to read an ARC of this amazing novel. Limited Wish is the second of a three book Trilogy and it actually won't be out until later this month or next (depends on who talks to you). I have already read and LOVED the first book, One Word Kill. Everybody who loves nerdy stuff, science fiction, and time travel is talking about it! I have read many time travel novels, and lots of them are just trips to another time in history where the "real" plot unfolds. Not this series! Until now, my favorite time travel series has been the Time Riders books by Alex Scarrow. I read them all, and was so sad when the series ended. Well, the Impossible Times series is better! By Far! The various ways to cause a quantum mechanics paradox by traveling through time are actually explained here (sometimes well, sometimes not-so-well), and the main characters are relatable, believable and downright amazing. The plot, staring sixteen year old "reluctant genius & prodigy" Nick Hayes, is set in London in 1986, which is the year Back to the Future appeared in movie theaters in the UK. Nick would rather be a normal boy, but that isn't an option for a brilliant teenage cancer survivor who has already met himself as a time traveler (in book one). This time, as he meets a couple of girls who seem weirdly familiar, he realizes that his timeline has some dangerous wrinkles in it. And of course, he's not the only one in trouble; seems like the future of the entire world depends on what he does now. I never played Dungeons and Dragons when it was all the rage but I have friends who did. Nick and his small circle of nerdy friends play D & D for hours, and we see parts of the game leaking into their real lives. I was totally on board every minute, the same way we are when we're watching a great monster movie! I raced through this one, and found that it, like book one, has an appropriate ending (no real cliffhanger here), but I need book three!! I need it now!! Hey, Mark Lawrence, listen here: I need book three! This series is amazing -- REALLY. And DO NOT start with this book, but with book one: One Word Kill. You will love it.

"Limited Wish" is the second installment in the "Impossible Times" series and sets in a couple of months after the ending of "One Word Kill". Unfortunately, this part in the series feels more rushed than the last part. The characters are underdeveloped and the story gets really confusing towards the end. I think the novel needed to be expanded by a couple of hundred pages to really make sense.

Review
I read the first book in this series a few weeks back and I really enjoyed it so when I saw there was a copy available to read straight away on netgalley, I snapped it up. This book picks up a few months after the events of the first book, Nick has started attending university and doing mathematical research with a big shot professor and he's still playing dungeons & dragons with his friends at the weekend. However weird things start happening and he's sucked back into the world of time travel.

This was just as enjoyable as the first book, it maintained the fantasy aspect with detailed descriptions of the groups dungeon's and dragons game which cleverly begins to reflect Nick's own troubled life. The new characters introduced to us fitted in perfectly and really worked well with plot, it didn't feel like the author was misleading anything or straying too far from the main plot. Nick is a great main character, his character is so well developed and even though he's gone through so much he's still cracking jokes about his situation. It's something that Mark Lawrence does really well, balancing humour with the more hard hitting parts of the plot.

There is further explanations about alternate timelines whichwere enjoyable to read about and even though science and maths were never my best subjects at school and there were times when some of the terminology went over my head and I had to use the dictionary for help a few times, it was still easy to get the gist of things and follow along with the more complex aspects of the plot.

This is a really fast paced read, I read it within a few hours as I was desperate to know what was going to happen next and I've become rather attached to the characters now and invested in how things will turn out for them.. I'm interested to see in which the direction the plot goes next and how the series wraps up with the third and final book.

Rating:
4/5 stars.

* I recieved an ARC copy via Netgalley in return for my honest opinion.