THE OUTCASTS OF TIME

Ian Mortimer is a respected English historian, so it's no surprise that he gets the historical details right here. Narrator James Cameron Stewart has a more difficult task, conveying the outsider quality of the protagonist's speech when he travels not through space, but through time, living seven single days, each 99 years later than the last, starting in 1348 near Exeter, England. Stewart does this by giving John a strong regional accent, while most other people's speech, through time, gets closer to modern standard English. Stewart's reading is strong and passionate when needed but limited by the book's lengthy theological discussions. Those are important to the author's concept of the story, but they sometimes make the listening experience drag. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2018]