The Outcasts of Time

The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A little slow to start, and the time travel IS the plot. The joy of this book is in the observations, social commentary, philosophical and existential musings of our main character John of Wrayment (“Everyman”). The author knows history well, and each vignette through history is well done. Although material progress is made through the centuries, one might despair that the human condition does not seem to have kept pace. It would seem that humanity as a whole has not evolved at all. At the risk of a slight spoiler, I’m going to say that it was evident quite early on that John was meeting his descendants as he traveled. We could see his legacy in their words and in their kindness even if John could not. I did wonder that language was not more of a problem after two or three hundred years, but that would have interfered with the story.

Book description: With the country in the grip of the Black Death, brothers John and William fear that they will shortly die and suffer in the afterlife. But as the end draws near, they are given an unexpected choice: either to go home and spend their last six days in their familiar world, or to search for salvation across the forthcoming centuries – living each one of their remaining days ninety-nine years after the last. As they find themselves in stranger and stranger times, the reader travels with them, seeing the world through their eyes as it shifts through disease, progress, enlightenment, and war. But their time is running out―can they do something to redeem themselves before the six days are up?