TimeRiders 3: The Doomsday Code by Alex Scarrow

Publisher: sPenguin, Puffin
Pages: 448
Year: 2011
Buy: Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the TimeRiders series by Alex Scarrow, so much so that I delayed reading this third novel as long as I could bear, simply because I didn’t want it finished, with me tapping my feet impatiently and waiting for number four.

The Doomsday Code finds our three young time travellers a little more wary as well as accustomed to the shocks that ripple through their time bubble set for 10 and 11 September 2001 when a wave through time is triggered. In this book, our hero Liam is sent back with larger than life Becks and Bob to Oxford and Nottingham in 1194 to fix the efforts of The Hood to alter the history of John and Richard and, as a result, the history of Britain and the Americas. No characters are quite what we would expect. As usual, Scarrow demonstrates that the history that we know is not necessarily as it was – we see what the victors write. When you’re in the thick of it, it could seem very different.

This third novel is a little more poignant than the preceding two, bringing the reality of 9/11 closer. It always exists within these books but this time we get a bit nearer to the horror. Maddy and Sal develop further too while Liam, first met in the corridors of the sinking Titanic, gets the first inkling that none of this may end well for him.

This may be a YA novel but it would be a shame if readers of all ages didn’t enjoy it. I can’t wait to see what will happen next.

Time Riders 4: The Eternal War is expected in July.