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TimeWars #3
The Pimpernel Plot
Time travel wasn't just fun and adventure. Major Lucas Priest, a veteran of the Time Wars, was aware of the danger of operating in Minus Time. One false move, and the course of history is changed with incalculable consequences.
Now Lucas is faced with the greatest challenge of his career: to readjust the events of the French Revolution and correct the blunder made by an agent of the Temporal Corps. Alex Corderro, in his first hitch in Minus Time, had caused the death of Sir Percy Blakeney, the English aristocrat who played a key role in saving French royalists from the guillotine. Someone had to impersonate Blakeney and carry out his task.
Easier said than done. Especially since the much-feared Mongoose, that great saboteur and double agent from the 27th century, was on the loose again. And Mongoose had other ideas of how history should proceed . . .
Now Lucas is faced with the greatest challenge of his career: to readjust the events of the French Revolution and correct the blunder made by an agent of the Temporal Corps. Alex Corderro, in his first hitch in Minus Time, had caused the death of Sir Percy Blakeney, the English aristocrat who played a key role in saving French royalists from the guillotine. Someone had to impersonate Blakeney and carry out his task.
Easier said than done. Especially since the much-feared Mongoose, that great saboteur and double agent from the 27th century, was on the loose again. And Mongoose had other ideas of how history should proceed . . .
211 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
10 people are currently reading
144 people want to read
About the author
Simon Hawke
89 books237 followersAlso published as J.D. Masters.
He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D. Masters" and mystery novels.
He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname "J. D. Masters" and mystery novels.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 25, 2022
When I was a kid I got hooked on science fiction, and time travel was my jam. There has always been something about journeying to the past or jumping ahead to the future that I have always found appealing as a premise, no matter how well executed. This is why the premise of Simon Hawke’s book was all it took for me to read it. Though it was the third book in his Time Wars series, it was the first one I read, and it speaks well of Hawke’s skill as an author that I was able to dive right into the book without reading the previous volumes.
This is how I first encountered the members of the United States Army Temporal Corps, who, in a 27th century future where war is banned, are sent back in time as part of a complicated way of arbitrating disputes by fighting in battles of the past, Naturally, such deployments are not without complications, which is where the adjustment team of Lucas Priest, Finn Delaney, and Andre Cross come in. When a disruption to the timeline emerges, they are sent back in time to fix it before it changes history — or worse.
And this is one such time where it seems the worst has happened. Through the intervention of a soldier from the future deployed to the French Revolution, an English baronet, Sir Percy Blakeney, has died accidentally. In an effort to repair the timeline, the team is sent back to fill in temporarily while someone else is prepared to replace him. For Finn Delaney, this means posing as the husband to the beautiful Marguerite Blakeney while his comrades continue Percy’s work smuggling French aristocrats out of the clutches of the revolutionary regime. But they begin to suspect that they face a threat far greater than that of Citizen Chauvelin, one that threatens to wipe them from all existence.
It’s a thrilling premise that offers a nice blend of action, suspense and romance, and I enjoyed it greatly when I first read it. Such was my naïveté that I didn’t realize that Hawke’s inspiration was not just historical, but literary, specifically Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel novels. Nor did it turn out that this conceit was unique to this book, as the entire series is built around interacting with both historical and literary characters as though the latter actually existed. It made me feel a little foolish when I discovered this, but it didn’t diminish my enjoyment of a fine sci-fi adventure that proved a great hook for pulling me into the rest of Hawke’s series.
This is how I first encountered the members of the United States Army Temporal Corps, who, in a 27th century future where war is banned, are sent back in time as part of a complicated way of arbitrating disputes by fighting in battles of the past, Naturally, such deployments are not without complications, which is where the adjustment team of Lucas Priest, Finn Delaney, and Andre Cross come in. When a disruption to the timeline emerges, they are sent back in time to fix it before it changes history — or worse.
And this is one such time where it seems the worst has happened. Through the intervention of a soldier from the future deployed to the French Revolution, an English baronet, Sir Percy Blakeney, has died accidentally. In an effort to repair the timeline, the team is sent back to fill in temporarily while someone else is prepared to replace him. For Finn Delaney, this means posing as the husband to the beautiful Marguerite Blakeney while his comrades continue Percy’s work smuggling French aristocrats out of the clutches of the revolutionary regime. But they begin to suspect that they face a threat far greater than that of Citizen Chauvelin, one that threatens to wipe them from all existence.
It’s a thrilling premise that offers a nice blend of action, suspense and romance, and I enjoyed it greatly when I first read it. Such was my naïveté that I didn’t realize that Hawke’s inspiration was not just historical, but literary, specifically Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel novels. Nor did it turn out that this conceit was unique to this book, as the entire series is built around interacting with both historical and literary characters as though the latter actually existed. It made me feel a little foolish when I discovered this, but it didn’t diminish my enjoyment of a fine sci-fi adventure that proved a great hook for pulling me into the rest of Hawke’s series.
February 8, 2017
This is my . . . well; I’m not actually sure how many books I’ve read by Simon Hawke. Both because he is someone who I’d first read long long ago, and because I’ve never actually included everything I’ve read by him on here. Like, did I read his The Romulan Prize? I don’t have it marked on here as read, and I probably didn’t since it is a Star Trek: The Next Generation book and I’d read few of those. Still, maybe I read it at some point.
I do know that I’ve read at least 19 books by Hawke, including this book here, since I’ve marked . . . well, 17 books as read (one is a collection of three novels). So, this book is, at the very least, the 19th book I’ve read by Hawke. Most of those books, with the exception of The Shade Trilogy and the prior two books in the TimeWars series were read in the 1990s and very early 2000s.
I like the concept of the TimeWars books – at least in terms of having a mixture of science fiction and history seen through the lens of people from the 27th century (for the most part) doing ‘stuff’ back in time. I say that I like the concept, instead of using different language, because I am not always happy with the execution. To a certain extent. Maybe I’m just not happy with the tidbits of 27th century that dribble in and maybe because I don’t particularly like either the time agency that the main characters work for or the main characters. Well, I kind of like Andre, so far, and Lucas Priest is bearable. He’s kind of bland. Don’t particularly like Finn though. He’s like a boy in the body of a man who is around 120 years of age (anti-aging drugs keep him from, you know, dying of old age. Or looking old). Or, more accurately, he’s like the caricature of a boy in the body of a man (or, to put that into different words – a man who refuses to grow up.)
I’ve noticed it before, I noticed it in ‘The Pimpernel Plot’, and I noticed it in the current book I’m reading, the next book in the series after ‘The Pimpernel Plot’ – I’m not sure if it is part of the plan of the author’s, I kind of get a hint that it is part of his plan, but the people and politics fighting ‘on the other side’ of these TimeWars seem to be a much better group of people, with logic and reason on their side. Both, in this specific books case, Mongoose, and the people Mongoose were fighting (Cobra and the rest) Delaney, Priest, and the rest are attempting to keep their own timeline from splintering by ‘making sure history goes the right way’ while at the same time, more seen in the beginnings of the next book .
In this specific book, that ‘making sure history goes the right way’ involves the time and events of the French Revolution. During said revolution many people meet their deaths; many of whom were aristocrats. In the original official timeline, there was an agent from England who helped some aristocrats get to freedom in England. He went by the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Well, as luck, or the like, would have it, the people of the 27th century have decided that the best way to engage in disputes, to resolve disputes, is to send people back in time and inject them into certain situations. I’m not exactly sure how that works, but the point is that people from the 27th century get sent back in time to join armies and the like.
Well, as might be expected from something like this, someone from the 27th century got sent back in time to the French Revolution. He watched people be beheaded and was sickened. When the crowd moved off to stare at the exit point, at the gate to leave Paris, that 27th century person got carried along. To witness the guards stop suspected and actual aristocrats attempting to flee. Upon learning that a family, with children, had escaped through the gate, the guards get ready to give chase. The person from the 27th century snaps and attacks. Killing or wounding several guards, and some innocent bystanders. One such innocent bystander was the man who was supposed to become the Scarlet Pimpernel. But he’s dead now. (by the way, this is one of the other things one of the ‘other side’ people are fighting – they are fighting against the timewars, no the timewars are not wars between different timelines or the like, it’s wars fought by one specific timeline -> say, for example, McDonalds believes that Burger King stole some food item; instead of fighting over it in the 27th century, they would send people back in time and have them fight there. Thereby almost guaranteeing that they fuck themselves by destroying some tiny little aspect that would cause a ripple effect that would morph things beyond comprehension. I like the idea of mixing time travel and history. The idea of the timewars is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of though; as long as ‘you’ stick strongly to the idea of there being one and only one time line (there are some strong real life theories indicating that no, there are multiple timelines/parallel universes, but whatever).
So, getting back to the book, Delaney, Priest, and Andre Cross have been sent back in time to attempt to make sure that the accidental death of the Scarlet Pimpernel doesn’t alter history. They attempt to ‘adjust the disruption’ by putting in one of their own as the Scarlet Pimpernel, in this instance Delaney fills the void.
This was/is an interesting book. I, mostly, enjoyed it. There was a strong romance side plot that was going on that I’ve no idea why it was included. I say that because it was stressed, a lot of time was spent on it, but it kind of poofed by the end of the book. There was a certain direction things seemed to be going, certain amount of love was expressed but it kind of got shrugged at without too much fight
Obviously enough, since I mentioned it in passing, I must have liked the book well enough to dive immediately into the next book in the series. So that’s a plus. Despite some underlying negatives pummeling the book (disliking one of the main characters; ‘the other side’ seemed to be in the right; love plot that went nowhere (; science babble (there was a lot of crap injected in passing to ‘explain’ the time travel stuff. It was annoying and boring).
April 6 2016
I do know that I’ve read at least 19 books by Hawke, including this book here, since I’ve marked . . . well, 17 books as read (one is a collection of three novels). So, this book is, at the very least, the 19th book I’ve read by Hawke. Most of those books, with the exception of The Shade Trilogy and the prior two books in the TimeWars series were read in the 1990s and very early 2000s.
I like the concept of the TimeWars books – at least in terms of having a mixture of science fiction and history seen through the lens of people from the 27th century (for the most part) doing ‘stuff’ back in time. I say that I like the concept, instead of using different language, because I am not always happy with the execution. To a certain extent. Maybe I’m just not happy with the tidbits of 27th century that dribble in and maybe because I don’t particularly like either the time agency that the main characters work for or the main characters. Well, I kind of like Andre, so far, and Lucas Priest is bearable. He’s kind of bland. Don’t particularly like Finn though. He’s like a boy in the body of a man who is around 120 years of age (anti-aging drugs keep him from, you know, dying of old age. Or looking old). Or, more accurately, he’s like the caricature of a boy in the body of a man (or, to put that into different words – a man who refuses to grow up.)
I’ve noticed it before, I noticed it in ‘The Pimpernel Plot’, and I noticed it in the current book I’m reading, the next book in the series after ‘The Pimpernel Plot’ – I’m not sure if it is part of the plan of the author’s, I kind of get a hint that it is part of his plan, but the people and politics fighting ‘on the other side’ of these TimeWars seem to be a much better group of people, with logic and reason on their side. Both, in this specific books case, Mongoose, and the people Mongoose were fighting (Cobra and the rest) Delaney, Priest, and the rest are attempting to keep their own timeline from splintering by ‘making sure history goes the right way’ while at the same time, more seen in the beginnings of the next book .
In this specific book, that ‘making sure history goes the right way’ involves the time and events of the French Revolution. During said revolution many people meet their deaths; many of whom were aristocrats. In the original official timeline, there was an agent from England who helped some aristocrats get to freedom in England. He went by the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Well, as luck, or the like, would have it, the people of the 27th century have decided that the best way to engage in disputes, to resolve disputes, is to send people back in time and inject them into certain situations. I’m not exactly sure how that works, but the point is that people from the 27th century get sent back in time to join armies and the like.
Well, as might be expected from something like this, someone from the 27th century got sent back in time to the French Revolution. He watched people be beheaded and was sickened. When the crowd moved off to stare at the exit point, at the gate to leave Paris, that 27th century person got carried along. To witness the guards stop suspected and actual aristocrats attempting to flee. Upon learning that a family, with children, had escaped through the gate, the guards get ready to give chase. The person from the 27th century snaps and attacks. Killing or wounding several guards, and some innocent bystanders. One such innocent bystander was the man who was supposed to become the Scarlet Pimpernel. But he’s dead now. (by the way, this is one of the other things one of the ‘other side’ people are fighting – they are fighting against the timewars, no the timewars are not wars between different timelines or the like, it’s wars fought by one specific timeline -> say, for example, McDonalds believes that Burger King stole some food item; instead of fighting over it in the 27th century, they would send people back in time and have them fight there. Thereby almost guaranteeing that they fuck themselves by destroying some tiny little aspect that would cause a ripple effect that would morph things beyond comprehension. I like the idea of mixing time travel and history. The idea of the timewars is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of though; as long as ‘you’ stick strongly to the idea of there being one and only one time line (there are some strong real life theories indicating that no, there are multiple timelines/parallel universes, but whatever).
So, getting back to the book, Delaney, Priest, and Andre Cross have been sent back in time to attempt to make sure that the accidental death of the Scarlet Pimpernel doesn’t alter history. They attempt to ‘adjust the disruption’ by putting in one of their own as the Scarlet Pimpernel, in this instance Delaney fills the void.
This was/is an interesting book. I, mostly, enjoyed it. There was a strong romance side plot that was going on that I’ve no idea why it was included. I say that because it was stressed, a lot of time was spent on it, but it kind of poofed by the end of the book. There was a certain direction things seemed to be going, certain amount of love was expressed but it kind of got shrugged at without too much fight
Obviously enough, since I mentioned it in passing, I must have liked the book well enough to dive immediately into the next book in the series. So that’s a plus. Despite some underlying negatives pummeling the book (disliking one of the main characters; ‘the other side’ seemed to be in the right; love plot that went nowhere (; science babble (there was a lot of crap injected in passing to ‘explain’ the time travel stuff. It was annoying and boring).
April 6 2016
July 21, 2014
Update: I read this again three years ago, and tried Orczy's original, but it sat only 25% read. And I stopped re-reading Hawke's series at this point. I've decided that I don't need to read Dumas, and I seriously doubt I'll read Orczy, but I do believe that this time through, I'll make it past #3. I'd forgotten the intrigue Hawke began in this book.
Fun, light lit. Re-reading the series has actually inspired me to read the literature it is based on. Plowing my way through Ivanhoe now, and tag-teaming The Scarlet Pimpernel, that tome The Three Musketeers will have to wait!
Fun, light lit. Re-reading the series has actually inspired me to read the literature it is based on. Plowing my way through Ivanhoe now, and tag-teaming The Scarlet Pimpernel, that tome The Three Musketeers will have to wait!
December 13, 2011
The third book in the TimeWars series takes place during the French Revolution and includes the same dramatic action, tantalizing intrigue, and breakneck pace I've grown to love. This one (and the Timekeeper Conspiracy) may be my favorite so far.
July 11, 2023
With the third book of the Time Wars series, The Pimpernel Plot, Simon Hawke gets more brazen about injecting fictional historical personages into History. While previous books' Ivanhoe, Robin Hood and Three Musketeers had some historical basis, the Scarlet Pimpernel is the Baroness Orczy's pure literary creation. And yet, when an apparently real Lord Blakeney is killed due to a time agent's accidental actions, Finn Delaney is tasked with impersonating him and carrying out the Pimpernel's ferrying of aristocrats out of Revolutionary France, and if he can, resisting his beautiful wife's allure. Has Hawke accepted that Finn and Andre are more interesting than his original hero, Lucas Priest? Maybe because Luke is very much sidelined in this. it would be a simple mission and retread of Orczy's material if not for the secret aftermath of the previous novel and the elusive Mongoose showing up with plans within plans of his own. It's not a confusing read, but it's one that requires a lot of exposition, some of which to be proven untrue anyway, and like a story out of the Silver Age of comics, the final chapter is a big talky explanation. From this point on, the books start with an explanation of what the Time Wars are, and how time travel works, the clearest it's been, and it doesn't have to clutter up the narrative itself. Small mercy given the story already has a lot of information to dump on the reader. That said, I do like the prose and the featured characters, and though we JUST had a story set in France, this one feels very different.
November 30, 2017
A different side a Finn Delaney shines through
Where Lucas had to go "undercover" as Ivanhoe in the first book in the series , it is Finn's turn to go undercover this time, with Lucas, and their new teammate Andre, backing him up. The rough around the edges, quick to lunch a superior officer in a plus time quarrel Finn that we have come to know and love finds himself in a very different, sometimes frustrating, sometimes emotionally challenging position, and he handles it with grace and wit.
This book has several fun twists, and a lot of moments that stay with you as a reader, in addition to capturing the flare and energy of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Where Lucas had to go "undercover" as Ivanhoe in the first book in the series , it is Finn's turn to go undercover this time, with Lucas, and their new teammate Andre, backing him up. The rough around the edges, quick to lunch a superior officer in a plus time quarrel Finn that we have come to know and love finds himself in a very different, sometimes frustrating, sometimes emotionally challenging position, and he handles it with grace and wit.
This book has several fun twists, and a lot of moments that stay with you as a reader, in addition to capturing the flare and energy of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
January 8, 2021
Book three in the Time Wars series, intertwined with the events of The Scarlet Pimpernel. The story is enjoyable, but this entry in the series sees things fall into more of a formula. There's no real surprise in the team of time commandos and while the tale starts off as a "simple" historical adjustment (fixing a historical change caused by another time traveler), there is once again an adversary with the same high tech as the good guys. A bit of a let down from the previous two volumes, but it's still enjoyable and has a few surprises. Check it out.
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April 15, 2020An excellent read!
February 28, 2014
Ok I must apologise I have no idea what happened (although my iMac and I had a major falling out) but it seems my reviews got a bit mixed up. Anyway this I assure you is for the 3rd Time wars book the Pimpernel plot. Now as you realise that you have a book of fiction using a fictitious character as its main plot device. Ok now that has been cleared up you can appreciate when things start to get a little interesting when our time travelling commandos have to improvise when things go a little sideways. So what can I say about the storyline - well all I can say that the action is suitable for any of Baroness Orczy's creations, and as for the story arc - its still there simmering away in the back ground.
September 20, 2016
The first three books of this series all are really great reading. It got less effective in later volumes but these early ones were (still are) majorly fun reads... especially since because they parallel great books like The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Three Mustketeers and Ivanhoe, there's more than just "time travel" but also clever interweaving with the plots of those classic books.
July 8, 2008
The entire Time Wars series (there are 13 books in the series), are fantastic.
Mr. Hawke blends history and sci-fi, for a remarkable read. Any of the books are great. While there are 13 books, they are in no order, so one can ready any book at any time.
Mr. Hawke blends history and sci-fi, for a remarkable read. Any of the books are great. While there are 13 books, they are in no order, so one can ready any book at any time.
February 28, 2025
The early novels in this series are generally good, and this one is not a bad book, but the story just doesn’t appeal to me somehow. And the thwarted romance is awkward and unenjoyable. I’ve read it several times over the years, regardless.
October 21, 2012
A great series and while the adventure aspects are great its the treatment of temporal physics where the books really excel. Had to read the epilogue to this one about three times to fully understand it all.
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June 21, 2007A fresh look at the French Revolution.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews