When a Child Is Born: A Chronicles of St. Mary’s Short Story

Title: When a Child Is Born: A Chronicles of St. Mary’s Short Story

Author: Jodi Taylor

Narrator: Zara Ramm

Genres: Historical Fiction | Science Fiction

Format: Audiobook

Length: 32 mins

Source: Audible (free)

Rating: 2.5/5

Premise:

A group of time traveller historians is sent to an unexpected place. They are not supposed to interfere, or history will be changed. But can they let a wounded man die? What repercussions will helping him and his family cause to the future?

Review:

Time travelling is fairly commonly addressed in science fiction, but not always in a successful manner, due to all its implications.
This is a short story I found for free on Audible, so I was not expecting much. The group of three historians lands in a place which is obviously not where they are supposed to be. There isn’t much information about the means of transportation, other than it is a pod. I cannot recall listening to any details of it, particularly about its visibility to other people. That has always been an issue to me: if the device is visible, won’t the time traveller risk it being gone by the time he or she returns from prancing about?

It was on ok story, though it got a bit repetitive with the few guilty of thinking as an historian lines, and I did not much care for the three mage reference as it seemed too farfetched.
I also didn’t really know what to think about ‘Nature’ being the one to blame for how the events turned out. That seems to imply that time travelling is a natural matter, no?

There were a few moments where I chuckled, so I will rate the story up. The bit about the stew was especially funny.

Overall, it is a good story to listen to if you are going to do a quick workout as I did, or something of the sort; nothing stupendous and it will leave plenty of questions unanswered, but it will get you thinking about the repercussions of an event in the far past being handled in a different way. The narration itself was ok. Zara Ramm’s voice is pleasant enough, but the voices could have been done a wee bit better.

Listened to on Jun 23rd, 2015
GR Review