Invictus by Ryan Graudin Pages: 464
on September 26th 2017
Genres: Young Adult, Time Travel, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure
Source: Paperback ARC from Publisher
Time flies when you're plundering history.
Farway Gaius McCarthy was born outside of time. The son of a time-traveling Recorder from 2354 AD and a gladiator living in Rome in 95 AD, Far's birth defies the laws of nature. Exploring history himself is all he's ever wanted, and after failing his final time-traveling exam, Far takes a position commanding a ship with a crew of his friends as part of a black market operation to steal valuables from the past.
But during a heist on the sinking Titanic, Far meets a mysterious girl who always seems to be one step ahead of him. Armed with knowledge that will bring Far's very existence into question, she will lead Far and his team on a race through time to discover a frightening truth: History is not as steady as it seems.
Invictus is a young adult time travel adventure story from author Ryan Graudin. This is the first novel I have read of Ryan’s and I absolutely loved it. It was such a fun fun read. I loved all the historical figures and time periods we got to visit. This book will be perfect for fans of the Passenger series, Dark Matter and Firefly. I love a book with a crew. It lends itself to awesome characters with lots of different personalities. And Invictus did not disappoint. I finished this book in record time and I am left pining for more.
Far is the main character of Invictus and he was actually born outside of time. He was born on a time travel vehicle while it was on a mission, so he is a bit of an anomaly. This book just gripped me right at the start. I don’t want to get into too much of the details because watching everything unfold was half the fun for me. But Far finds a ship of his own, builds his own crew and starts going on missions to acquire certain items of intrinsic and monetary value through history. What I found to be really cool about that was they were not traveling through time to take gold all the time, people will travel to get foods that are not available in the future. Ryan Graudin did some super interesting commentary on consequences of time travel. It was all really well done. I dug it. I really dug it.
One of my favorite things about Invictus was the crew of characters. Imogen, Gram, Far, Pria, Elliot. They were all great in their own way. I loved watching all of them together. They didn’t always get along, they didn’t always trust each other, but it all worked for me. They were a great crew. And in my opinion, this kind of book can only work with a great crew of characters. What I liked best was that none of the characters felt like an afterthought to me. They didn’t feel secondary. They each had a pivotal roll on the Invictus.
Bottom line: Invictus is a must read book for fans of time travel and for skeptics of time travel alike. I loved this book. It was one of my favorite reads of the year. I am dying for more from this world, though I am not sure if we are going to get a companion book or not. But I am hoping and rooting or one!
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
Ditto! I really liked this book too and thought the crew was great! I’m pretty happy with it as a standalone, but I could see a novella with some of their mentioned, but untold, adventures being fun. Great review, Michelle!
I haven’t read one of Ryan’s books either. Glad you liked this so much. I really like the idea of being born on a time travel vehicle. So different.