Book Review: TimeRiders – The Pirate Kings – Alex Scarrow

This is a book review of TimeRiders: The Pirate Kings (Book 7), part of the time travel book series by Alex Scarrow.

Tempus Fugit! Time has flown by and I find myself writing the review of book seven in the Time Riders series! It only seems a short while ago I read the first book, but looking back I see I wrote the review for book one in December 2010. I’m still reading the series and that shows the pedigree of this sci-fi series for teenagers which adults can enjoy as well, as long as you don’t take the science part too seriously.

After seven books, it is tough to write an overview! Basically you’ve got three teenagers, some A.I.’s in various forms, a tech genius from the future and a means to time travel. They should be protecting the time stream, but problems have arisen and a change in perspective.

The author has thrown the characters into many different eras in previous books, and this time around a couple of the characters find themselves surrounded by pirates! However it doesn’t begin there with the great fire of London featuring early in the story.

The 17^th century was the focus of much of this time travel book, but there was continued character development. Though after seven books it does now feel stretched out.

In many ways this book was a departure of morals for the characters and common-sense, which benefited the read. A nice direction of the book was also ‘time travel tourists’. This has been touched upon before elsewhere, and it was good to see this get a nod and be explored.

After the various plot lines in book seven, I find myself not liking the trio of teenagers in the book! This doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy reading the book. I did! Within a few days I had read the book, and as per usual I’m looking forward to the next.

It isn’t the best book in the series, but was a good edition to the TimeRiders series. At this stage of the book series I recommend you dip your toe into the water and read the previous books, as I don’t recommend reading this book as a standalone.

I’ve read that there are going to be nine books in the series and truth be told I’m looking forward to closure and the story-arc wrapping up. I’ve enjoyed the TimeRiders series thus far. Though I feel nine would be more than enough and that the series has had a good run, hopefully being wrapped up nicely by the end.

So to conclude, a teenage time travel book that is full of action, a good excuse to explore a different era and shouldn’t be read without reading books published earlier in the series.