On the anniversary of the Battersea Barricades, former rebels Mrs Mack, Mrs Enderby and Mrs Shaw reminisce about old times over a couple of bottles of wine (courtesy of Dr Bairstow) and Max lending a listening ear while partaking of the drinks on offer.

I thought this was a very moving interlude in which those three ladies, so rarely glimpsed and barely mentioned, take centre stage. Even Max, being in the presence of people who had lived, rather than merely observed, history, is unusually quiet; there was an immense feeling of dignity and gravitas about the little gathering. As another reviewer mentioned, it did feel like the described events really happened, even though I couldn't always follow which of the three was currently talking. ( )

It feels like this really happened. I love it. ( )

In this case, for our intrepid STAFF of St. Mary's of the time-traveling historian crew, we get a very cool interview telling us of a Future History that happens in our future but just before the inception of the Crazy Historian Crew. :)

Confused? Don't be. It's basically a great tale of England tearing itself apart and seeing the downtrodden people rise up against others with guns. Or in this case, a scary black helicopter. :) Very fulfilling. Oh, and amusing, too, with all the stealing of bikes. :)

Go England! (of the future.) ;) ( )

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Having only just finished An Argumentation of Historians (the ninth book in the series), this short story was already published two weeks later. And it was completely not what I expected.

It is different from the rest in A) there is no 'investigating major/minor historical events in contemporary time' and B) the usual main characters almost play no role at all. Sure, Max is there drinking wine but not doing much more.

It was nice to have a background story for the supporting cast of the series, but it was a weird kind of story. As you might recall, Max travelled to a parallel dimension somewhere around book three/four (I honestly don't recall) and has been living since in a world with the Time Police. Some other things are also different, but just how different it was always difficult to tell because Max, and the reader by extension, is very ignorant of her surroundings and little important things like who is king/prime minister or what year it is. Tea, I can tell, is still plentiful, which is the only thing that counts.

So we are thrown into a civil war (simply called THE civil war for confusion) in this timeline, and while I would love to know more about this alternative reality, I would have liked to see some more introduction because sure, they were rebels of some kind. But that was about it. Now I left wondering about the details, and also if we will get more like this in the future. ( )

A little gem of a story from this quite good series, aptly told with a valid St Mary's flavor. A tale of some ladies during a revolting time In British History. These civilian women take to the barricades and finally decide, in true gentle person fashion, that civility must be restored. After all, enough is truly enough. ( )