The characters are quite courageous since they were able to face that bloody period of history. To tell the truth I was actually a bit amazed of their lack of moral issues when killing one or another. I mean I do understand that their lives were at stake and so on but nevertheless I don’t imagine killing is so easy for a 20th century person. However apart from their bravery the characters don’t quite manage to grab your interest or at least they didn’t manage to grab mine. Perhaps only Marek did a bit, given that he was the one with the actual knowledge and capabilities to survive in the past.

The books begins tremendously interesting, with all those time travel theories and stuff, but it kinda wears off after a while. We see the four protagonists being separated, looking for each other, being arrested and separated, looking for each other, being arrested and separated and so on. There are also quite a lot of discrepancies, some very important and some less. For example, the whole time traveling idea was that while one cannot actually travel through time (because time doesn’t flow, human beings do), one can travel to alternate universes.
Here’s an explanatory quote:

“Many physicists tried to explain the equations, Gordon said. Each explanation failed for one reason or another. Then in 1957, a physicist named Hugh Everett proposed a daring new explanation. Everett claimed that our universe – the
universe we see, the universe of rocks and trees and people and galaxies out in space – was just one of an infinite number of universes, existing side by side. Each of these universes was constantly splitting, so there was a universe where Hitler lost the war, and another where he won; a universe where Kennedy died, and another where he lived. And also a world where you brushed your teeth in the morning, and one where you didn’t. And so forth, on and on and on. An infinity of worlds.”

This is a very interesting idea but it becomes a bit contradictory in the book: if there are such things as parallel universes, a person that went to one of them is no longer in the same universe as before. So how can he send messages to it simply by writing on a piece of paper? Normally his message should have stayed in that particular universe, right? Else it would mean that anything done differently in a such universe would affect ours, which contradicts the idea of parallel universes which are supposed to be differing by some minor detail or another because they’d all be the same. Also why aren’t they allowed to have plastic with them (especially as they cannot interfere with the future in any way) but they are allowed to have that high technology first-aid kit?
There is also a language related issue: in the beginning of the book the English back them is presented as being very different from the one spoken today. However Chris ends up communicating with others in modern English using only a few archaic words such as aye and certes (my favorite part is where he tries to explain to Arnaud that the professor was taken prisoner; Arnaud doesn’t understand the word prisoner so Cris explains it to him in Latin; Arnaud’s reaction: “ah, you mean prisoner”(!?!)).

As for the theory presented in the book about how the future cannot be changed (as something would have to intervene and the thing that would trigger the change will not be accomplished), I once again find it hardly believable. For once the past was altered when the Professor’s message reached the students (a message that didn’t exist in the original “version”), and secondly I cannot quite believe that the fact that Marek has stayed behind and had no less than five sons had no impact on the future. He became quite a wealthy man and bought at least a castle so he definitely left a mark on the past. But the present isn’t changed at all (only we read about his life and see his statue); normally such as important a change so many years ago should have deeply affected the future.

There could be many more things to say such as why would a company with the power of time travel limit its uses to building theme parks but overall if you manage to ignore all these the book does have some interesting parts and it’s probably worth a read.

As a bit of trivia, the book has been made into a movie in 2003, with Gerard Butler starring as Marek.

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