Million Eyes II: The Unraveller by C.R. Berry
(Elsewhen Press, 2021)
Reviewed by Ksenia Shcherbino
The Princes in the Tower escaping and fighting dinosaurs? Jesus Christ and Guy Fox in one bundle? C.R. Berry’s Million Eyes II: The Unraveller has it all. If that can’t pique your curiosity, nothing will.
The book is a second part of the trilogy and picks up straight after the events of the first part. Just a quick recap: ex-history teacher Gregory Ferro stumbles upon evidence that a mysterious time traveller is responsible for several key events in our history. He is murdered by a sinister and omnipresent Million Eyes corporation just as he shared his finds with Jennifer Larson. The latter barely escapes death and travels into the past.
In the second book, the narrative switches to Jennifer’s best friend, Adam Bryant, an employee of the Million Eyes unaware of their role in her disappearance. He is approached by Samantha Lester, an archaeologist who suffers hallucinations about her deceased daughter, who found some strange artefacts that might shed light on Jenny’s whereabouts and joins forces with her in a desperate attempt to find the truth. Now Adam is entangled in a network that spans hundreds of years and involves Jesus, Lazarus, Joseph of Arimathea, Guy Fawkes, Princess Diana, Jack the Ripper, the Bermuda Triangle and the Doomsday Book. It is a captivating read with plenty of solid historical references that seem quite plausible—hilariously, if not historically so. One can’t help feeling slightly intoxicated with such a cocktail, though the key ingredients are quite simple: the conflict between ordinary people and a powerful organisation with an agenda. Who wins? You will have to read the book to find out!
The second book gives you the much needed explanation about how time travel works, and how it was discovered, which helped me to bridge a few gaps from the first part. It is plausible enough to give the time-hopping narrative a solid background.
Its villain system also gets more complicated. There are two arch villains in the story (apart from the obvious: Jack the Ripper and the dinosaur who ate the Princes on page 10), the ruthless CEO of Million Eyes Corporation Erica Morgan and her Nemesis, the mysterious Unraveller who fights the agents of the corporation throughout the centuries. As it is usual with conspiracy theories, it’s hard to choose sides: both present equally persuasive arguments in support of their actions, yet they are equally disruptive for ordinary people. The more I learned, the less sure I was about where my sympathies lay—there are quite a few moments where I caught myself rooting for the bad guys (even Jack the Ripper gets his moment of sympathy).
Yet by the end of the book, I was getting a bit bored and overwhelmed, even though I couldn’t tear myself away from the pages. There can be too much of a good thing. Too many historical twists, too many sensational explanations, too many well-known figures and epiphanies about the real meaning behind their actions made the plot slightly convoluted for me. And somehow I found I had less sympathy for Adam and Dr Lester than I had for Jennifer, which is a personal preference, of course.
Overall, the book feels like a cross between Back to the Future, Doctor Who and Da Vinci Code (both mentioned as favourites on C.R. Berry’s blog https://crberryauthor.com/about/). It has the same carefree élan and spirit of adventure. Would I recommend reading it? Definitely, it was so much fun! Am I waiting for the third part? For sure, I want to answer all the questions and cross all the Ts. I also want to find out—in a good way, of course—what else could have happened? Would I read it again? Unlikely, but that’s the ultimate truth about conspiracy theories: once you know how they work, they never seem plausible to you again.
Review from BSFA Review 19 - Download your copy here.