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Our selections focus on a recognisable connection: an unusual workplace, British comic invention, historical danger or the consequences of changing time. Choose by the part of Taylor you enjoy, rather than expecting every suggestion to have the same tone.
Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London
Try Rivers of London if Time Police’s combination of policing and the impossible appeals. The first novel introduces Peter Grant, a London constable drawn into investigations involving magic. This is our choice for readers who enjoy an organisation learning to manage extraordinary trouble. The setting stays closer to modern London than historical travel, giving you a different direction to explore between Taylor books.
Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair
Start Thursday Next’s adventures with The Eyre Affair. Its alternative England combines literary detection with time travel, making it a natural suggestion when you want another inventive world with an unusual professional heroine. We suggest it for the playful side of St Mary’s: familiar cultural reference points become material for an improbable investigation. Choose this when literary mischief sounds as tempting as historical adventure.
C. K. McDonnell: The Stranger Times
The Stranger Times is the first book to try when the difficult colleagues and unlikely workplace are your favourite parts of Taylor. A newspaper devoted to strange stories finds that some of its material needs serious investigation. We recommend the Manchester setting and supernatural premise as a change of scenery. Expect a darker comic direction rather than another organisation visiting history.
Connie Willis: Doomsday Book
For the historian’s journey into danger, begin Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel novels with Doomsday Book. An Oxford student travels to the fourteenth century while her mentor worries about what could go wrong. This recommendation follows Taylor’s interest in people meeting the past at close quarters. Choose it for the historical stakes and human connection; it takes a more sombre direction than comic time travel.
Genevieve Cogman: The Invisible Library
Begin with The Invisible Library if you like an apparently scholarly job becoming an adventure. Irene works for a Library that sends staff into different realities; her opening mission takes her to an alternative London. Our reason for pairing it with St Mary’s is the combination of a specialist institution, a resourceful woman and an assignment that becomes complicated. The travel is between worlds rather than through recorded history.
Terry Pratchett: Guards! Guards!
Try Guards! Guards! for a comic institution facing a problem well beyond its usual work. It begins the City Watch sequence within Discworld, although it is the eighth Discworld novel overall. Captain Vimes and the Night Watch face a dragon in Ankh-Morpork. We suggest this starting point for Time Police readers who want another team with an awkward job and plenty of room for humour.
Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Start with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for a science-fiction comedy that sends an ordinary person into an extraordinary predicament. Arthur Dent’s journey begins with the loss of his home and then Earth itself. This is our suggestion for readers drawn to absurd explanations, disproportionate problems and a distinctly British comic voice. It offers space travel rather than the historical research that drives St Mary’s.
Claire North: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Try The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August when the consequences of changing time interest you most. Harry repeatedly begins his life again with his earlier memories intact, until a message interrupts the pattern. This is a starting choice for Claire North rather than another comic team series. We pair it with Taylor for the question of what knowledge does to someone’s decisions across time.