Mark Lawrence

Ready Player One meets Stranger Things in this new novel by the bestselling author who George RR Martin describes as "an excellent writer." In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he's dying. And it isn't even the strangest thing to happen to him that week. Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange--yet curiously familiar--man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn't exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia's in grave danger, though she doesn't know it yet. She needs Nick's help--now. He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics. Challenge accepted.

One Word Kill

Maria 

Christine

reread september 2023: lol so when i was 14 i was REALLY into the multiverse thanks to a Very Specific Middlegrade Book Series and i read this and promptly gave it 5*. i am rather distinctly sure this does not deserve 5* in the end but i am also too lazy to think about it and actually change it so it'll stay.
ugh now i have to reread the second book. don't like that one. worth it for the third though.

requisite life update bro college is wild help

Janice Hopper

I think this was a free/cheap ebook that looked interesting. And it was, and I liked it a lot!

I think this was my first time reading Mark Lawrence. He has a very smooth, easy writing style. The story moves along briskly, with interesting and engaging characters.

It's sort of a time travel story. It's also about a group of friends who play Dungeons and Dragons, and use the connections they made through that to work out some of their issues.

I read it pretty much straight through. I'll be looking for more books by this author, because it was a really fun read.

Demi

This book took all sorts of turns that I definitely wasn’t expecting! I went into this book not knowing to much at all. I was recommended this book and saw it had relatively good reviews so I decided to pick it up, and boy am I glad I did.

I did actually end up really enjoying this book! I really liked the different characters we got to meet and all of their stories and relationships with each other. I think the main character Nick was really interesting and I enjoyed reading his perspective of what was going on in his life. I also did really enjoy the plot and the aspects of time travel. I will say, I did find some of the time travel a little hard to understand and wrap my head around so that did take away from the book for me. Despite that, I found the story relatively easy to follow along with.

Overall, I really enjoyed One Word Kill amd will definitely be picking up the second book in the series!

Celeste Richardson

One Word Kill is my first experience with Lawrence’s science fiction and, while it didn’t resonate with my soul as deeply as his Book of the Ancestor, it was a solid, fun, fast-paced read that I very much enjoyed. Here we have a nerdy group of friends, similar in dynamic to the crew that has taken the world by storm in Netflix’s Stranger Things. This group finds themselves facing external strife through contact with a plot that could have come straight from the pages of Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. But just as harrowing is their internal turmoil as they learn that one of their number is currently in a battle for his life against the grimmest of foes: cancer.
In hospital they ask you to rate your discomfort on a scale of ten. I guess it’s the best they can come up with, but it fails to capture the nature of the beast. Pain can stay the same while you change around it. And, like a thumb of constant size, what it blocks out depends on how close it gets to you. At arm’s length a thumb obscures a small fragment of the day. Held close enough to your eye it can blind you to everything that matters, relegating the world to a periphery.
Nick is our main character, and we get the story from his perspective. The story begins with his cancer diagnosis, and we see him wrestle with the horrors of chemotherapy and the knowledge that his body is turning against him. While I didn’t have this struggle as a teen, my husband was diagnosed with cancer at sixteen, so I can imagine Nick’s situation and felt deeply for him. Nick’s refuge from his pain and fear comes in the form of weekly Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with his friends. 
Truth may often be the first casualty of war, but dignity is definitely the first casualty of disease.
While I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons, it’s not from lack of interest. I’m fascinated by the game, but it’s overwhelming to figure out how to start, especially when you don’t have enough interested people in your life to play the game effectively. However, I love reading (or watching, regarding Stranger Things) groups of friends who have bonded over D and D. There’s something so intelligent and imaginative and immersive about the game as I’ve heard it described, and I can see how bonding over said game would make for a pretty tight and abiding friendship. 
We were all of us consumed by our own imagination, victims of it, haunted by impossibles, set alight by our own visions, and by other people’s. We weren’t the flamboyant artsy creatives, the darlings who would walk the boards beneath the hot eye of the spotlight, or dance, or paint, or even write novels. We were a tribe who had always felt as if we were locked into a box that we couldn’t see. And when D&D came along, suddenly we saw both the box and the key.
There’s also a romance in the book that reminded me again of Stranger Things. It was similarly sweet, though not as pure. I can see that relationship becoming even more of a central focus in the next two installments.
We might live in a multiverse of infinite wonder, but we are what we are, and can only care about what falls into our own orbit.
I don’t want to really get into the external strife that plagues the group, as I don’t want to spoil anything. I will say that I figured out the plot incredibly early on, but the story was fun enough for me to look past that. If you’re a fan of Stranger Things and Back to the Future and Dark Matter, I think you’ll really enjoy this book. Also, it’s very short, making it a great choice if you’re looking for a breather between heavier reads. I found it fairly predictable, but that’s not always a bad thing. One Word Kill is a nice, easy story to disappear into for a few hours, and I’ll definitely be reading the next two books. I can’t recall ever seeing another author publish an entire trilogy in under a year, which I think warrants a special congratulations to Lawrence. I’m interested to see where the story goes next.

Alost

One word kill give you brief introduction to Dungeons and Dragons, if you're none to familiar with it ( like me). It is a coming of age story where the teenage narrator who has a tightly knit and well diverse group of friends who get together for regular DnD sessions. The story itself hasn't unraveled even by the end of the book, but it promises great things are to come. But I don't think I'm going to follow up as it wasn't interesting enough for me. Probably it's targeted towards a younger audience?

Maria

I just can't bring myself to care about this story and the characters

Adrianne

A Young Adult science fiction novel that will make you think and analyse all the little time travel conundrums and cause-effect implications, which the author seems to be fluent in. At first there is nothing Sci-fi about this story. We meet Nick, who lives in London with his mother and is gearing up for his first round of chemotherapy. Even though he is battling cancer, you get to enjoy his witty and often hilarious inner monologue, as he gradually experiences his body’s deterioration. But his road to recovery is not the main part of this story. Along with a few of his closest friends, Nick embarks on a time travel adventure, that will determine his future and the futures of his friends. However, cheating time is tricky and you can never be entirely sure how the smallest of your actions can influence what lies ahead. 

Although it’s a YA story, I believe over 30s will enjoy it even more, since it takes place in the 80s and there is more than a few references to events and pop culture of that time. I couldn’t put it down, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys this genre.

Ready Player One meets Stranger Things in this new novel by the bestselling author whom George RR Martin describes as "an excellent writer." In January 1986, fifteen-year-old boy-genius Nick Hayes discovers he's dying. And it isn't even the strangest thing to happen to him that week. Nick and his Dungeons & Dragons-playing friends are used to living in their imaginations. But when a new girl, Mia, joins the group and reality becomes weirder than the fantasy world they visit in their weekly games, none of them are prepared for what comes next. A strange--yet curiously familiar--man is following Nick, with abilities that just shouldn't exist. And this man bears a cryptic message: Mia's in grave danger, though she doesn't know it yet. She needs Nick's help--now. He finds himself in a race against time to unravel an impossible mystery and save the girl. And all that stands in his way is a probably terminal disease, a knife-wielding maniac and the laws of physics. Challenge accepted.

Nickie Mohler

I haven't read very much sci-fi, and never played Dungeons and Dragons, but I really enjoyed this book. I love the characters! Their little D & D group had me from the start. Such a diverse group that just fits perfectly together.
Nick is 15, and he's dying. There is also a man following him that is a stranger but not a stranger. There are a couple of bullies he is trying to avoid. What will kill him first: chemo, stalker, bullies? Best to just go hang out and play Dungeons and Dragons where things are less weird!

I was really excited that this was an Amazon first book this month. I hope the next one will be too. If not, I will still buy it. It's Mark Lawrence after all!

Ruth Parker 

The first book in the Impossible Times is great. Who can argue with high praise from George R R Martin, who claimed to love it?! No one, that's who.

I enjoyed this a lot, the fast paced action was compelling. It's a fantastic read, one I devoured as quickly as I could. Even though this book is technically about young adults, it doesn't read like a YA book. Compared to other YA novels of the genre, it seems to take on a more mature angle, diving into tough and serious topics, no holes barred. 

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions in this review are my own.

Alexia Cambaling

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to NetGalley and 47North!

One of the best books I’ve read last year was Red Sister by Mark Lawrence so when I got the opportunity to review his sci-fi book set in the 1980s, I jumped on the chance. Now, I’ve only watched the first episode of Stranger Things but I can see why One Word Kill gets compared and I imagine fans of the series would like this book.

First, the writing. I loved Mark Lawrence’s prose in Red Sister but the writing style there differs from the one here and I think it works very well. One Word Kill is written in a more contemporary, modern style and it’s very fast-paced and readable. The writing wasn’t flowery but it was perfect for this kind of setting. It’s a short book so you could finish it in one sitting and you might as the pacing it so fast-paced it’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.

The characters are all rich and well-characterized and honestly, I just love this friend group. I like how they act like teens, react to their friend’s illness like teens, and plan things like teens. I feel like a lot of teens in YA don’t really act like teenagers do, so I’m really happy to find that teens are portrayed realistically in this book. I also like how this group of friends stick together and I enjoyed their dynamic a lot. It actually made me wish me and my group of friends know how to play D&D.

The plot involves time-travel, saving a girl in danger, and also quite possibly saving Nick’s own life. It’s very interesting and it goes in directions I did not expect it to go, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. I don’t want to spoil too much but the plot about making sure things happen so that the future doesn’t go awry is a compelling one.

Overall, I can recommend One Word Kill to fans of Science Fiction, Mark Lawrence, and/or Stranger Things. It’s a novella so it won’t take you long to read but packs quite a punch and is very worth it.

Heather Harrington

I had slightly different expectations going into this book because I had read it was a bit Ready Player One-ish, and that's one of my favorite books, but I did not get that vibe at all. I did enjoy the setting of the story, and the relationship between the group of friends, but I will say it took me a while to actually get into the story. I think I was about a third of the way through before I really felt it hit its stride. Even then, I did feel some bits were predictable and just didn't impact me as much as I was hoping for. Overall, it's a quick story but I'm not sure if I'll continue with the series.

Kerri McDonald

D&D and conundrums 

Well, this book was definitely interesting! This is the story of fifteen year old Nick, who has just been diagnosed with cancer when a bunch of weird things start happening to him. To make it worse, he seems to have picked up a stalker. And the whole thing just gets weirder from there. 

I liked this book for what it was: a fast-paced sci-fi adventure with some D&D flavoring sprinkled in. The story was good, but I found myself unable to connect with any of the characters. And, not gonna lie, I got a little lost with some of the plot. Still, it was entertaining and I really loved the D&D scenes! Brought back fond memories. Will I continue the series? Perhaps. Only time will tell...

Sally Salinas

This was a cute story of time travel & friendship. A little confusing but can’t wait to start the next book.

Chantale

This is the first book by Mark Lawrence that I have read but it will not be the last. 


I don't often read young adult Sci-fi/ fantasy but this book sounded interesting.


I am so happy I got the chance to read and review this book. It is very well written and it is very well written. I was hooked onto the story pretty much right away. 


I can't wait to read more in the series and I already have the second book to read and review so you will be seeing that review close to release day.


You can now purchase this book in your local book shop or online . 



I am giving this 4 out of 5.

One Word Kill

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