I met Natasja Rose at Pennsic where she told me of a series she wrote about the support staff for a time traveling agency. Being familiar with the meme of a seamstress going off the pattern when time agents don’t respect fashions throughout different eras and countries, I had to check it out for myself.
These are short stories, more vignettes than plots, showing a collections of scenes from each department, but they are a fun way to spend an hour. Note that the spellings are Australian, like the author. I read through the shorts through Kindle Unlimited – this series is priced like I normally see for Australia authors. If you have American sensibilities of price points, read them through KU.
The Time Travel Logistics and Support series by Natasja Rose
- The Time Traveller’s Seamstress
- The Time Traveller’s Accountant
- The Time Traveller’s IT
- The Time Traveller’s Recruitment
- The Time Traveller’s HR (forthcoming – As of 10/16/2023, the author says the book is half written. Publication expected in 2024.)
- The Time Traveller’s Rouge (forthcoming)
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S SEAMSTRESS
Time Travel is easy. Fitting in while surfing the time-space continuum is harder.
A big part of the Time Agency’s success was due to their costuming department, a variety of men and women who made fantastic clothing… and who really wished that the Agents would pay more attention to details like what year and geographical region they were heading to, and the policy on advanced notice for anything pre-1920s. Honestly, do they think all of that hand-stitched embroider and beading is easy?
A humorous read likely to make you a lot more sympathetic to the costuming department.
MY REVIEW for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S SEAMSTRESS
FIRST REVIEW FROM 2019
A fun, simple read.
Totally a rant I can see from the Time Traveller’s support staff – and this is a long FUNNY rant about the importance of clothing through history – which I totally can get behind. I mean, really, modern folks would pick up someone wearing yesterday’s clothes, why would we ever think that it wasn’t as important in the past? Can you imagine if someone showed up wearing an Izod polo from just 40 years ago, or even an underarmour ten years too early? How about wearing cowboy boots instead of snow boots in Colorado in February? And the accessories – wrong cell phone!!!!
Translate that back to thousands of years to a thousand cultures and locations.
The perfect story idea – executed playfully in this short story.
SECOND REVIEW FROM SECOND READ-THRU (2023)
Reread with four other books in the series (Accountant, IT, and Recruitment)
Still fun, lighthearted short vignette of what one might face while working in a time travelling agency as support staff. I’m most familiar with the costuming end of things and just love how unhinged the tailors and seamstresses are after HAND beading one too many outfits.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S ACCOUNTANT
The Costuming Department probably had it worse, but life wasn’t all roses in Finance, either.
Whether it was sourcing ancient coins in a usable condition, only for the Agents to lose then less than a week later, or trying to convince Management to approve a payroll system from the current century (seriously, did anyone still use paycheques for wages?), it was one problem after another.
You’d think that the other departments would be more sympathetic, given what the agents subjected them to, but no…
MY REVIEW for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S ACCOUNTANT
(Note – spelling in this review reflects the Australian standard, as does the book itself.)
Another short vignette concentrating on the Accounting department of the time traveller agency logistics and support. Not only do they have to provide payroll (which management still has them issuing as paper cheques), they are also in charge of making sure the money people carry into the past is appropriate.
They run up against wear and tear of ancient coins, so they can’t just pick them up from museums, and counterfeiting with related jailtime is a consideration if the money is for a mission close enough in time the countries still exist.
Like the first book of the series, we get a few brief flashes of day-in-the-life-of activity, more than an actual plotline. The intercompany politics is what really makes these books – central to finances tale is the inter-office poaching good admin assistants.
A quick fun read. I read the whole series in about an hour.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S IT
IT is not a glamorous job. Not even when you’re troubleshooting time machines.
Between routine maintenance, fixing what the Agents managed to break this week, backing up the mission logs and thwarting attempts to poach their human blockade of a receptionist, the IT Department of the Time Agency rarely has a dull moment.
Honestly, they might spend less time wishing for a meteor strike if they did…
MY REVIEW for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S IT
Now off to IT for logistics and support of the time travelling agency, where we get to see Lydia’s and Steve’s romance continue to develop. (So completely adorkable!) And the IT department struggle with non-tech agents lack of understanding of the machines taking them back and forth through time.
(No we cannot just turn it off and on again … do you want to go swimming with dinosaurs, because that is how you go swimming with dinosaurs!)
I may have laughed a little too hard during chapter 5. Physical incursions are a nightmare for tech security.
Again, this is a series of vignettes more than a short story, where the behind-the-scenes activities of supporting a time agency are shown. This manuscript’s aside to interoffice politics is getting management to upgrade outdated equipment that is “still working fine, you just got to tweak it a little.”
Having done computer support in the past, I identified with a lot the Di Vincis.
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S RECRUITMENT
Recruiting for a Time-Travel Agency should be easy. It isn’t.
With the rising cost of History Degrees and most potential candidates having too many other commitments, and the rest of the pool thinking Netflix is the height of historical accuracy, finding recruits that don’t require months of re-training is becoming… difficult.
Recruiting Field Agents is simple. Just find the nearest person who has theories about how to change history, and aim them at prospective time travellers who have a different plan. All you have to do is keep track of where and when the Agents should NOT be sent.
Recruiting the more specialised support staff? … well, that’s a bit more difficult, and it’s not getting easier by having Management poaching the cream of the crop in an attempt to get some more competent Field Agents.
MY REVIEW for THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S RECRUITMENT
Read the fourth of the series (read the whole series in about an hour), and it’s more “meh” than the others. But then I’m not really an HR person – even when earning my MBA. It was amusing in my cohort working our way through the business degree – everyone was like “accounting UGH!” and “statistics for marking is a nightmare” and me and two other people were having a great time as everyone else complained. Then we hit HR and the tables turned. Math skills and people skills are two very different things. So me, not identifying with the people of the recruitment department makes sense.
The day-to-day activities are again the focus of this short manuscript, more a vignette than a story. Though this one of the series has a “stronger” plot as the interoffice politics is focused on the lack of agents, driving management to take their support specialists and put them in the field while recruitment is pushing a cohort through training as fast as possible (while the other support staff leaders are all wanting their workers back, now … yesterday would be better and why isn’t it possible within the time-travel agency. (IT covering their eyes “there is not enough days in the week to explain why we can’t.”)).
If you enjoy mild humor, queer characters, history, interoffice politics, costuming, and all these things mixed up, this is a fun way to spend an hour or two.
