Twice before, mysterious cosmic catastrophes have sent portions of the Earth across space and back in time—first, with the Grantville Disaster in West Virginia, and then again with a maximum security prison in southern Illinois.
Now, the planet is struck with yet another such cataclysm, whose direct impact falls upon the Queen of the Sea, a cruise ship in the Caribbean. When the convulsions subside, the crew and passengers of the ship discover that they have arrived in a new and frightening world.
They are in the Mediterranean now, not the Caribbean. Still worse, they discover that the disaster has sent them more than two thousand years back in time. Following the advice of an historian among the passengers, Marie Easley, they sail to Egypt—or, at least, where they hope Egypt will be.
Sure enough, Egypt is there—ruled over by Ptolemy, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty and one of Alexander the Great’s chief generals.
Alexander the Great, it turns out, died just two years ago. The western world has just entered what would become known as the Hellenistic Period of history, during which time Greek civilization would spread around the Mediterranean and beyond. But the first fifty years of the Hellenistic Period was the Age of Diadochi—the Time of the Successors—when Alexander’s empire would collapse into chaos. By the time the Successors finished their strife, every single member of Alexander’s dynasty would be murdered and only three of the generals who began that civil war would still be alive.
That is the new world in which the Queen of the Sea finds itself. Can Marie Easley and Captain Lars Flodden guide the crew and passengers through this cataclysm? Fortunately, they have some help: a young Norwegian ship’s officer who forms an attachment to Alexander’s widow; a French officer who is a champion pistol marksman; a canny Congressman from Utah—and, most of all, many people of the time who are drawn to a vision of the better world of the future.
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Has good in it, barely...This book had a chance to be epic, amazing, and fascinating.
While it is often fun, it falls far short of its potential in many places and blithely assumes asinine nonsense in others. For instance, it completely ignores the certain plagues that would be unleashed on the "ship people", the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean, and especially the "Indians" who would certainly have lost significant portions of their population to diseases even as innocuous as the common cold and the flu to which they would have had no immunity. Much like the ship people who would certainly have had to deal with their own plagues to viruses and bacteria rare in the modern day or so significantly different as to not raise immunological reactions due to the enormous gap in time. Unfortunately that is only one such huge, gaping logical flaws present.
Worse in my mind is the ludicrous number of paragraphs spent humanizing or excusing things like slavery, rapinoe, and burning children alive in sacrifice to idols.
Seriously? Something is seriously wrong with whichever person wrote some of those paragraphs. I'm fairly certain that it wasn't Eric Flint. But, he soiled his name by allowing them in a book with his name on it.
Additionally, the series as it is obviously going to become a series is shooting itself in the foot from the beginning. It may not be completely obvious at first glance, but the authors are creating unbeatable protagonists, which makes for boring books with no real drama as the "ship people" simply have too large an advantage and are a prop for the supported Greek empire, using modeling techniques and know how as this series version of vibranium.
It's not completely terrible, but I won't buy the next book, and I encourage you to get this one used or at your local library.Posted on
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A 21st century cruise ship drops into the ancient Mediterranean shortly after the death of Alexander the Great. Beware, Alexander's generals and relatives make the Game of Thrones look like pre-school nap time. Gorg and Paula always produce an interesting and fun book in the Ring of Fire universe and make sure the modern folks influence events.
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Needs more cowbell... er, pagesGreat book that starts off somewhat slow but in the end so, so desperately calls for a sequel. There are so many questions left unanswered. Will the USSE actually function? Can Carthage really work with Rome? And what will happen to all those outdated elephants?
Inquiring minds need to know.Posted on
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Love this Book.I have been reading time travel books for thirty years and this is another good one. Please make this another book series.
Baen always come through with grate books and grate corrector.
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