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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GoodI like it. I want more.
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E-arcTo reply to some comments, this is an e-arc, not a fully edited book so some problems exist. I enjoyed the book as far as it went but I still have problems with stories ending long before they are finished. I really hate to be ready for the next part and get to the 'cast of characters'! Now all I can hope for is that the authors will take pity on me and finish the ten or twenty-book novel. Of course I don't want Eric to delay his next 1632 book to do it but he must do whatever is necessary to get his co-authors to do the job. Please get with it.
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GreatLooks like the start of a wonderful new series.
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Quit while you are aheadI couldn't sustain an interest. Ancient name dropping, but the character development is weak.
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A bit below average--2.5 stars.. The writing is kind of choppy, both in sentence structure and in character viewpoint. I feel it could have used another round or two of serious editing.
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I've been waiting over a year for this book to be published. It was very hard to read. To many characters, I agree with CAT, I got lost trying to figure who was who. A great disappointment.
JonPosted on
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It has momentsAs others have said, it's incomplete. At the end, the authors just quit writing. Some of the ancients only chapters contribute nothing obvious to story development. That said the premise is interesting.
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Couple of weird editing decions. A knot is a unit of speed, not distance. I have no idea why so many Macedonians have Russian or Latin names (Evgenij, Trajan).
Overall I loved the concept but I agree that character introduction was sloppy. University teachers familiar with the period always take time to distinguish Antipater and Antigonus.Posted on
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Good if beggining of a series.If this is the first of a series it's great however if a stand alone it's incomplete IMHO.
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Not badGood ideas throughout the book, but so much jumping from character to character that having a connection with any of the characters is difficult.
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