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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Rushed DisjointedA bit to disjointed like to many short stories that might build later, pasted together. I applaud the use or real historical names even though they are 1/7 the word count in this story. To many story lines and all are to short it is very hard to get any investment in any of the personalities. An over reaching ARC
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It was... ok. There's plot for about three books crammed into this one and everything feels super rushed. Characters are introduced the moment they're needed and never seen again and there's a ton of totally unnecessary handwavium regarding anything technology. Overall it was entertaining enough but it's definitely not up to the quality of the rest of the Ring of Fire series. If this story was spread out over three books and not so rushed it feels like it would have been excellent.
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Island in the Sea of Time (Lite)"Island in the Sea of Time" was one of my favorite books, and this one, though a similar plot, isn't close. It too many historical characters thrown at the reader too quickly, without the effort to have protagonists that you actually care for. Good plot line, but mediocre execution.
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Lost in the namesI spent most of the book completely lost amongst what felt like hundreds of names that I didn't recognise. I'd come across Antipater, Antigonus, Attalus, Eumenes, Eurydice and dozens of others and I'd have to stop reading and try and figure out who they were, what their relationship was with everyone else. It completely took me out of the story. Even worse was the problem that there were no characters that I was invested in. I was kind of expecting it to be Roxane and Dag, but nothing happened to them, at no time was I worried or anxious for them, and by the end of the book I felt that I knew nothing about their personalities. None of the characters in the book had personalities, the locals were pragmatic and willing to be bloodthirsty and the ship people were against slavery. Nobody stood out.
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Great concept, but plot moves too fast to be enjoyedI like the concept, however the pace of the story is set too fast to really enjoy the characters. Also, the romance plot lines feel tacked on and artificial since we don't see any development there, rather it seems a foregone conclusion it would happen. Also, the internet on the ship seems to be a bit abused to hand wave things that would equally have been known by one of the passengers or crew members.
The story has a good outline, it just feels too pared down that it jumps all over. I get desire to tell the full story in a single novel, but if you cut this book in half and fleshed each half with more scenes for character development, then it would feel more reminiscent of the early 1632 books that pulled so many people in.Posted on