The Alexander Inheritance

By: Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, Paula Goodlett

Narrated by: Graham Winton

New time travel alt. history from a master: Flint's Ring of Fire and Boundary series have proved him to be a master of time travel alternate history. Here then, a new tale of persons displaced in time, fighting for their lives.

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 2,000 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 50 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.

©2017 Eric Flint, Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett (P)2020 Recorded Books

I didn't think I would like it so much!

great! I have always thought about post Alexander history, ptolemaic, pre hasmonean israel, pre-pre-columbine america, and most importantly the mysterious Carthage! it's got everything and you are on vacation the whole time!

good first installment

so I loved this one and we had some great stuff going on but I was annoyed with a few minor details here and there. over all excited for the next one

Great premise, but...

This is the craziest time travel book I have ever read. The concept was wild, a tech-laden cruise ship winds up 300 years before the birth of Christ, right after Alexander the Great has died. I was all set to dive into it, but then it got so convoluted. Too much was going on, and the cast of characters was HUGE! The author didn't give us time to learn about the main characters. I was too involved in trying to remember who was what that much of it passed me by. They could have done so much better. In the end, I found myself slogging through it. It was truly a fantasy.
I think the problem is that if the technology were discovered and utilized by the ancient Greeks, all the "prophecies" given to them by the cruise people could not happen, because the tech would change the outcome of the future. So I had to suspend belief a lot. I was perplexed at the end. I needed something else.

Meh!

I'm a huge history buff especially when it revolves around ancient Egypt and or Greece but this gives you way too much information which takes away from the actual story of time travel. Narrarator does a halfway decent job trying to delineate each different accent but there are simply just too many. The story is basically a retelling of the world at the time short after Alexander The Great died which is fine if it was portrayed to prospective buyers that way.

I will continue to listen because as I said I'm a history buff. If your looking for more of a time travel science fiction type of story you may want to look elsewhere.

Terrible ending kinda pissed off

Engaging action and stirring ideas

Enjoyed the uptimers (a term not used in the book) being from more recent times than 1998 in the Ring of Fire series. Made me imagine how I could influence the situation as crew or passenger. Good job! Perhaps the start of a new series?