Emperor-Conquerer-Navigator

[zoomar]

I'm reading this Stephen Baxter trilogy which is called "alternate history" on the dust jackets. I know next to nothing about Roman and Saxon Britain, but so far it seems to be set in "our" history, although with the interesting wrinkle that it features a series of evolving prophesies that are obviously the result of somebody in the future sending messages to influence the past - or so I presume.

Like most Baxter, it is well written and very imaginative. I llike the time depth he has in many of his books. The idea that oracles and prophesies may be the results of time travel is interesting.

Anyone read these books? What do you think?

 

[Polish Eagle]

I read those. Not to give anything away, but the prophecies are used to influence history. Since the prophecies are not fulfilled, I don't really think these are AH, more like a set of possible PODs, i.e. Constantine assassinated, William the Conqueror is defeated, Columbus goes East. Still really interesting, though, especially, for me, Emperor and Navigator.
There is one strang inconsistency, though. At the end of Emperor, in the epilogue, the pregnant girl starts spouting another prophecy, which appears to be the Declaration of Independence in Saxon language (I think). However, this prophecy is not mentioned in Conqueror.

 

[zoomar]

I read those. Not to give anything away, but the prophecies are used to influence history. Since the prophecies are not fulfilled, I don't really think these are AH, more like a set of possible PODs, i.e. Constantine assassinated, William the Conqueror is defeated, Columbus goes East. Still really interesting, though, especially, for me, Emperor and Navigator.
There is one strang inconsistency, though. At the end of Emperor, in the epilogue, the pregnant girl starts spouting another prophecy, which appears to be the Declaration of Independence in Saxon language (I think). However, this prophecy is not mentioned in Conqueror.

Finished all three. The best were Emperor and Navigator. THe middle volume didn't really seem all that necessary at all to elaborate on the prophesies. Its main purpose seems to have been to write a lot about brutal barbarians and various sorts of murder and rape. I too was surprised that the section of the prophesy referring to "self evident truths" and entitled rights was dropped altogether. My guess is that Baxter included the lines from the Declaration of Independence in the initial volume to give the prophesies some relevance to modern readers and make us all know something like time travel is behind the cryptic prophesies - otherwise they sound just like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. I think he has some early characters dismiss these lines as unimprtant, so we can imagine they were eventually dropped from the recounting.