Empire of Time is available from the following links (declining availability!):
The sequel to New Pompeii.
New Rome has control of the time travel technology, which keeps western governments at bay. But the public call for the destruction of a place that allows slavery and gladiatorial combat. Meanwhile Calpurnia is fending off threats to her power, aided by Pullus, the man who was once Nick Houghton…
Has Nick truly embraced the Roman way of life? Can the Romans harness the power of time travel, or will the new world destroy them?
* * *
What’s new in Empire of Time?
The Roman world was very different to our own in all sorts of ways, and New Pompeii only managed to look at some of these initial differences. In my first novel, we saw the town through the eyes of my main character, Nick Houghton, who started out very much as a Romanophile. Sure, bad aspects of Roman society did present themselves, but they didn’t over power the fact that, to Nick, New Pompeii was a wonderland.
Fifteen years have passed between New Pompeii and Empire of Time, and Nick is faced with more and more of the reality of living in a reconstituted Roman Empire. He also takes trips back to Europe as New Pompeii’s ambassador, finding the outside world also becoming more and more alien to him as things have moved on whilst he’s not there.
Past, Present and Future
With Empire of Time, I was very interested in seeing Pompeii in the past, present and future. As my novel is set in the future, I have set the main sub-
In New Pompeii, most of the ‘world building’ was spent setting up New Pompeii: how it was a replica of ancient Pompeii, but one located in the near future. Similar, yet different, to the ancient town familiar to historians and classicists. In Empire of Time, New Pompeii is well established – the main challenge was therefore building an outside world to which Nick could return: I picked a few themes (economy and health) to build something that will hopefully be interesting / fun enough to drive the scenes in future Naples.
Reviews (All External Links)
“This fast-
“(Includes) some wonderfully Stephen Baxter-
“The perfect poolside read, a good mix of Sci-