The Alexander Inheritance

By: Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, Paula Goodlett

Narrated by: Graham Winton

Length: 15 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

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

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

Unpleasantly surprised

I enjoy this author and this genre. The Grantville series was a favorite, likewise, Island in the Sea of Time was a similar title so this seemed to be a slam dunk. Nope, I'm up to chapter 6 and don't care if anyone survives. No one stands out as a likable protagonist or a remarkable antagonist. Everyone is out for themselves and there's no cooperation or even a hint of one. Even at the start, the "event" is anticlimactic on the ship and all characters seem to accept it like the aftermath of a nasty windstorm. The narrator was okay but not enough to pull this out of the fire, I'm disappointed and moving on.

its a good start

it like a combo of destroyermen and Island in the Sea of Time. It has a boat and group of people sent to the past. Main difference between those books and this one is there is very little uniting the group sent back. Most sent are strangers to each other. Their level of tech brough back is higher compared to the island series but not their technical skill is bit less than the destroyermen. I like that the group sent back is more diverse than the other other series and not just all white people. A drawback with such a large group sent back is characters are not well developed. It still a good start and I find the boat peoples ideas to affect the world novel. I look forward to further character development, action and more novel ideas,

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

Confusing

Very difficult to follow ancient names. Also slang phrases used by many past people were out of time sync. Some good moments but hardly worth it.

Where is the end?

Out of nowhere the narrator says The End???
I don’t need seven more words- the end

O.K book, Less than great narrator.

I greatly enjoyed the Eric Flint books from 1632 series, and read the first three with great delight. This is essentially the same book, in a different setting.

For one thing, it is very difficult to write a character who is smarter, craftier, cleverer than the author; and with pretty much all the ancient characters that is undoubtedly the case. These characters speak 'on the nose" far to many times to be believable. I understand that this can be a good way to do exposition, but if you are going to talk about how canny and clever these scheming political players are... don't have them suddenly turn around and speak "on the nose" about their REAL political intentions in public conversation two pages later.

The authors do understand how the ancient world had different attitudes towards the value of life and people. Unlike a lot of time travel books not everyone is a modern American in a costume. It is to their credit that they say "These people don't think like we do" over and over and over... but given the huge number of characters nobody really gets the time and attention they need to be a fully developed character, so it is hard to tell.

The huge number of characters means some folks are mentioned or introduced only to never be seen again. One of the main characters is a U.S. Congressman, and it is stated that he is only on the ship because of his daughter's wedding ... but then we never see the daughter, or his new son in law, or anyone associated with the wedding, or even if his wife ( who we assume must have existed at some point). We see his aide, who was on the ship for... reasons... but as far as I can tell, that's it.

"Reasons" also appears to be a major motivating factor for some of the character's actions. To be fair this isn't always the case, but it is irritating when it happens. At the start of the book there is a discussion about how the ship has special, magic, "flex fuel" engines that can burn anything from wine to crude oil... (just what a time traveler might need!!!) because of ... um... environmental reasons. When some of the ancients have their slaves freed by the time travelers they are predictably upset... and the time travelers KNOW they are upset...but the idea of saying "Hey, here's some money to make you feel better about us taking your slaves..." apparently that particular thought never enter's anybody's head.... because the plot demands they be angry in order for....SPOILER... to happen.

Time travel books deal a lot with knowing what will happen before it does. This book is full of that.. but not in a good way. If you are familiar with the 1632 books it is obvious before the end of the first chapter who is going to wind up falling in love with whom before the book is over. Also some of the major plot points are astoundingly clear well in advance... I'm not talking "setting up the next plot twist" or "making sure the character's motivation is clear"... I'm talking about "Oh, it's about time "X" got on board the ship... I've been waiting for that for six whole chapters". Also people make some outstandingly BAD decisions on several occasions, sometimes they even acknowledge that they are bad decisions, but they do them anyway, again, for "reasons". This made it hard for the book to keep my interest. I was never wondering what was going to happen next... ever... at ANY point... not even remotely.

The reading and voices... sigh... there are a lot of characters, and that is a challenge... but it is too much to poor guy to handle... and winds up being pretty much a disaster. The accents are just bad, they are variable... and people who it seems are meant to be sympathetic characters have voices that are so scratchy and irritating that you wish they would just fall over the side so you don't have to listen to them anymore.

It was a fun book. It's obvious that lots of research and thought went into it. I learned quite a bit about cruise liners and what they can and can't do... but push come to shove this was "1632" with the serial numbers filed off.... and I'd already read that book.

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?

Weak

The most boring, forced, and least interesting of the series. If you like the other two, skip this one

Disapointing

I am a long-standing fan of Eric Flint I can only assume he had little to do with the actual writing of this book because it was very convoluted to the point I just gave up