The winds of fate

Bestseller Stirling revisits the band of time travelers introduced in To Turn the Tide in this bombastic alternate history. Bringing modern tech and medicine to ancient Rome, time traveling professor Arthur Vandenberg and his four grad students give Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his troops the tools to defeat the northern German invaders. But trouble reappears in the east as the Roman ambassador to China barely escapes the Han court, which has its own futuristic secret weapons courtesy of a group of time traveling refugees fleeing the 2032 nuclear war. With both modern groups seeking world domination by a single power to avoid the creation of nuclear weapons, Rome and China are set on a collision course. Stirling is scrupulous with historical details, taking time out of his plot to admire the intelligence of real-life figures like Claudius Galen, but the pace of change wrought by the time travelers seems improbably breakneck. His protagonists' hyper-competency similarly strains belief, and the rivalry between East and West is clearly portrayed in Rome's favor, making for a tilted conflict. The result is hardly subtle, but die-hard military sci-fi fans will find plenty to hold their interest. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh. (July)