The Alexander Inheritance by Eric FlintMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
An overall interesting and good book about a huge 21st century cruise ship that gets, for the lack better explanation, magically transported from said 21st century to the 4th. Some dates would make things easier to understand, especially since I didn't do things like include A.D. and B.C.
I'm not actually sure what date it left 'our' time, but somewhere around 2016 (or, at least, some time after 2011 since there is a comment made about an event that had occurred in that year) A.D. is the origin date of the cruise ship, and something like 323 B.C. is the arrival date (an exact year was mentioned, I don't recall what that exact year was, give or take a few years, the boat of 5000 passengers (and however many crew) arrived a few years after the death of Alexander the Great.
I kind of had the impression that the wife, Roxane, and baby Alexander had been more or less killed immediately, but she's still alive when the cruise ship arrives. Though she's in something like 'protective custody', a playing piece for the generals fighting over the empire Alexander had made. Also alive are a bunch of Alexanders former Generals, plus his half-brother Philip (who falls somewhere in the Autism spectrum) - and Philip's 17 year old wife (with Philip being somewhere in his mid-thirties I believe). Cleopatra also plays a part, though no I'm not referring to the one who ruled Egypt and 'did things' with Caesar. I'm referring to Alexander's last remaining full-blood sibling, his sister.
And a cruise ship full of other people.
While enjoyable I did have a few problems with the book. Mention of health came up, including a couple of references, I'm sure to reassure people, about how the people aboard the 21st century cruise ship weren't carrying anything that would endanger 'the natives'. But, part of the mentioning of the health involved noting that the ship arrived back in time and then used up a good significant portion of their medication treating passengers and the like. And seriously? 5000+ 21st century AD humans and not a one has anything that would adversely impact 'the natives' of the 4th century BC? Heck, one of the crew members was shown basically humping every native he could find - unless this was a new development in his life, he likely was doing that in the 'modern' world - and he had no types of illness or the like? Really?
One of the interesting things that occurs during the course of the book is the cruise ship appearing off Trindad. The ship is observed as it approaches. By a trader. And I'm immediately reminded of a nonfiction book I read recently. About a lost city found in, if I recall correctly, Guatemala (or Honduras?). A city from a civilization that doesn't even have a name of its own because they had been overshadowed by the others, the Mayans and the like - a city that died and was 'lost' because of the Europeans arrival. And the speculation that the reason that it died - even in it's remote location - is because the various city-states and the like weren't cut off from each other. And it's known that Columbus, with ill crew members on board, had visited the coast of Central America - and that there were native traders there at the time - who spread the disease that helped wipe out a good many natives. And here we have this book showing a 21st century cruise ship coming in and a native trader watching it.
The kind of flippant - 'they didn't have anything bad health wise, unlike Columbus' - was annoying.
Another issue: sex. I was perfectly happy to just watch everything unfold as events unfolded, content to let relationships not be delved into. But then the authors decided to start having people circle each other, then engage in 'relations' behind. Not graphically. No, that's not the issue. And even one relationship wasn't the issue. It's how there kept being these couplings pop up and . . . every single bloody one of them was heterosexual in nature. Every bloody one of them. There was a joke tossed out about the time period and the people, something like 'well, they are Greeks and you know what they are like in sexual matters' but . . . that's the only non-heterosexual thing in the book. The joke. As I said, I'd have been content but for the fact that many different couplings suddenly started popping up late-ish in the book. Some of them kind of 'well, we are both here, and I assume you'll go with me because we are close in age' ((view spoiler)).
Last problem? My understanding is that this, along with the one where a prison got sent back in time to the dinosaur era, were just stand-alone's. Related, but stand-alones. And this book? Doesn't really have an ending. Hell, it ends with almost a break in action (a ship that might cause 'issues', due to who is on the ship, approaches the cruise ship and . . . book over). (That ending, by the way, was after about 30 names got mentioned "this person from x; that person form y; Q from xx" etc. - in a way that's 'okay' in that a convention occurred, but . . . none of the people named really mattered beyond giving more glimpses of the period and the convention itself was kind of overlooked).
Right, so. It's funny, in its way, but I felt 'closer' to the people of the ancient world than those being held up as being from the 21st. Quite frankly I preferred those sections that dealt directly with the 'ancient people's and less with the 'modern people'.
Rating: 4.35
July 10 2017
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