Great King's War by Roland Green, John F. Carr, 0441302009, Lowest Book Price Finder

Customer Reviews:

Excellent sequel to H Beam Piper's Paratime story

It is quite rare for anyone to write a successful sequel to someone else's work. But Carr and Green have written a brilliant continuation to H Beam Piper's book "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen."

H Beam Piper's book was one of his "Paratime" books. Back when he was writing, the idea of an empire built on travel between alternative worlds was a comparatively unusual one: until recently only Piper and Keith Laumer (Worlds of the Imperium et seq.) had done anything like this. Recently the genre has expanded enormously with John Barnes's "Closers" series, Harry Turtledove (Crosstime Traffic) and David Weber (Gates of Hell) amongst those getting in on the act. If you've read and enjoyed any of those, H Beam Piper's Paratime books were the original.

In Piper's book "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen," Calvin Morrison, a state trooper from our world or one like it, is accidentally transported to another timeline where Gunpowder is controlled by a corrupt church of the "Gunpowder God", Stryphon. He breaks the church monopoly and helps a kingdom which the church was about to crush to survive.

Green and Carr's sequel is about the major war which follows when "Stryphon's House" comes back for revenge.

I strongly recommend this book, but agree that to get the most out of it, you should read "Lord Kalvan of otherwhen" first.

Great!

H. Beam Piper (1904-64) was one of the premier science-fiction authors of the 1960s, and should rightly be considered one of the all-time greats in that field. Among the wonderful books that Mr. Piper published during his all-too-short career was Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. In that book, a Pennsylvania State Trooper name Calvin Morrison is accidentally lifted out of his own space-time continuum, and deposited on a parallel Earth, where some of the Aryans went east, across the Pacific and into North America. Dropped into the midst of a war of conquest, directed by a religion that holds a monopoly on gunpowder, Calvin must use his knowledge of military history to save himself and his new friends.

In this 1985 sequel, Piper fans John F. Carr and Roland Green take us back to the world of Lord Kalvan. Having saved his new nation of Hos-Hastigos from destruction only last year, Calvin Morrison (now Lord Kalvan) now finds a new campaigning season upon him. But, the House of Styphon is not about to see this new force put an end to their gunpowder wealth and authority. And now, Kalvan must prepare to meet an even greater threat, and once more use his knowledge of military history to save a seemingly impossible situation.

Now, I am a massive H. Beam Piper fan, so I went into this book with a little trepidation. I mean, can anyone write a book in Piper's universe with anything like the right feel to it? Well, in fact this is an excellent book - well written and a worthy sequel to the original. All of the characters are here, but they have grown and changed, just like you would expect real people to do. The action is almost non-stop with some excellent battle scenes and tons of action and adventure.

So, if you are a fan of H. Beam Piper, or just his Lord Kalvan story, then you should get this book. It's great.

Also, if you are a fan of alternate-reality science fiction, then this book is something you should consider - but definitely read Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen first.

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