Last year, I reviewed Daniel Godfrey’s New Pompeii.  The book told the story of how a company used time travel to rescue the people of Pompeii from Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 AD.  It was an interesting concept and ended up being my favorite book of the year.

Empire of Time is set 15 years after New Pompeii.  If you haven’t read New Pompeii, you’ll probably want to read that book first.  Additionally, you’ll want to read this review until after you have read New Pompeii, since it presume knowledge of that book.

Story

Empire of Time begins fifteen years after the end of New Pompeii.  Nick Houghton is the sole surviving member of the NovuPart team that was featured in New Pompeii.  Nick is the ambassador between New Pompeii and the outside world.  He is a persona non grata in most of the world, due to the fact that he owns slaves in New Pompeii. The fact that New Pompeii still has a NovusPart device gives them power over the outside world.

Most of Empire of Time focuses on a power struggle, both internally within New Pompeii and between New Pompeii and the outside world.  Nick’s influence in New Pompeii seems to be waning, and with it, his ability to ensure a level of stability within New Pompeii.

I didn’t find Empire of Time to be as interesting as New Pompeii, mostly because it focused more on the struggle for power and less on the science fiction aspect than New Pompeii did.  Still, it was an interesting story, although there was some spots where I had trouble following the plot.

Characters

Nick is the dominant character in the book.  His character was well-developed and complex.  The story took place in three different settings (New Pompeii, the outside world, and ancient Pompeii), which limited the involvement of any of the other characters.  Despite this limitation, the characters do have at least some depth.  

While I didn’t like this book as much as New Pompeii, it’s still a pretty interesting book.

Empire of Time comes out of June 20.

 

[Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Empire of Time for review purposes.]

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Kosmo is the founder of The Soap Boxers and writes on a variety of topics. Many of his short stories have been collected into Kindle books.

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