The Excalibur Alternative - Softcover

Weber, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743435842 ISBN 13: 9780743435840

Publisher: Baen, 2003

Synopsis

This novel is expanded from a shorter version published in David Drake's Foreign Legions. Captured by a technologically advanced alien race, a group of medieval English knights gains power and experience as savage interstellar mercenaries, all the while planning for the day when they will rise up and reclaim the freedom that is their destiny.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

In the latest SF adventure novel from the creator of Honor Harrington, Weber (On Basilisk Station; Ashes of Victory; etc.) expands a short story, "Sir George and the Dragon," which appeared in the David Drake anthology Foreign Legions (2001), to good effect. The novel adheres to the story's basic plot: aliens of the Federation abduct 14th-century Englishmen to serve as mercenaries on planets where only low-tech weaponry is legal. But the author extends these events in several directions, with his usual mixture of apt characterization and historical sophistication (here regarding medieval weaponry and tactics). The Englishmen liberate themselves with the aid of the "dragon-men" (the Ternaui) and "Computer" (renamed Merlin), as well as the obstinate stupidity of their opponents. The narrative then leaps ahead several centuries to an ending that surprises both humans and aliens as they learn of the Empire of Avalon. The slam-bang action leaves little room for developing subplots beyond tantalizing hints, though this approach also means a streamlined story, in contrast to Weber's normally rather sprawling narratives. Newcomers to the author's work will do fine without having read previous books in the series. This novel makes an honorable companion to the late Poul Anderson's classic The High Crusade, which uses a similar plot idea.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In a more modest book than he usually produces, Weber expands on his story in the disappointing shared-world anthology Foreign Legions (2001), masterminded by David Drake. In 1346, Sir George Wincaster, bound to France during the Hundred Years' War, is about to be lost at sea when he and his company, including his wife, Matilda, are snatched from a watery grave, only to be consigned, as is usual when one of the Federation's competitive guilds grabs you--for that is what has happened--to slave-soldiering as mercenaries on primitive planets. Weber's Englishmen prove no less ingenious and formidable than the similarly "rescued" Romans in a Drake story set in the same alternate reality, and with the help of the reptilian Ternaui, they achieve freedom. The plot then leaps over multiple centuries to a slam-bang action climax that hints of books to come. As storytelling, this may not be as grand as usual from Weber, but it is as thoroughly absorbing. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Baen
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743435842
• ISBN 13: 9780743435840
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352