Imperium

Science fiction giant Keith Laumer delivers a fast-paced, wry adventure of time travel and twisted realities in three classic interwoven tales as a regular Joe from our Earth fights against an alternate version of himself who has become a tyrant in an alternate timeline.

American Brion Bayard is abducted on the streets of Stockholm, and thrust into what he believes is a truck. He’s relieved to find his captors very apologetic, and very British—that is, until they began speaking about nations of which Bayard has never heard.

His captors were from Earth, yes. But not his Earth.

Turns out that there are countess parallel Earths, each different, where history has taken every possible turn—and there are even more uninhabitable worlds, destroyed by the misuse of cross-time travel. 

Bayard discovers that the Earth he has now been thrust into, the Earth of the Imperium, is at war with a dangerously aggressive parallel Earth that has taken a wrong turn somewhere in time and whose ruler is...a parallel version of Bayard himself! Now Bayard’s mission is clear: to prevent his alternate self from destroying the new plane of reality that he now calls home, the Imperium.

Eric Flint was the creator of the New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series, the best-selling alternate history series of all time. Beginning with 1632, Flint—along with dozens of cowriters—chronicled what happened when the 20th-century town of Grantville, West Virginia, was transported through time and space to 17th-century Europe. In addition, Flint was the author, with New York Times best seller David Weber, of the Crown of Slaves Saga, as well as the Belisarius series with best-selling author David Drake. Flint was the editor of Jim Baen’s Universe, as well as numerous short story anthologies. Before becoming a writer, Flint worked as a trade union organizer, longshoreman, truck driver, auto worker, steel worker, oil worker, meatpacker, glassblower, and machinist. Eric Flint passed away in 2022.