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Perfect for fans of action-adventure and historical fiction—including novels by such authors as Bernard Cornwell, Steve Berry, Naomi Novik, and Harry Turtledove—this stunning work of alternate history imagines a world in which the Roman Empire has not fallen and the North American continent has just been discovered. In the year 1218 AD, transported by Norse longboats, a Roman legion crosses the great ocean, enters an endless wilderness, and faces a cataclysmic clash of worlds, cultures, and warriors.
Ever hungry for land and gold, the Emperor has sent Praetor Gaius Marcellinus and the 33rd Roman Legion into the newly discovered lands of North America. Marcellinus and his men expect easy victory over the native inhabitants, but on the shores of a vast river the Legion clashes with a unique civilization armed with weapons and strategies no Roman has ever imagined.
Forced to watch his vaunted force massacred by a surprisingly tenacious enemy, Marcellinus is spared by his captors and kept alive for his military knowledge. As he recovers and learns more about these proud people, he can’t help but be drawn into their society, forming an uneasy friendship with the denizens of the city-state of Cahokia. But threats—both Roman and Native—promise to assail his newfound kin, and Marcellinus will struggle to keep the peace while the rest of the continent surges toward certain conflict.
Praise for Clash of Eagles
“That rarest and best of alternative histories: the one you believe, the one that makes sense. Alan Smale has a storyteller’s flair for character, and presents an ensemble cast with a depth of detail of which George R. R. Martin would approve. It works as a novel, as historical speculation, and as cultural extrapolation. But its real value is singular: It’s a ripping good yarn, and one that will keep you reading long past your bedtime.”—Myke Cole, award-winning author of the Shadow Ops series
“Just when it seems there is nothing new in [alternate] history comes this debut.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“An intriguingly original alternate history.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[Smale] breathes life into the New World civilizations and offers up a compelling view of what might have happened had these two continents collided. . . . I found the New World of 1218 AD fascinating.”—Historical Novels Review
“Authoritatively researched, compellingly told, and with pleasing echoes of L. Sprague de Camp, Clash of Eagles is a modern masterpiece of what-if speculation.”—Stephen Baxter, Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of The Time Ships
“Smale has done remarkable work with the worldbuilding in Clash of Eagles, dropping the sole Roman survivor of a massacre into the complex civilization of the Cahokian Native Americans in the thirteenth century.”—Harry Turtledove, New York Times bestselling author of How Few Remain
“My favorite kind of alternate history: epic, bloody, and hugely imaginative.”—John Birmingham, author of Without Warning
“Epic in its sweep, exciting in its narrative, and eyeball-kick sharp in its details.”—Nancy Kress, Nebula and Hugo Award–winning author of Beggars in Spain
“The first book of Alan Smale’s trilogy introduces the series with a lightning bolt. Bracketed between two breathtaking and meticulously strategized battles is a sensitive evocation of a lost culture, an act of literary archeology like no other I’ve read.”—James Patrick Kelly, Nebula Award–winning author of Burn
From the Hardcover edition.
- Sales Rank: #167405 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-03-17
- Released on: 2015-03-17
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
“Clash of Eagles is that rarest and best of alternative histories: the one you believe, the one that makes sense. Alan Smale has a storyteller’s flair for character, and presents an ensemble cast with a depth of detail of which George R. R. Martin would approve. Clash of Eagles is a triple threat: It works as a novel, as historical speculation, and as cultural extrapolation. But its real value is singular: It’s a ripping good yarn, and one that will keep you reading long past your bedtime.”—Myke Cole, award-winning author of the Shadow Ops series
“Just when it seems there is nothing new in [alternate] history comes this debut.”—Library Journal (starred review)
“An intriguingly original alternate history.”—Kirkus Reviews
“[Alan Smale] breathes life into the New World civilizations and offers up a compelling view of what might have happened had these two continents collided. . . . I found the New World of 1218 AD fascinating. I look forward to the next installment.”—Historical Novels Review
“Authoritatively researched, compellingly told, and with pleasing echoes of L. Sprague de Camp, Clash of Eagles is a modern masterpiece of what-if speculation.”—Stephen Baxter, Philip K. Dick Award–winning author of The Time Ships
“Alan Smale has done remarkable work with the worldbuilding in Clash of Eagles, dropping the sole Roman survivor of a massacre into the complex civilization of the Cahokian Native Americans in the thirteenth century. Yet what follows is more than a standard clash of cultures yarn, for there are other forces in play in this alternate North America, and Marcellinus knows his imperial masters will send more legions to replace his lost men. Can the determination and ingenuity of one man change the fate of a continent? I’m eager to find out.”—Harry Turtledove, New York Times bestselling author of How Few Remain
“My favorite kind of alternate history: epic, bloody, and hugely imaginative.”—John Birmingham, author of Without Warning
“Clash of Eagles is epic in its sweep, exciting in its narrative, and eyeball-kick sharp in its details.”—Nancy Kress, Nebula and Hugo Award–winning author of Beggars in Spain
“Clash of Eagles, the first book of Alan Smale’s trilogy, introduces the series with a lightning bolt. Bracketed between two breathtaking and meticulously strategized battles is a sensitive evocation of a lost culture, an act of literary archeology like no other I’ve read. My advice is to get in on the ground floor now!”—James Patrick Kelly, Nebula Award–winning author of Burn
About the Author
Alan Smale grew up in Yorkshire, England, and now lives in the Washington, D.C., area. By day he works at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a professional astronomer, studying black holes, neutron stars, and other bizarre celestial objects. However, too many family vacations at Hadrian’s Wall in his formative years plus a couple of degrees from Oxford took their toll, steering his writing toward alternate, secret, and generally twisted history. He has sold numerous short stories to magazines including Asimov’s and Realms of Fantasy, and he won the 2010 Sidewise Award for Best Short-Form Alternate History.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter I
Gaius Publius Marcellinus galloped his horse along the marching line of his Sixth Cohort, racing toward the site where two of his men had been slain by skulking Iroqua warriors.
Trumpets blared, steel armor clanked, and leather creaked, but the footfalls of his legionaries made little sound in the torn-up soil. The corps of engineers that went ahead of the 33rd Legion carved a road through the Hesperian forest barely wide enough for ten men to march abreast. The skies were heavy with cloud, and this late in the afternoon there was no singing and little talking in the ranks. In front of Marcellinus stretched a column of men three miles long. Behind him, the Seventh and Eighth Cohorts would extend back at least another two miles, guarding the two hundred supply wagons that groaned in the Legion’s wake.
First Centurion Pollius Scapax awaited Marcellinus on the path, pointing into the trees. Marcellinus slid off his horse and peered into the undergrowth. “In there?”
“Two men dead,” Scapax said tersely. “Half a dozen grieving. Thirty or so standing guard.”
“Tullius?” The Tribune of the Sixth.
Scapax shrugged. “Not here yet.”
Marcellinus barely hesitated. His adjutants were far forward with the First Cohort, but if he couldn’t trust Pollius Scapax, he couldn’t trust anyone. He strode off the path, between the oaks, and into a small gap in the trees hardly wide enough to be honored with the name of a clearing.
One of the dead legionaries rested against an oak, an Iroqua arrow in his shoulder and a short spear buried deep in his gut. The other had been clubbed to the ground, arms broken and legs splayed, his throat slashed open. Both men had been scalped, their foreheads and hair hacked away roughly, leaving shocking bloody gashes in their place.
Torn bushes and trampled grass gave evidence of a short, sharp struggle. The soldiers’ weapons and armor were gone, presumably stolen by their murderers.
The dead men were both fresh-faced and callow; neither could have been more than eighteen years old.
At least it was obvious how they had died. Other legionaries had been found with ferocious wounds ripped into their flesh or—maybe even more terrifying—barely a mark on them at all.
Six men knelt in grief by the corpses, bare-headed, presumably the tent mates of the dead. “Helmets on, soldiers,” said Marcellinus. “Let’s not lose anyone else here.”
They gaped up at him, incredulous. One man thrust his helmet back onto his head with bad grace. The rest ignored the command, their faces a mixture of pain and insolence. Marcellinus chose not to notice. The days of unquestioning obedience were far behind them now.
Three contubernia—twenty-four men in all—faced outward to secure the clearing, heavy spears at the ready. Their eyes scoured the thickets. The men looked nervous, and with good reason. The dead legionaries’ wounds were fresh, and the alarm had been sounded recently. Whoever had done this could still be hiding in the brush nearby.
Not twenty feet behind them the behemoth of the 33rd Legion still marched grimly through the eternal forest.
Marcellinus looked again at the mourning soldiers. He was intruding on their pain, and nothing he could say or do would ease it. “Just a few moments longer,” he said to Scapax. “Then everyone goes back to the column.” The men on guard looked relieved.
Scapax cleared his throat. “Burial detail, sir?”
Marcellinus looked again into the underbrush that surrounded them. Pale light filtered through the trees. The last thing he wanted was to have his men exposed any longer than they had to be. But the Seventh Cohort, with the baggage train, must be only minutes away.
“Their choice,” he said. “They can wait by the column, put the bodies onto one of the wagons, and bury them tonight, or say their good-byes now and be done.”
The centurion saluted. As Marcellinus turned to leave the glade, the trumpets sounded again, one far to the west followed by another just a few hundred feet away, a complicated sequence of notes.
It was a message from Corbulo, his First Tribune. Marcellinus was needed at the head of his Legion. Another obstacle, and clearly something their engineers could not tackle easily.
Marcellinus’s shoulders and back ached from riding. Worse was the low throb of tiredness behind his eyes. Pulling himself wearily back into the saddle, he drummed his heels against his horse’s flanks.
As he rode forward, the Legion was already slowing to a halt.
Pollius Scapax’s voice boomed out across the sloping hillside. “First Cohort, stand to! Eyes up, spears out!”
The men of the First fell into battle formation, three ranks in close order. Tired soldiers set the hafts of their heavy pila in the ground and held them angled outward. Archers stood with bows strung and quivers of arrows at their feet, blinking owlishly at the shallow valley. The evening breeze ruffled the crests on their steel helmets.
No enemy was in sight, but men had died today, and this was hostile territory. The First was mustered to repel any potential attacks while the slaves and the soldiers of the other cohorts made camp.
The castra was a roving town that re-created itself daily in its own image. They rebuilt it identically every afternoon, occupied it for one night only, then abandoned it the next morning: civilization on the march through Nova Hesperia.
The engineers had chosen a site only a couple of miles past the Legion’s sudden stop. As usual it was a large open area near a river, on rising ground, with little nearby cover that could be exploited by attackers. Even before the First and Second had arrived, the engineer corps had measured and marked with a knotted rope where the streets would be laid out. Now, the meadow became a hive of activity. Up went the ramparts, earthworks six feet high around the perimeter surrounded by a deep defensive ditch. Down came any trees unfortunate enough to be within the square, their wood pressed into use to construct the raised guard platforms at each corner and above the four gates. Up went the tents, down went the latrines. Finally, up would go the five temples obligatory for feeding the Legion’s faiths: the Mithraic temple, the shrines to Cybele and Sol Invictus, the open-air altar and prayer rail of the Christ-Risen, and the small but rather forbidding statue of Jupiter Imperator, which had more presence than any of the real-life Imperators Marcellinus had served.
The camp was square, with streets constructed on a grid. Its alignment was as constant as its arrangement, with the wide main street called the Cardo aligned north-south so that the evening and morning light shone down the long cross streets named for the cohorts and centuries that lived on them. The rank and file lived eight men to a tent, and Marcellinus’s own Praetorium tent formed the center of the camp. Latrines, the field hospital, stables, the smithy, and the armory were arrayed around the rim with open areas at the corners for the slaves.
As always, Marcellinus walked the streets as the camp took shape, receiving reports from his tribunes and centurions. The air reeked of stale sweat and fresh wood and rang with shouted orders, banging and sawing, and curses in a broad range of dialects.
“Two more soldiers down,” said First Tribune Lucius Domitius Corbulo moodily, joining him at the Eastgate.
Beside them legionaries and auxiliaries shoveled earth with resolve, digging the deep ditch and throwing the soil up to where their colleagues were shaping the ramparts. The soldiers knew they were being watched by their commanding officers as well as their centurion, and their faces gleamed with sweat. At the crest of the ridge of earth, other men set and bound the sharpened stakes that formed the palisade.
Marcellinus stepped aside to let a line of a dozen slaves pass, sweating and weighted down by the bags of grain they carried in from the wagons. “Two more.”
“Were they good men?”
“They’re all good men,” said Marcellinus. “Legionaries, not auxiliaries, if that’s what you’re asking. Young.”
“Do we know what happened?”
“Saw a deer and went after it, most likely. Fresh meat is hard to come by.”
Corbulo nodded, acknowledging the convenient lie. “Of course.”
Deer rarely approached a marching column. Much more likely that one of them had been caught short by his stomach and had left the column to relieve himself, guarded by his friend, and both had died for it.
Better for a soldier to die in battle, or hunting, than squatting behind a bush.
“Either way, it has to stop,” said Corbulo. “Stupid deaths like these?”
Marcellinus glanced sideways. His First Tribune was veering perilously close to insubordination. “The centurions have their orders. We can’t be more clear. Nobody leaves the column, ever. Nobody lets down their guard for a moment.” He shook his head in frustration and set off to walk north along the intervallum inside the still-growing rampart. After a pause, Corbulo followed in his wake.
The 33rd Legion had begun to leak men as if from a slow wound soon after they’d broken camp and marched away from the Mare Chesapica. Now, four weeks inland, they were down fifty-eight soldiers, this out of a legion in which their so-called centuries had been only seventy men strong to begin with.
They had cleared villages and taken slaves but had yet to be engaged by the enemy in a real fight. Their losses were due solely to harassing actions: the lone arrow flying out of the trees, the blade from behind, and more often than not, the unexplained disappearance. It was hard enough to march into an empty continent on the wrong side of a giant ocean, blaze a trail, tramp twenty miles along it each day, and then build a marching camp the size of a small town every night without having to risk being picked off by cowardly savages whenever a few twigs’ worth of cover separated you from your comrades.
And, since Marcellinus’s cohorts were rounded out with the superstitious denizens of Roman provinces from Aethiopia to Scythia, Magyar to Hispania, and back around, the night camp was always alive with rumors. Man-bears were hiding behind trees; huge hawks were swooping in from the air to pick off the valiant Roman infantry one by one. Giant rodents burrowed up from beneath them. It seemed that in the wilderness of a foot soldier’s imagination no animal was allowed to be normally proportioned. Superstition was strong at the best of times in a rabble like that, and the farther away from Urbs Roma he took them, the worse they got.
Marcellinus shook his head. Nobody in his right mind could feel comfortable with two months of ocean separating him from the Imperium. But however far afield his duties took him, he wasn’t about to start believing in giant hawks.
That left the natives. They were everywhere; on the fleet’s arrival the shores of the bay had been crowded with villages of cringing fishermen. Many had fled. Others were now roped to the heavy carts that made up the Legion’s supply train.
Now, though, they’d left behind the fisherfolk and the berry pickers. The villages they passed might be empty, but the woods around them were not. Hiding behind the tree trunks of inland Nova Hesperia was a different breed of native altogether.
Marcellinus turned. “Where have you put our prisoner?”
“Should be in your tent by now.” Corbulo cocked an eye at him. “I thought you might want her undamaged.”
“Very considerate of you,” said Marcellinus, straight-faced. “You have a heart after all.”
“If I do, this country will be the destruction of it.”
“Aren’t we supposed to march over all obstacles in our path?” If Corbulo could needle him about the deaths, the least Marcellinus could do in return was chide his tribune for letting the whole Legion come to an ignominious halt.
“I was at the rear of the First at the time, consulting with Gnaeus Fabius,” said Corbulo, and then, seeing Marcellinus’s frown, grudgingly drew himself up a little straighter. “Yes, sir . . . It shouldn’t have happened. I take responsibility. And I’ll talk to Scapax about it.”
“Scapax was back with me, at the . . . with the Sixth.”
“That would be part of the problem, then.” Corbulo grinned wryly. “But stopping like that? The First Cohort? I’m surprised they didn’t break into a run, straight at her.”
“So am I,” said Marcellinus. “So am I.”
Corbulo glanced past Marcellinus, grimacing. “Ah. Here comes our Britannic ray of sunshine.”
Aelfric, Tribune of the Fourth and Fifth Cohorts, gruff and mustachioed, was walking down a lane toward them. He had shed his armor, but retained the padded jerkin that went between that armor and his tunic, and the scarf that prevented chafing at the neck. Unlike the other legionaries he wore braccae, the woolen breeches of his countrymen. The overall effect was unflattering. Corbulo sniffed.
Aelfric eyed Corbulo with trepidation but addressed Marcellinus directly. “West rampart is up and ready for your inspection, sir. And most of my lot are tents up and set for the evening.” He looked leftward at the northern ramparts, where the Second and Third were still toiling, and grinned at Corbulo. “Your fellows need a hand, do they?”
“Hardly,” said Corbulo, frost in his tone. “They just do a proper job.”
“Oooh,” said Aelfric. “Is that a fact? And what do mine do, then?”
“Gentlemen,” said Marcellinus.
Corbulo raised a sardonic eyebrow. Certainly he himself was a patrician, a Roman citizen of the Imperium. The Briton could never be.
Dropping the matter, Aelfric looked at the skies. The wind was picking up, the tents flapping behind him. “Might rain in a bit.” To Marcellinus he said, “Want me to stop by the Sixth? See if Tully needs anything? He’s probably got his hands full, what with the burials and morale and all.”
“I’m sure he can’t wait to see you,” said Corbulo. “Well, sir, my centurions will be expecting me. Enjoy your interrogation.”
“Interrogation?” said Aelfric.
“Up with the news as always,” said Corbulo, and with a curt nod to Marcellinus he strode forward to heap invective on a soldier of the Second who had stopped to lollygag with his shovel mate.
Aelfric watched Corbulo go. “He seems out of sorts. What did you do to him?”
“Two more dead,” said Marcellinus.
“I hadn’t forgotten,” said the Briton. “But they weren’t his men.”
“Shouldn’t matter. Either way, it’s my fault.” Marcellinus was their Praetor. As Corbulo had just made very clear, it was his job to stop things like this from happening.
“If you say so. But at least it’s a slow bloodletting. At this rate we’ll have time to walk twice around the world before they get us all.”
From the Hardcover edition.
Most helpful customer reviews
91 of 101 people found the following review helpful.
Great "what if" historical concept with an unacceptably silly implementation.
By D. Brennan
Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. I have always been a "what if" kind of person and have enjoyed various alternatives that good authors choose to explore. It is because I like the genre so much that I was thoroughly put off by this book. The core concept was intriguing - the Roman empire did not fall and they have now reached the New World in the 1200's. They have conquered most of the old world, with the exception of the lands ruled by Genghis and perhaps a few other declining kingdoms. A Roman ship however discovered a viking longboat filled with golden treasures from the New World. The entire viking crew having died in the seizure of that ship cannot tell the Romans where exactly in the New World the gold was discovered. The Romans figure they will start in the Northern Hemisphere (oops) and send several thousand troops.
Landing in Chesapeake Bay they make quick work of the coastal tribes and head inland. So far, so good. It was at this point that I was expecting some gritty exploration of what happens when an amoral force (the Legion bent on conquest and treasure) meets with people defending their homeland from a far-more advanced force.
What the author delivered however was "what if" taken too far. Somewhere along the way the Native Americans discovered flight. Yep, flight.
They zip around on hand gliders made from wood, deer skin and feathers. They rain down poisoned arrows on the legion while hands-free flying these gliders. If that wasn't bad enough, they also have a giant ballista which can launch them hundreds of feet in the air. The gliders can reach more than 1,000 feet in height using thermal drafts from Greek fire - yep the Natives discovered that too. Did I mention the strategic bombers...? No, I'm not making that up.
So let me say that I "get" alternative history and have come to expect some unexpected twists and turns, some of which may be a bit of a reach. Flying Iroquois is a twist too far and turns what had the potential to be a very good book in to a silly flight of fancy.
35 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Too many what ifs
By Mike F
The book was a good read, exciting, the type of book that keeps you wanting to know what happens next, but...
I'm not sure what to make of it. It's labeled as "alternate history fiction" which I usually enjoy. A good alternate history novel starts with a premise that something in history changed , usually something that could very easily have changed (for example, what if Adolph Hitler had been killed in WWI?) and then constructs the world that would (or could) have resulted.
Clash of Eagles starts out in this manner. The premise is that the Roman Empire did not fall in the 5th century but is alive and well in the 13th century. In an appendix, the author explains that a 3rd century emperor (who was assassinated in our history), instead was able to reorganize the empire, so that it was able to withstand the barbarian invasions of the 5th century. Standard alternate history stuff. The story has a Roman legion landing in the new world along Chesapeake Bay and marching inland in search of gold, fighting Native American tribes along the way. This is an interesting story line.
However, at some point they encounter Native Americans who have flying machines (actually hang gliders) and napalm! At this point the story is no longer an alternate history story as it requires three separate counter historical events. As a result, it loses what makes alternate history so much fun - the "what if this happened, how would the world have changed?" Instead, we have a "what if this happened and what if that happened and what if this other thing had happened?" It gets kind of silly.
Either of the two counter historical inventions attributed to Native Americans might have made an interesting alternate history story. For example, what if the first English settlers in Virginia had encountered Native Americans who had napalm? What would have happened to the colony at Jamestown?
But all three counter historical premises in one story? Might as well add magic and call it fantasy.
32 of 39 people found the following review helpful.
Needs something more
By Lucky Clucker
I think this book -- this idea -- has a lot of potential, but it was just kind of dry. I liked it, but it wasn't the kind of book that grabbed me hard so that I'll be waiting anxiously for the next one.
There is a LOT of detail in this book. Some is interesting, some gets a bit tedious. That said, I do think a lot of the really intense detail (like the setting up of the camp every day or the descriptions of the scenery around the Romans as they march) really helped to create the feeling that I was taking a journey on foot. Pretty much all they do is march, set up camp, break down camp, and get picked off by hostile natives. Oh, and back stab one another. And then fight. But that's just the first seventy or so pages, and then things change.
I thought the discussions of the Roman desire for expansion and how the various groups (Britons, Vikings, et cetera) fit into the empire were very interesting. I don't know a whole lot about ancient Rome and this book made it seem like a topic well worth exploring.
There were some parts that were a bit awkward and not very convincing -- like the time Marcellinus is walking through the camp and gets the feeling he's about to get the ancient Rome version of a fragging. I was left confused about what happened and why it happened, and although it seemed like a big deal (to attack your leader or attempt an overthrow or coup) the issue is dealt with in only a few pages.
As far as character development there is really only Marcellinus, everyone else is pretty much one-dimensional. This is not a character driven novel, that is for sure. Marcellinus is depicted as being pretty human and does things that are not always the smartest or most honorable but I liked that part of him. Still, at the end of the day, he's just not that interesting. He's basically a company man who views this amazing new frontier as something that needs to be put into Roman boxes as quickly as possible. In that sense I think the author did a very realistic job of depicting that part of him, but there just needed to be more to him to maintain interest.
The section of the book that deals with first months in Cahokia, and how he learns their language and teaches them Latin, is a nice change from the marching and fighting. This is when you see Marcellinus begin to develop a little more although he is still a Roman first and foremost. There is a little bit of tension as he begins to see things about the Cahokians he admires, which helps to keep things interesting as he imparts more and more Roman information to them and has to consider what will happen when another legion (or whatever) eventually appears.
The most surprising part about this book is that the battle scenes aren't particularly vivid. The author spends more time on strategy than he does on slashing and hacking. This is fine, it's just not what I was expecting, especially since Marcellinus says that fighting is what he really lives for.
Anyhow, I feel like I'm doing a terrible job describing this book because it kind of left me wondering what the point was after I'd finished. I'm ambivalent about it as a whole but I do think there were parts of it that were well-written. But, by and large, it just lacked something. By the time I reached the end I was kind of exhausted (like after a long march capped off by a few years of fighting) but still didn't feel like I'd really gotten anywhere. Not only that, but I didn't really invest anything in the characters. I'll remember Marcellinus, but I can't say that I'll wonder very much about what he's doing.
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