Timewars 10: Hellfire

by Simon Hawke

Book Overview

A demon straight from Hell.... For a moment, they saw nothing. Then they heard the rapid beat of iron-shod hooves on cobblestones. A black-clad rider with a long, billowing cloak came hurtling at them... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441812627
• ISBN13: 9780441812622
• Release Date: May 1990
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.26 lbs.

Customer Reviews

'Have you got some sort of unusual temporal adjustment mission in progress in colonial Boston, aroun

"In this book, aside from telling what I hope was an entertaining story, I tried to convey a sense of the people and events that led to the American Revolution. In order to do that, for the sake of the story, certain events have been compressed, but with the obvious exception of those events involving my fictional characters, most of the events that I describe here actually occurred pretty much the way I show them happening." - from the author's note at the end of the book, which then discusses the real history "Gentlemen, the Sons of Liberty are bent upon visiting their deviltry upon us. They give us deviltry, I say we rebel against it and give them hellfire!" - Loyalist gathering, herein Apart from the unavoidable spoilers for THE IVANHOE GAMBIT and THE TIMEKEEPER CONSPIRACY, which introduced the main characters among the Time Commandos, this tenth volume of THE TIME WARS contains major spoilers for THE KHYBER CONNECTION (the plot is summarized by one of the participants for a medic at the end of an examination) and THE LILLIPUT LEGION (one of Dr. Darkness' free-lance temporal adjustments and the introduction of Reese Hunter), and minor spoilers for THE ZENDA VENDETTA (which introduced Nikolai Drakov) and THE DRACULA CAPER (which gave Drakov a very effective tactic to avoid being eliminated from the series by anything so mundane as death). If you haven't read those books and want them to be a surprise, shoo. Hawke does a fine job of making THE HELLFIRE REBELLION a stand-alone book; as usual, the initial briefing of the Time Commandos involved in the current temporal adjustment mission introduces the regular characters in such a way that a returning reader is entertained just as a new reader is brought up to speed. The only series plot summary really needed is provided by A CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE TIME WARS (which prefaces the story proper and can be skipped), some information embedded in Andre Cross' introduction to the story, and the spoilers mentioned above. Hawke-style historical background - the situation in colonial Boston and character sketches of the major players - is very well handled in the form of briefings to the Time Commandos and Nikolai Drakov, particularly the latter with his goal of identifying changes he can introduce to derail the course of history. An extra complication is added by the fact that the potential disruption was spotted Reese Hunter, who comes from an alternate universe in which the Revolution turned out differently than in the Time Commandos' version of history. Even granting that he's willing to exchange his cooperation for a chance to return home, can he correctly identify disruptions on *this* timeline? Hawke does a good job of bringing 1760s Boston to life, especially the bits one may not learn in an American history class: the Justice whose library (including a history he'd been writing for decades) was burned when the Sons of Liberty looted and destroyed his house; *both* sides of the argument abo