The Drums of Chaos

Swords, sorcery and science fiction combine to give Tierney's tale of the historical Simon of Gitta notable dash and vigor. In the Middle East of the first century, Simon plots revenge against the Romans who killed his family and sold him into slavery. In his company are his mentor, Dositheus, and the youths Menander and Ilione. The anachronism in this traditional fantasy setup is Tierny's pulp SF hero John Taggart, a time-traveling spacecraft pilot who repeatedly saves the quartet from agents of supernatural evil and who has an unusual—and not unrelated—interest in the Rabbi Yeshua bar Yosef (aka Jesus Christ), whose path they occasionally cross. Though it's sometimes hard to keep track of all the fantastic paraphernalia that Tierney (The Gardens of Lucullus ) introduces, the novel offers a rich evocation of a primitive past when the supernatural was entirely believable. (May)