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    In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
    In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
    In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
    Audiobook11 hours

    In the Courts of the Crimson Kings

    Written by S. M. Stirling

    Narrated by Todd McLaren

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In the parallel world first introduced in S. M. Stirling's The Sky People, aliens terraformed Mars (and Venus) 200 million years ago, seeding them with life-forms from Earth. Humans didn't suspect this until the twentieth century, but when the first probes landed on our sister worlds and found life-intelligent life, at that-things changed with a vengeance. By the year 2000, America, Russia, and the other great powers of Earth were all contending for influence and power amid the newly discovered inhabitants of our sister planets.

    Venus is a primitive world. But on Mars, early hominids evolved civilization earlier than their earthly cousins, driven by the needs of a harsh world growing still harsher as the initial terraforming ran down. Without coal, oil, or uranium, their technology was forced onto different paths, and the genetic wizardry of the Crimson Dynasty united a world for more than 20,000 years.

    Now, in a new stand-alone adventure set in this world's 2000 AD, Jeremy Wainman is an archaeologist who has achieved a lifelong dream: to travel to Mars and explore the dead cities of the Deep Beyond, searching for the secrets of the Kings Beneath the Mountain and the fallen empire they ruled.

    Teyud Zha-Zhalt is the Martian mercenary the Terrans hire as guide and captain of the landship Intrepid Traveller. A secret links her to the deadly intrigues of Dvor il-Adazar, the City That Is A Mountain, where the last aging descendant of the Tollamune Emperors clings to the remnants of his power...and secrets that may trace their origin to the enigmatic Ancients, the Lords of Creation who reshaped the Solar System in the time of the dinosaurs.

    When these three meet, the foundations of reality will be shaken-from the lost city of Rema-Dza to the courts of the Crimson Kings.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 15, 2008
    ISBN9781400176106
    In the Courts of the Crimson Kings
    Author

    S. M. Stirling

    A well-regarded author of alternate history science-fiction novels, S.M. Stirling has written more than twenty-five books, including acclaimed collaborations with Anne McCaffrey, Jerry Pournelle, and David Drake. His most recent novels are T2: Infiltrator, The Peshawar Lancers, and the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy.

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    Reviews for In the Courts of the Crimson Kings

    3.5/5

    85 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is an enjoyable homage to the romantic Mars of the early 20th century
    • 4/5
      In this novel, Mars isn't the dead world that is our second nearest neighbour but the home of an ancient civilisation that is fighting a rearguard action against the decay of the planet. Jeremy Wainman is a terran archaeologist who has made it hs life's work to uncover the secrets of this ancient world and Teyud is the mercenary hired by the American delegation to kep him safe out in the Deap Beyond but the secrets of Teyud's blood would shake the Court of the Crimson King. This is a planetary romance straight out of the annals of the pulps of the 40s, particularly the stories of Leigh Brackett, with enough additional twists by Stirling to make it his own millieu. A great read.
    • 4/5
      If you once loved Thuvia, Maid of Mars, and you long for rollicking adventures with pirates, canals and martian princesses, this is for you! It's one of SM Stirling's alternate worlds, where Venus and Mars are inhabited rather as imagined by the pre-spaceflight SF. Well written, well paced, lots of fun. Don't take it too seriously, it's a romp.
    • 3/5
      Alternative history, interplanetary exploration, political intrigue, biotech, Martians, anthropological mystery, lost heir to the throne, flesh-eating birds, flesh-eating land octopi, interspecies romance, sword fighting, quest for object of power. So what exactly is this book?Cerebral parascientificitive diversion, emphatic condescension case.
    • 5/5
      This book is the second in a series about an alternate reality in which an alien instrumentality has Tera-formed Mars and Venus in prehistoric times. This is discovered by the US and USSR in the early 1960s. This book was listened to as an unabridged audiobook from Audible.com, and was read by a superb voice actor. The book can be characterized as an account of Mard and Terran interaction written as though by a more optimistic and much better educated Ray Bradberry. There is adventure, love, cultural contract, and conflict. Like all the books I have so far had the pleasure of reading as audiobooks, this one is superb. S. M. Stirling seems to be creating a multiverse similar to those in complexity as those created by Philip Jose Farmer or Stephen King. The body of his work is astonishing. I wish all of his works will eventually be reissued as audiobooks. I have also purchased a few of his works as bound volumes because they have not been recorded, but I dare say that I would repurchase them as audiobooks if they are ever so issued. Highly recommended!
    • 3/5
      Sometime you mine gems from the bargain bins and sometimes all you get is dirty. In this case, it's a lot of red dirt.For me, the most interesting part was the opening scene. This involved a whole roomful of Sci-Fi giants watching the landing of a probe on Mars. Things went downhill pretty fast from that point.Nonetheless, I did finish reading the book and overall, it is enjoyable, just not great.
    • 4/5
      I'm not really attracted to the swashbuckling tales of heroic fighters, even really good female assassins. But I like S. M. Stirling's writing. Even though I was not fond of the previous book in this series, The Sky People, set on a prehistoric, dinosaur and Neanderthal Venus, I did decide to buy the paperback version of the next book. And I did like this book much better than the previous book. Maybe I just like decadent Martian civilizations better than dinosaur riding cavemen. Maybe I appreciate a butt kicking female who is secretly the heir to the Crimson Throne and her human archeologist Consort. Whatever the reason, this book has the requisite nonstop action, strange biotechnological science, and political intrigue. As long as you don't expect too much in the way of nuanced story telling, you should enjoy this book.