Rogue Emperor

By Crawford Killian

The assassination of the emperor had been witnessed by sixty thousand Romans who had never before seen an explosive weapon.

In the 21st century, the accidental discovery of the chronoplanes changed… well, history.

After the world collapsed and the chronoplanes, alternate dimensions that were snapshots from Earth’s history, were discovered, the International Federation was formed and these downtime chronoplanes controlled and exploited by Trainables.

Gerald Pierce is sent to Ahania, the chronoplane imitating Rome at the height of the Empire. After completing a routine assignment to keep the world on course with the IF’s plan, he stops to take in a gladiator match that the Emperor is presiding over. When the emperor is assassinated by a modern rocket launcher, Pierce must work quickly to report back to the IF.

Despite the mental fatigue from Briefing and Conditioning, a shortcut for learning, Pierce is sent back to Rome to figure out who is behind the assassination plot.

Bio for Crawford Kilian:

Crawford Kilian was born in New York in 1941. Raised in Los Angeles and Mexico City, he is a naturalized Canadian citizen living in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife, Alice, and daughters, Anna and Margaret. Formerly a technical writer-editor at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, he has taught English at Capilano College in North Vancouver since 1968. His writing background includes two children’s books (Wonders Inc. and The Last Vikings); critical articles on Charles Dickens and the Canadian writer James De Mille; several radio plays broadcast by the CBC; and Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia.