Navigator

November 26, 2007
The engrossing third Time’s Tapestry novel (after Emperor
and Conqueror
) from Philip K. Dick Award–winner Baxter focuses on Christianity’s reconquest of Spain from the Moors between A.D. 1070 and 1492. This conflict is reflected in the struggle between the English and Spanish branches of a family, both of which have received mysterious prophecies and coded instructions containing designs for weapons that could give one side power to annihilate the other. The characters’ beliefs and passions shape events, but they don’t know how much they have been manipulated by competing tempters from the future. By book’s end, two forces emerge to debate whether Christopher Columbus will be given ships to sail west or an army to lead east in an apocalyptic war against Islam. Baxter understands how a craving for beauty and knowledge can become ghastly fanaticism, and he’s also very good at showing his characters thinking within the limitations of their time.

January 1, 2008
Continuing, from Emperor (2006) and Conqueror (2007), to unfold the outcome of an ambiguous prophecy, Navigator opens with a young woman in a ruined chapel, hiding from Norman soldiers, envisioning civilizations in conflict, wielding mighty engines of war. In Spain, a rogue priest plans Islams defeat with such engines, for he has found a point in time where agents from a futuretampered with the past and changed his present history.During four centuries, descendants of these two strive to decipher the prophecy and build or destroy the fearsome engines. Eventually, the last Moors are driven from Spain. There remains the question of the prophecys last part, beginningSend the Dove west The storytelling is excellent; the historical background, exceptionally developed. As before, Baxter shows people in ordinary occupations getting involved and sometimes dragged into dealing with the prophecy. This and the rest of the Times Tapestry series arent mere page-turners; theyre downright thought-provoking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)