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Author: John Barnes
Publisher: Harper Prism
Year: 1997
ISBN: 0061056618
Description: 296 pages; 18 cm.
This is the third and final installment of the Timeline Wars series by respected SF author John Barnes. Mark Strang, a survivor of a brutal terrorist attack, has discovered that the group responsible for the deaths of most of his family, the Blade of the Most Merciful, is actually a front for the "Closers" -- an interdimensional army whose goal is the total subjugation, not just of our Earth, but of a million alternate timeline Earths.
He joins up with the ATN (Allied Timelines for Nondeterminism) whose goal is to defeat the evil "Closers", and to free all the Earths. Strang is often accompanied by the beautiful Chrysamen ja N'wook, his partner (and later, second wife), as they travel from timeline to timeline foiling attempts of the Closers to conquer yet another Earth. In Caesar's Bicycle, the timelines seem to be entering paradoxes, making it impossible for ATN forces and supplies to travel to many of the timelines that they've discovered. Reports from Closer timelines have indicated that the Closers themselves are leaving -- retreating -- leaving behind their slave armies. This retreat, over 100,000 different timelines, has suddenly blocked the ATN's ability to communicate with the future, as the paradoxes created by the seeming defeat of the Closers has blocked access to the future -- first 20 years down the road, then suddenly, no more than 50 days. Something massive is about to happen that affects all the timelines, and the ATN needs to find out what, and to ensure that it doesn't end in total destruction of all the alternate Earths.
The key event that will make or break the survival of all the timelines seems to take place in ancient Rome. In this alternate history, Julius Caesar has to assassinated before he makes himself emperor. But, as a new super-powerful group from the future tell Strang, it is he who must assassinate Caesar. But how can he manage to do it, in time, when he and his loved ones are all slaves to Caesar?
Score: 83 out of 100. The best of the three books in the series.
