David Wingrove - The Empire of Time

It might be noted at the outset that this work is told, not in a direct and chronological fashion, but by great leaps forward and back through time. This is, I’d argue, how it should be. It is, after all, a time travel novel. Oh, H G Wells might have done things differently in his day, leaving out those complications that seem to come with the territory, but I am quite certain that had he, like I, witnessed more than a century of development of this sub-genre, he might have told it in the same way, experiencing all that happens through Otto’s eyes, through Otto’s thoughts; sharing each moment as he experiences it, and, by that means, giving the reader the very feel of travelling in time.

Roads To Moscow was originally written, and was always intended to be, a singular work, though of considerable size. Throughout its six-year gestation, and through all the changes of mind and direction the work took, there was never any question in my mind that the story that began in Chapter 1, in the dark and distant depths of the ancient Prussian forest, should be the same story that culminates in Chapter 468, long years later and in the futuristic environment of Four-Oh.

And so it is presented. Only … not in one book but three; those three books intimately connected — laced together , if you like — to form a seamless whole. Three books which, part through design and part through chance, came to chart the various stages of Otto’s ‘education’; an education that in a very real sense, is the work. What Otto learns, scene by scene, chapter by chapter, reflects how we, as a species, must change. Or die.

Three books, then, each with its own distinctive feel, each charting a stage in the development of our hero, Otto, each taking us one stage further, and yet each embedded in the others, bound together event by event, until, at the end, we share some flicker of his understanding of the world.

And so my singular trilogy, my journey back and forth through Time, on roads familiar and yet strange. A brief flirtation with infinity. A worm, swallowing its tail. Or simply a lesson in how to become fully human. Here it is. Make of it what you will.

David Wingrove, January 2014

CHARACTER LIST

Adelbert — Grand Master of the Guild in Asgard, 2747 (part-human bio-mechanisms).

Alekhin — Russian time agent, acting as part of Nevsky’s entourage. A bodyguard.

Alpers — ‘student’ on Four-Oh.

Axel — Chief of the Curonians.

Balk, Hermann — thirteenth-century Hochmeister of the Teutonic order of St Mary’s Hospital in Jerusalem; in charge of the Northern Crusades in wildest Prussia.

Batu — the Great Khan himself, leader of the Mongols in the 13 thcentury.

Behr, Otto — our narrator; a German ‘ Reisende ’ or time traveller.

Bella — one of the women at the platform in Four-Oh.

Bobrov — Russian time agent and killer of at least a dozen German agents.

Brigitte — one of the women at the platform in Four-Oh.

Burckel, Albrecht — German time agent and ‘sleeper’ in 2747 AD.

Chkalov, Joseph Maksymovich — otherwise known as Yastryeb, ‘the Hawk’, and Grand Master of Time for the Russians.

Conrad — Brother of the Northern Order (13 thcentury).

Dankevich, Fedor Ivanovich — Russian time agent. Otto has shot him at least twice, the last time ‘fatally’.

Diederich — German ex-time agent and leading physicist from Four-Oh.

Dieter — eldest of the students at Four-Oh.

Dietrich — Master of the Northern Order, 13 thcentury.

Ernst — see Kollwitz.

Frederick the Great — Prussian King, Frederick II, known more commonly as ‘Old Fritz’. Fighting against overwhelming odds, he helped Prussia survive the Seven Years War, where he was faced with the alliance of France, Austria and Russia.

Freisler — German ‘ Reisende ’, or time agent; Hecht’s special henchman — his ‘ Jagdhund ’ or bloodhound, responsible for doing all the dirty work.

Friedrich, Caspar David — assumed name of ‘ Reisende ’ Seydlitz in 1836.

Funk, Walther — President of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics for the Nazis, in the 20 thcentury.

Gehlen, Han s — aka ‘the Genewart ’. Architect of Four-Oh, scientific genius and inventor of time travel. Has existed for 200 years as a gaseous presence in the midst of the artificial intelligence known as Four-Oh. Twenty-eight years old in 2747.

Goebbels, Paul Joseph — Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, 20 thcentury.

Gotz, Carl von — Flugeladjutan t to Frederick the Great (18 thcentury).

Gruber — one of the eight ‘ Reisende ’ carrying Seydlitz’s DNA. In his early twenties and ‘turned’ by the Russians.

Gudrun — King Manfred’s giant niece, twin to Fricka; also niece to Sygny and Tief. In 28 thcentury.

Gunner — German ‘ Reisende ’ or time agent.

Hagen — Manfred’s arrogant giant sixth son; his third wife Gunnhilde’s son.

Haller — student on Four-Oh.

Hecht — ‘The Pike’; Meister of the Germans at Four-Oh.

Hecht, Albrecht — Hecht’s older brother and keeper of the Archives back in time.

Heinrich — “Henny”, Burckel’s friend, a revolutionary ( Undrehungar ).

Helge — one of the women at the platform in Four-Oh.

Hermann of the Cherusci — known to Rome as Arminius, 1 stcentury AD.

Heusinger, Klaus — ‘ Reisende ’, loyal to Four-Oh. Acts as Otto’s secretary in Asgard in 2747.

Hiedler, Johann Georg — itinerant miller and grandfather of Adolf Hitler.

Himmler, Heinrich — Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel , or SS, and leading Nazi figure in 20 thcentury Germany.

Hitler, Adolf — Führer (‘leader’) of National Socialist or Nazi party, in 20 thcentury.

Horst — assistant to Diedrich on Four-Oh.

Iaroslavich, Alexander — see Nevsky.

Inge — one of the women at the platform in Four-Oh.

Jodl — armourer for Four-Oh. In his late sixties and an ex- ‘ Reisende ’ or time agent.

Johannes — Brother of the Northern Order, in 13 thcentury Prussia.

Kabanov — Russian time agent.

Kalugin, Grigori — Russian time agent and brother of Ivan.