Paxton in the New World

In the tradition of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Michael Crichton's Timeline, medievalist Stanley Lombardo's Paxton in the New World delivers a tale of adventure, romance, and thought-challenging alternative history in the second of The Crosstime Adventures of Carter Paxton. On his voyage to the New World, Paxton's objective is to make a healthy profit on his trading ventures while saving the Timucua tribe from extinction, but the capricious goddess Fortuna intervenes - with rollicking, adventurous consequences. Determined to bring horses to fifteenth-century America, Paxton enlists hard-drinking, one-eyed Sir Ralph Oldcastle to captain his flagship, the H. M. S. Constitution. Establishing friendly relations with the Native Americans is just the beginning of the adventures as Paxton trains the Timucuas in horsemanship and guerrilla tactics to prepare them to combat the Spaniards. Having trained the Timucua warriors, Paxton and his companions sail south to establish a coffee plantation in Haiti - but when a hurricane blows Old Ironsides off course, the voyagers find themselves becalmed in a region where Time and Tide play tricks on unwary seafarers. Emerging a century later, Paxton and his friends return to Florida, where they learn that the cowboy has become legendary, while Father Tranquillus is now venerated as "Saint" Tranquillus. Further, they discover that an allied French and Spanish army is en route to exterminate the Timucuas. With his modern weapons and knowledge of historic military tactics, Paxton prepares the Timucuas for a climactic battle that will change the course of history -- a feat that seems to have become a habit with Carter Paxton.