Book description
Tempus Rerum Imperator: Time, Emperor of All Things
1758. England is embroiled in a globe-spanning conflict that
stretches from her North American colonies to Europe and beyond.
Across the Channel, the French prepare for an invasion - an invasion
rumored to be led by none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie. It seems
the map of Europe is about to be redrawn. Yet behind these dramatic
scenes, another war is raging - a war that will determine not just the
fate of nations but of humanity itself...
Daniel Quare is a journeyman in an ancient guild, The Worshipful
Company of Clockmakers. He is also a Regulator, part of an elite
network within the guild devoted to searching out and claiming for
England's exclusive use any horological innovation that could give
them an upperhand, whether in business or in war.
Just such a mission has brought Quare to the London townhouse of
eccentric collector, Lord Wichcote. He seeks a pocket watch rumoured
to possess seemingly impossible properties that are more to do with
magic than with any science familiar to Quare or to his superiors. And
the strange
timepiece has attracted the attention of others as well: the
mysterious masked thief known only as Grimalkin, and a deadly French
spy who stop at nothing to bring the prize back to his masters. Soon
Quare finds himself on a dangerous trail of intrigue and murder that
leads far from the world he knows into an otherwhere of dragons and
demigods, in which nothing is as it seems . . . time least of all.
Born in Zurich,
Paul Witcover
is a writer and critic and, with Elizabeth Hand, created the cult comic
book series
Anima.
He has served as the curator of the
New York Review of Science Fiction
reading series and his work has also appeared on HBO. He lives in New
York City and is currently working on the sequel to
The Emperor of
All Things.
