Vegas Then Rome - Paperback
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TIME TRAVEL. ANCIENT ROME. PROPHECY. SLAVERY. POWER.
In 2045, three Australians are torn from their world and cast into Rome in AD 40.
Nate wakes naked beneath a brutal sun with a hangover to find Jane standing over him with a knife, while Amanda lies quietly beside them wearing only red heels and her beloved crucifix.
Above them, strange beings watch from the sky and speak of prophecy.
Around them Rome rises on the ambitions of the high-born, carried upon the backs of slaves: a world of senators and merchants, courtesans and gladiators, philosophers and soldiers, noble thoughts and base desires.
At its centre sits Caligula, measuring loyalty to Rome by devotion to himself, rewarding those who please him as extravagantly as he punishes those who do not.
Within the grandeur surrounding them, the three quickly discover that their lives are no longer their own. They belong to someone else.
Time travel strips away the world they knew. Wealth, status, relationships, ambitions, even their understanding of what freedom means must now be reconsidered.
Nate had always been reaching for something more: to be a good man, with a good wife and family, and a future built on his own terms. Rome does not take those ambitions from him. It thrusts new ones upon him. As relationships become opportunities and knowledge becomes leverage, the future Nate has always wanted begins to acquire possibilities he had never imagined.
Jane had long ago fought her way out of poverty and powerlessness. Rome dumps her back into both. Intelligent, ruthless and endlessly adaptable, she sees opportunity in a world where influence can be bought with beauty, secrets and favours-and discovers that Roman power has the same weaknesses she understands very well.
Amanda enters Rome timid, abused and beautiful. For her slavery will prove far more complicated than simply losing her freedom.
But is Rome the only force shaping their futures?
Who are the strange beings, and what is their purpose?
Their new world will change all three of them.
Will they succeed in changing Rome?
Vegas Then Rome is an adult time-travel and historical fantasy novel blending Ancient Roman history, speculative fiction and political intrigue. Set primarily in Rome in AD 40 under Caligula, it follows morally grey characters confronting slavery, power, sexuality, ambition, survival and the collision between modern values and the ancient world.
History shows the glory of Rome.
Vegas Then Rome remembers the jagged edges.
Draft2Digital Author Bio
I was in high school when The Hobbit gave me my first taste of fantasy. Years later I rediscovered that world through The Lord of the Rings, and have since read my copy so many times its spine is falling apart-although none of the pages are dog-eared.
Other favourites followed: Dune, The Magician, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and The Wheel of Time. At the other end of my reading spectrum were the novels of Jackie Collins, whose bitches, bastards, humour and complicated relationships entertained millions.
Eventually I wondered: what would happen if I put the two together?
That question became Sex, Blood & Glory-although not in the way I expected.
I originally planned a fantasy set in a brutal world inspired by Ancient Rome. Then I wondered what it would be like to visit such a world, so I introduced an unnamed man from the future who lived in a cave overlooking the city and simply watched.
Because I'm terrible at drawing maps, I borrowed one of Ancient Rome. My imaginary world promptly became Ancient Rome.
That caused a problem. My world contained the Leluuwahn-small beings who fly on crystal shields and interfere in human affairs. Inconveniently, history records remarkably few of them in Ancient Rome.
I decided to keep the Leluuwahn and threw the original plot out the window.
My unnamed observer became Nate. Giving him a past brought Jane and Amanda into the story. They were supposed to be part of his backstory.
Jane and Amanda had other ideas.
Roman history began colliding with fantasy, prophecy and people from 2045. Eventually the chaos became organised chaos, and that became Vegas then Rome.
I live about an hour north of Sydney, Australia, and write as Elijah Wingnut because the idea of a fictitious world written by a fictitious author appeals to me.
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