avrelia asked: You are going to time travel. Which historical figures you will pick up as your team and how they will help or complicate your travels?

A veritable challenge! Let's see what consuming a lot of time-travelling featuring media has taught me.

- Evidently, I would need a good engineer in case whatever time travelling device I use breaks down, because I really don't want to stay in the past. To that end, I shall recruit Nikola Tesla and Hedy Lamarr. (Why not Émilie du Chatelet? Because Émilie was a theoretical physicist, and I'd need someone with experience in practical applications who can repair stuff.)

- I would also need a doctor in case someone catches an infection in the past; as this has to be someone who on the one hand is experienced enough in modern medicine (no bloodletting, OMG!) to be of use but otoh not too far away from an era where a lot of current day medication isn't available (so they could improvise instead of going "where the hell is my aspirin!"), I shall pick Rahel Straus, the first woman who studied medicine and graduated in a German university (earlier medical ladies had to graduate abroad); she's also related to my guy Feuchtwanger, but that's not the deciding factor here. Rahel has experience in both high tech (for her time) and primitive (for her time) surroundings, is tough and extremely practical.

- Next, I need someone who is really good at gatecrashing, who is practically immune to social embarrassment (which I'm not) and who will persuade most of the interesting historical people and eras we want to meet and experience to give us the time of the day. Someone with a proven track record of cajoling even the most prickly and hermit-like people into conversation, someone with endless curiosity and ability to chat. That someone should also have a good memory and an ear for gossip so we can later note down our amazing experiences together. There's an ideal candidate for this role: step forward, James Boswell!

- in case you're wondering, I'm not recruiting a historian because I consider myself well versed enough to fill in that spot, but I do want someone with insight and knowledge of the natural life and into geography, someone with a keen scientific mind when it comes to the natural sciences, with lots of travel experience, who can observe the flora and fauna of our time travelling destinations and make sure we don't step on the proverbial butterfly and end up ensuring our own extinction; this must be Alexander von Humboldt.

- and finally, most past eras are dangerous places; I need someone with fighting experience who could defend members of our team, someone who could, depending on where we end up, do this either as a man or as a woman. I did consider the Chevalier d'Eon, but clearly, it has to be Julie d'Aubigny.


Complications: Boswell will of course hit on all female team members and be rebuffed. (Well, mostly; I could see Julie D'Aubigny having a one night stand with him in the right circumstances.) He will also end up catching some veneral disease in whichever era we end up in, and better hope he's not annoyed Rahel Straus too much. Nikola Tesla and Alexander von Humboldt might either have a mightly clash of the egos or a flirtation or both. Julie d'Aubigny will definitely hit on Hedy Lamarr, and I have no idea how that would go. Also, she might end up in a duel with someone just when she's needed elsewhere to defend the team, but Humboldt is an 18th and early 19th century Prussian noble, he does have the requisite training with weapons, so I hope he'd step up in that case.

The other days

It's weird what breaks one's suspension of disbelief. Here I was, starting a novel with a premise that's, well, extremely unlikely, but which I was prepared to accept for the fun of it, to wit, Roger Ascham taking his most famous student, 13 years old Elizabeth Tudor, abroad for a few months, and not only abroad but to the greatest chess tournament of the world, taking place in Constantinople. Where gruesome murders ensue which Ascham has to investigate. Roger Ascham as a detective, barely teenage Elizabeth as his Watson, Constantinople? Sign me on, thought I, what an entertaining premise, to hell with likelihood.

Bug then, on page 23 of Matthew Reilly's The Tournament:

"We were sitting in my study reading Livy's account of the mass Jewish suicide at Masada."


Livy. Masada. Livy, as in Livius, contemporary of the Emperor Augustus. The mass suicide at Masada, which took place during the Emperor Vespasian's reign. SEVERAL GENERATIONS LATER. My dear Mr. Reilly, thought I, I can buy any number of historical AUs but you have to show me you did your research first. The historian you want is Flavius Josephus, aka Josef Ben Mattias, and that's not really hard to find out. Off with your head!