I have been reading Carmen Webster’s work for some time now, and she never fails to entertain me. Her writing is captivating and many times she creates an original story that keeps me reading until the last sentence is read, like with King Of Trees, a novel approach to time travel. Instead of going forward or back, we go sideways, into a parallel universe, and due to damage to their ‘vehicle’ they will not be coming back.

Their mission: stop the desecration of the environment. I love reading novels that include global warming, pollution…who knows what fictional ideas could become our new reality.

The world Carmen Webster Buxton has created took me back in time with the characters, looking through new eyes and an open mind. At this point, I became wrapped up in the paperback I was reading and quit taking notes. Now I regret it. There was so much I wanted to share and I waited too long.

As I sit here thinking, one of the first things that came to mind was how the characters learned to work together, grew to trust each other and become a community, each part of the whole. I love books that get me thinking and King Of Trees does that.

The story, for me, is about the characters…the personal sacrifices they make and their growth that Carmen has so richly developed.

King Of Trees by Carmen Webster Buxton is a complete novel, no series. The story is finished and I enjoyed my time in Albion. I look forward to more from Carmen. I feel my review does not convey how much I enjoyed the story, the fantasy, the perils…

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of King Of Trees by Carmen Webster Buxton.

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Just in case the reader is making the same mistaken assumption that I did, this is not a fantasy novel And there is nothing resembling Ents, either. But I loved the story. The Prologue begins with eleven Brits (plus one American), ranging in age from their twenties to their forties, who are not from our timeline. They have given up on their polluted world and decide to travel not in time or space, but to a different timeline (not ours either). They fortunately end up in the sort of low-tech, but not entirely primitive world they were hoping for, in a land called Albion, make friendly contact with people, and decide to “improve” the world. Then their paradise is invaded and they have to rethink their plans.

Chapter one takes place a few generations later with a descendent of the king that the Outsiders, as they have become known, deposed. But reverence for the king is not entirely overturned. At his father's death, Bardolph becomes King of the Trees, the monarch accepted by the Holy Ones (who hate being called druids), and King of Albion to some of the remaining noble and people. But he continues to live as a village blacksmith. The Outsiders remain self-segregated, and more than a little smug, but work amicably enough with the Parliamentary Government they helped to establish, offering advanced technology as they deem it wise.

Chinese invaders, firing guns and driving tanks, demand surrender to the Huang Sheng emperor in ten days, kidnapping an Outsider, and throw the society off-balance. King Bardolph is suddenly called upon by his people, and even the Outsiders, to rescue the hostage and lead the fight against the invaders. If he cannot truly rule, he can inspire.

Bardolph is a man of honor, devout in his reverence for the Holy Ones, bound by his sense of duty, but the stresses begin to mount up. He feels obliged to fight in the thick of battle, he marries a woman chosen by the Holy Ones, and he tries to hold together the varied people: Outsiders, the Albionese, and the Holy Ones. The Holy Ones hang on to traditions that become hard to maintain in changed times. The Outsiders resent their name, but still want to hold aloof, living under their own rules, speaking their own language. And their careful plans for controlled development of technology may have to give way to the exigencies of fighting a technologically superior foe.

There is no Christianity in this Albion-universe, and I wondered if this is based on the speculation that it was the Christian monasteries that originally drove the development and dispersion of technology in Europe. While the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Chinese in our timeline, had the raw materials for the industrial revolution, they did not exploit what they had as the Europeans did, for better or worse. The Chinese in our timeline, famously had gunpowder, but used it for firecrackers, not for weaponry.

One weakness in the book is that there is not really any provision made for a second jump if they didn't find a suitable world. Since that's just a startup weakness, I don't think that it really damages the story as a whole.

The story offers likeable, if sometimes exasperating characters and a novel world. The story ties up most of the story lines, but still leaves an opening for this to become a series. ( )