Loved it! ( )

The sequel to Christopher's 1981 young-adult novel FIREBALL, NEW FOUND LAND is set in an alternate history where the Roman Empire never fell and Europe never colonized the Western Hemisphere. Simon and Brad, the quarrelsome cousins who accidentally entered this world in the previous book, here embark with their two Roman companions across the North American continent, headed for California. On the way they encounter hard-bargaining Algonquian hunters, a strangely-serene Viking colony on Nantucket, and the outlying cities of a greatly-enlarged Aztec Empire. The theme of an alternate America-without-Columbus has been developed more skillfully by other authors, notably Somtow Sucharitkul and Howard Waldrop, but Christopher's novel is a quick read, with (mostly) believable characters and a suitably intriguing denouement. Also of note is the author's treatment of the Aztecs as a sophisticated mercantile society, rather than the bloodthirsty barbarians of 19th and 20th-century American myth. ( )