Seller's Description

Use this ebook as an interesting parallel to any study of the American Civil War, especially the naval engagement between the first two ironclads. The battle scenes were meticulously researched, and the voyage to Easter Island was also researched with attention to factual details. The reality of the 1860s on this island was based on historical records and the data compiled by Dr. Jared Diamond of UCLA. The plot has interesting characters, including a teenaged former slave, Chip Jefferson, who competes and wins the Birdman of Easter Island contest, but the result is not what he expected.

Professional Review:
Iron Maiden
Jim Musgrave
Contemporary Instructional Concept Publisher
ISBN: 0-9776503-5-9
Fiction, Alternate History
Reviewed by Tami Brady

Iron Maiden is an alternate historical story about the American Civil War. I’m actually a little wary about this genre. I tend to know just enough about the time period that the lack of historical accuracy really irritates me. Then, the aliens arrive or some other dramatic paranormal event occurs. This tends to make the situation so laughable that I start to think of the work as comedy. Usually, the authors of such works don’t share my sense of merriment.

Iron Maiden is different, in a good way- a really good way. The author obviously knows his time period and has done a lot of research to make his story fit seamlessly into place. His attention historical accuracy definitely shows. Two of the characters were real people and the author’s story fits very neatly with the records of their personalities and their life stories. I even felt the need to do some checking to see where the alternate history started and ended. I liked that aspect.

This book also made me laugh. The characters were so set on “going native” in the Easter Islands but they really had no clue about these islands or the inhabitants (fitting in perfectly with the knowledge that these people would have actually had at that time). The results are incredibly ironic.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

Price: $5.00