The Exile of Zanzibar

Railroad to Zanzibar #1

by Daniel Maidman

Claire built a device to fold space and time. It had a flaw...

When the smoke clears, she finds herself halfway across the world, thousands of years in the past, and no device in sight.

In bronze-age Florence, war has lasted for generations. All Claire wants to do is get home, but she’ll need help from the locals. She wins an ally in Marcus Diophantus, a pickpocket turned soldier turned general, who hopes to turn into something more than just her champion. Together, they broker peace between Florence and its enemy.

If Marcus is going to help Claire, he’ll have to survive. Peace has upset the balance of power in the capital city. The king stands increasingly alone against: the Constantines, a commercial enterprise as much as a clan, who aim to profit from peace as they have from war – the warrior nobles, descended from the founders of Florence and quick to turn against a weak throne – and Reburrus, the high priest of Florence, convinced Claire answers to hostile foreign gods. As the city comes to a boil, Claire and Marcus – and Marcus’s formidable army – will have to decide where their allegiance lies.

Claire becomes a reluctant participant in a savage campaign. While Marcus leads the battles, she tries to gain control of the unimaginably powerful Ctesiphôn – a ghost tower in the heart of Florence, shrouded in magic and myth.

Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy

582 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2023

About the author

Daniel Maidman is an author, artist, and art critic. His art is included in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress Department of Prints and Drawings and a number of American art museums. His art and writing on art have been featured in The Huffington Post, ARTnews, Forbes, W, and many others.

The Exile of Zanzibar, his first novel, is out June 4, 2023.

Reviews

[John Mauro · Rating 5 out of 5]

My complete review is published at Grimdark Magazine.

The Exile of Zanzibar is Daniel Maidman’s debut fantasy novel set in a fictional version of Florence during the Bronze Age. King Ambrosius the Ninth of Florence wages war with the neighboring city of Genova as a mysterious woman appears in a glowing gold palanquin.

The visitor is Claire, a “patricia of Zanzibar” and student of metaphysics who has constructed a device that folds space and time. But everything goes wrong when she finds herself in the middle of a faraway war zone. Claire desperately wants to return to her home of Zanzibar:

“I am the last daughter Reason bore; I rose from Zanzibar and to Zanzibar I must return.”

Claire recognizes that she needs help from the local populace if she has any hope of returning home. She befriends Marcus Diophantus, a Florentine city man and former pickpocket who rises to become a respected military leader. Claire and Marcus work together to forge peace between Florence and Genova.

Marcus also develops a romantic interest in Claire, who becomes known as the “Sower of Peace.” The relationship between these two characters is the emotional core of the novel. But the Sower of Peace becomes entangled in a web of political intrigue amid the changing power dynamics prompted by her wartime intervention.

The author, Daniel Maidman, is also an artist and an art critic. His art is included in several American art museums and is part of the permanent collections at the Library of Congress Department of Prints and Drawings. Maidman brings his artistic talent to The Exile of Zanzibar with his gorgeous interior artwork, depicting several characters and scenes from the novel. While the writing could feel a bit academic at times, I found that the artwork helped establish a stronger emotional connection with the characters.

Although The Exile of Zanzibar is available as an electronic book, I’d strongly recommend investing in a hardcover copy of this novel. From the exquisite artwork to the minute details of the font kerning, Daniel Maidman has paid keen attention to every aspect of this volume.

Daniel Maidman’s writing is erudite but accessible, reminding me of the late Italian master, Umberto Eco. There is a gravity to Maidman’s prose that has a feel of ancient history brought to life. Maidman obviously shares Eco’s love of history and philosophy, constructing a sophisticated, labyrinthine plot worthy of Foucault’s Pendulum. Although it’s not mentioned in his biography, I wouldn’t be surprised if Daniel Maidman is also a scholar of semiotics: the detailed attention that he pays to symbols and colors throughout The Exile of Zanzibar also echoes the great Eco.

The worldbuilding of The Exile of Zanzibar is essentially classical antiquity with a splash of magic and sci-fi. There is a strong military fantasy aspect of the novel, and grimdark readers will appreciate the layers of gray morality that Daniel Maidman has woven into the political fabric of the story.

Overall, The Exile of Zanzibar is a meticulously crafted debut and a must-read for fans of Umberto Eco. The story will continue with Lucky Angel, the second volume of the Railroad to Zanzibar series.

[Peter Wagar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for SPFBO 9
This book was definitely more of a theme driven book than anything. Themes of Hope for Peace and what it takes to be a good leader/king are prevalent throughout.
There’s a also a lot of subtext, and I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff in it that just went over my head. Kinda similar to Malazan in that respect, but nowhere near the same scope as Malazan (specifically in the history here. It’s hard to measure up to the depth of the Malazan anthropological record). This book mostly takes place in the mythical and fantastical city of Florence, located in the same valley as Genova, their countries separated by a river and war.
A soft magic system with hints of sci-fi elements serves to emphasize the themes pretty well.
The book switches PoVs pretty quickly as well throughout the chapters, with clear signaling of switching as well.
A LOT happens and everything has a weight to it.
The main characters are easy to be sympathetic to, easy to root for and I look forward to seeing the continuation of their story in the next book

I’d like to emphasize that this does not take place in our world by an sense of the word even though IRL place names are used. Also there are a number of Latin/Greek words that are used that do not mean what they mean in our world. Their usage and meaning can be determined from their usage and the context surrounding them pretty easily for the most part.


Disclaimer: my star ratings mean nothing as the system as a whole is meaningless when taken in aggregate. Thus I protest and will contribute to the increasing star inflation. Context is the only way for any rating to have meaning.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my full review here: https://beforewegoblog.com/review-the...

The Exile of Zanzibar is a book so totally itself that reading it feels like a once in a lifetime experience. This is one of the highest compliments I can give an artist of any kind. For a story to feel worthwhile to me, it has to, on a very basic level, feel as though no one else could have written it. This aspect of a work has become even more essential to my appreciation of art since the explosion of AI sludge that aims at actualizing the idea that novels (and art of any kind) can simply be churned out with no human thought or heart behind them. The particularity of a story is what lends a work its beauty, its affective capacity, and its resonance. The Exile of Zanzibar has each of these in abundance, and scenes that I read months ago still linger, loiter, and even fester, in my mind's eye. For a work to have impact beyond the initial reading of the thing itself suggests the power of that work, as well as the power of art in general.

At once an epic fantasy with a deeply drawn and fully realized world, and an exploration through symbol and imagery of what it means to exist as a human being in an often unfathomable world, The Exile of Zanzibar will please fantasy fans looking for something daringly original that does for epic and high fantasy what China Miéville has for Urban Fantasy. Here you'll find fantasy exploded and restitched, reclaiming those elements of the fantastic that literary scholar Tzvetan Todorov and his inheritors associate with everything but epic fantasy.

Maidman combines a numinous and often haunting atmosphere with a deft down-to-earthness that has at its heart questions about our relationships to one another and the cultures within which we live and struggle. While you'll find no shortage of political intrigue, strange and exciting new gods and worlds, as well as magical rituals and locations, what sets Zanzibar apart is how it uses these setpieces to comment on matters grounded in real-world concerns.

A multi-POV epic that combines elements of epic fantasy with very soft sci-fi (I'd honestly call it sci-fi through a fantastic lens), The Exile of Zanzibar opens as Claire, a young woman on the cusp of completing her doctoral thesis, is accidentally transported to the ancient past that is the subject of her study. Claire is no twenty-first-century scholar, however, but comes from a yet more distant future that may or may not be our own. Received as a god by the two warring kings who witness her arrival, Claire is thrust into a position of authority within the ancient cities of Florence and Genonva. In Florence, where the majority of Zanzibar takes place, she becomes both a player and a pawn in the struggle for power inside the city walls. Alongside Claire's quest to maintain peace within (and without) Florence while finding a way home, we also follow a young soldier named Marcus, a conniving priest named Reburrus, and the king of the Florentines himself. Additional characters lend one-off POVs to the narrative, and the story is peppered with memorable side characters and fables that enrich the world Maidman has built. Rather than overcomplicating the story, these textured asides make a mosaic of the novel, giving it both a sense of dense history and drawing comparison with the layered feel of novels that draw on the imagery and history of real-world classical literature to communicate theme. The novel is also lavishly illustrated by Maidman himself.

One of the aspects of Zanzibar that is certain to stand out immediately to readers is that it takes real-world names (such as Florence, Zanzibar, Cleon, and Pindar) and applies them to an alternative setting. I was tempted at first to read this as defamiliarization, but the effect is almost the opposite, since the use of familiar Classical terms and names instead lends the world of the novel a sense of the atmosphere one would expect from a historical swords-and-sandles novel or a genuine history of Rome and Italy. While this does open the potential for confusion, for me it created this wonderful sense of being able to revisit a world I thought I knew but that had turned out to be startlingly different. In Zanzibar I could learn Italian and Roman history for the first time, anew. The use of familiar names and terms also grounds Maidman's choice of which historical details to include or ruminate on. Every aspect of Florence feels considered and deliberate--so much so that it made me self-conscious about what by comparison is some very shallow worldbuilding on my part. Each aspect of daily life feels fully thought-out and understood, from palace architecture to the mechanisms used in the grinding of grain. You could easily believe Maidman's Florence was real and out there and that like Claire you could somehow plummet into it.

For me, the characters I loved most were frequently the secondary point-of-views woven into the main story: the folkloric fool-hero, Tacamo; Temet whose storyline is intertwined with one of the great mysteries of the novel; the adorable prince Bitsy Boots (a play on Caligula's name, though fortunately that's all the character inherits); and the stalwart but embittered Thersites. Maidman's command of character comes through most sharply for me through these chapters, where often his prose drops words of wisdom like a statue of the Madonna drops tears. There's an earthiness and a realism to the plights of these characters and each of them adds something deep and true to the story.

It was often in these chapters where Maidman moved me the most as a reader. Although I find Claire fascinating, her semi-divinity makes her less approachable than some of the rest of the cast--one admires from afar, almost the same way that the denizens of Florence and Genova admire her. Through Temet and Thersites, in contrast, the tragedy of the everyday is made glisteningly real. This tension between Claire the god and the ordinary people she encounters, is one of the sets of relations that fascinated me most, not least because as I read I found myself reflecting on the historian's relationship to their subject of study through Claire's realizations about the Florentines.

When we're first introduced to Claire, there's a sense of her as set apart. She doesn't wish ill upon Florence or Genova, but there remains a distance as though her modernity can't quite reconcile with the pastness of those she's been thrust into contact with. Her relationship to history has been one of dry academic distance and inquiry, and suddenly she's met with the reality of her subject as living and breathing. Gradually, as the story unfolds, Claire becomes more deeply immersed and entangled with Florence, and it's through her interactions with some of th
e characters listed above that I felt this shift expressed most powerfully. Claire comes to be part of Florence, or rather, it becomes part of her. As a historian myself, I couldn't help but read this process from the vantage of someone who's always been invested in the fraught relationship between the historian and their subject. Above, I mentioned a dry academic distance, yet in my experience most historians feel a passion and kinship for the worlds and people(s) we study. It reminded me of something one of my undergraduate professors once told us in class (and which I relentlessly now repeat to my own students), that whatever may be (or seem) different to us about past lives, the one constant we can depend on is that just like us, historical people loved their children. The reason this idea speaks to me is that suggests a degree of care and empathy ought to be extended to those long gone. This same feeling, I think, is what Claire comes to experience as she grows closer with those around her. The fact that, should she succeed in her goal of returning to her world, the people she has met will no longer exist (in some sense), gives Zanzibar a tragic backdrop that never quite vanishes.

One of the novel's strengths lies in its empathy for its characters. Even some of the most duplicitous and unlikeable of the expansive cast are treated with a mature psychological understanding of human nature that I can't help but suspect must have been enriched by Maidman's years of artistic study. This fact allows Zanzibar to reveal its characters as it progresses, unfolding their natures and drawing attention to the ways in which we are all, ultimately, contextual and contingent. It's a book that very much cares for its characters, and in the smallest and sharpest of moments, it doesn't flinch from revealing their sorrows and their joys. Maidman doesn't need melodrama to do this--instead he relies on the simplicity and power of a strong image, or the familiarity he can depend on his audience feeling when it comes to the loss of a friend or the joy in finding a new one.


The Exile of Zanzibar is a novel worth not only reading, but thinking and writing and dreaming about. Whether it haunts you with the image of a tower everyone can always see but never reach (one of my favourite elements), delights you as Claire discovers new corners of the city, or sweeps you up in the political drama playing out in Florence and its environs, Zanzibar is certain to leave an impression. This is an indie debut that embodies exactly what I was hoping to find from the self-published world: authors taking chances with inventive and risky new ideas. The rich symbolism and keen visual sense will captivate you, and poignancy of its character moments move you.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because of a cover blurb from Pierce Brown, who called it “Bloodydamn glorious.” I wouldn’t go that far, but this was certainly a solid debut.

The plot blurb, briefly: Genova and Florence are two bronze-age cities that have been engaged in a grinding, pointless war for generations. The battle for a key bridge - the capture of which will *surely* usher in the final victory, totally for real this time - is interrupted by the arrival of a strange craft and a supernatural storm. Out of the craft comes a beautiful woman, possibly a goddess, named Claire. Claire is a lost traveler from the distant and wondrous city of Zanzibar, and is able to convince the kings of Florence and Genova to make peace. That accomplished, she travels to Florence as the guest of the king with the intention of beginning her journey home to Zanzibar after the winter. But ending a generations-long war isn’t necessarily that easy, and Claire gets swept in Florence’s politics.

I’m going to start with the criticism, which is relatively minor but also drove me a little nuts. I think this would have been a lot stronger if the author hadn’t called the cities Florence, Genova, and Zanzibar. Those are real places, and I have personally been to Florence more than once. The real places got in the way of the fantasy and made the immersion harder; if you’re not going to ground them in real-world history, don’t use real-world names.

Moving on from the criticism, this book reminded me more of Miles Cameron’s Traitor Son Cycle than anything else (which is definitely a compliment). I can’t quite put my finger on why, exactly, but it had a similar feeling to me. Something about the mix of battle, intrigue, and magics going on, I suppose. It slipped back and forth among those three. Intrigue dominates, but there’s a decent amount of bronze age phalanx warfare mixed in as well. The magic is mostly focused on a single sequence at the end, but it’s a doozy. Very well done.

Overall, I’d give this a moderately strong recommendation. It got a little lost at times, and could have been a bit shorter I think. But as I said, a solid debut.

My blog

[Sarah Balstrup]

Why I read this:
The Exile of Zanzibar was a fellow SPFBO9 entrant described as ‘metaphysical fantasy.’ Based on this alone, I wanted to read it, but after reading Steve Westenra’s review on Before We Go Blog, I was sold: https://beforewegoblog.com/review-the...

My Impression:
This book is a treasure of the highest variety. I can barely find the words to express how much I loved it. In Steve’s review, he says that “reading it feels like a once in a lifetime experience,” and I couldn’t agree more. Somehow, this glorious tale has been archived on the moon, and I am happy that it will be there when the gods arrive in their golden palanquins to scrutinise our strange civilisation.

The Exile of Zanzibar is a numinous book. A book with a soul.

Claire, a goddess of mysterious origins falls from the sky to land in the midst of a battle between two cities. She awes them into a peace-pact that the factions of Florence seek to unweave, being addicted to war and the profit it brings. This classic tale is full of stories within stories that interlock and reveal each other in beautiful turns of symbolism. It feels deeply familiar in an archetypical sense, drawing on stories of gods and kings, knights and mythological bargains.

As Claire becomes immersed in the dream world of Florence, we begin to forget the ‘real world’ of Claire’s Zanzibar. It is not a plot-driven story where one seeks the end, but a realm where one happily slips between layers, hiding from the story’s inevitable conclusion. Claire’s godlike nature and the reality of Zanzibar are beyond our comprehension and that is fine. The mystery, like a dream’s haze, protects us from returning to the real world.

After finishing this book, I want to read it all over again!

Craft Related Notes:
-Maidman is a gifted artist (as one can tell from the book’s illustrations) but this artistic sense is also present in his writing. Light and colour are described in a painterly way and the book may be best described aesthetically, combining symbolist and classical scenes with touches of otherworldly surrealism.
-Maidman is a master of the tale within a tale. Sometimes, we slip into a religious allegory, a vivid memory from Zanzibar, or a quest to unmask a traitorous knight. Occasionally, we enter the temple of the soul where metaphysical symbolism is both a matter of morality and a delicate mathematical order to be puzzled out. These scenes captured me utterly. The disappearing tower of Ai Ctesiphon with its maze of steps, Trypsomayne - the bed that is like a world of its own and also the god of sleep, Claire’s inner transmutations…magic.
-Maidman’s prose is gorgeous, and so unique. Beautiful, compact scenes that are just the right size.
-Reminds me of Gene Wolfe’s Soldier in the Mist. Harkens to Homer’s Odyssey.

[Tom Mock]

This is not a full review. I read through the beginning of all 300 SPFBO9 contest entries. This was a book I wanted to read more of.

A mystical academic defends her thesis, but almost immediately everything goes wrong. A soldier pauses in battle to consider the dying. A king runs for his life. But this is just the beginning.

Some of the best prose I’ve read from this blog-off. Mature, measured, expressively human, and always active. The storytelling is hurrying along and taking me with it with a feeling of tremendous promise, especially because already there has been more than one narrative tone.

I don’t know how many pov characters are going to be in this, but I’ve already met 3. If the setting of ch.1 holds, this should be a sandaled fantasy.

Florence is mentioned, but I don’t know if this will turn out increasingly to be a faux-historical pastiche fantasy in the best way. In any case, it promises to be a playfully dazzling blend of the familiar and the strange.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to discover more of this setting as I go, because it’s feeling totally unique and wonderfully grounded.

Tho I was a bit confused by just what was happening in the prologue, the promise of our universe hopping, magical academic (our exile of Zanzibar?) falling into the war-torn story of ch.1 lends this opening wonderful creative promise.

I can’t guess in just what direction it will spin the story. I’m hungry for more of this prose, more of this world, more of the characters, more of this story. It is utterly readable. A brilliant beginning. This is an easy purchase. I’m in!

[James Harwood-Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the midst of war a beautiful stranger arrives. Bringing words of peace. A precarious time. A dangerous land. The embers of war yet simmer.

Plenty of political intrigue & fierce battle. Impressive imagery & developed characters. Engrossing!

[BJ Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had potential. The concept behind it is unique and the characters are clearly well thought out. But that is about as much good as I can say about it. At times the writing is fine, and at times it seemed like the author was trying (and failing) to give a mythic feel to the prose. At some points the dialogue writing flowed real and natural, and at times it was choppy and distracting. The characters' motivations were not always consistent or logically flowing from what we know of them.

I was wondering why the book could seem so good at some points and so poor at others. And then I read this in the author's afterward: "I have it on solid authority that you should learn to write novels by writing a lot of bad ones until you write a good one. I took an alternate path and wrote The Exile of Zanzibar eight times." He should have followed that "solid authority."

This brought to mind a story told about Brandon Sanderson, perhaps the greatest living author. He was holding an open forum with would-be authors and told them that a potter learns their craft by spinning many bad pots on the wheel. Each time it doesn't turn out right, they smash it down to nothing and then start over. No amount of good can truly fix the bad in that faulty pot. However, authors fall in love with their novels and are unwilling to let them go. Rather than constantly trying to fix their faulty novel, they need to smash it down to nothing and start over. The Exile of Zanzibar is a good cautionary tale of what happens when this does not happen. A potentially good tale has been ruined by what were almost certainly artifacts carried over from those earlier broken attempts.

My advice to Daniel Maidman is to smash this pot. Scrap this Zanzibar project and start over with something else. My advise to the reader is to pass this book by, but don't give up on this author. There is definite potential there.

[Robert Speck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Exile of Zanzibar is sweeping, visionary fiction. It didn't let up once I started it. It's where myth meets fantasy. It's got mind-bending imagery, daring plot devices, vivid characters, and impossible romance, all set amid a war between the mythical bronze-age cities of Genova and Florence. This stuck with me for a long time.

[Michael Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her very presence stopped a war

Claire is a patricia of Zanzibar. For her doctoral thesis she constructed a gold palanquin designed to carry her far distances. Her first excursion caught her up in a mighty storm that carried her far distances through space and time. Her harrowing journey ended on a bridge, crossing a river which marked the boundary between the warring armies of Florence and Genova. As she exited her craft, a beam of sunlight fell on her, illuminating her beauty. Her presence caused every soldier from both armies to drop to their knees in admiration and fear. Her radiant appearance stopped a war.

My first impression of the book was reminiscent of the epic poetry of Homer and Virgil without the dactylic hexameter. Like epic English poetry without iambic pentameter, the prose of the tale is epic! Claire's arrival as the Sower of Peace stopped a war that had been fought for generations. But the peace between the nations, or cities, was precarious and wildly unpopular with the sowers of discord profiting from the strife. Protected by her own guardians from among the soldiers, she learned their ways and made many friends and several enemies. In epic fashion, the Sower of Peace became the center of discord.

A huge and amazing cast can be hard to follow at times, but support the hugely amazing presence of Claire. At times a mere girl, then again seeming a young goddess, she leads her friends and followers through her trials to return to Zanzibar. The polished prose is the work of an amazing wordsmith, a fine storyteller with a huge story to tell! This is a long, captivating and wonderful read! I can't wait for book 2 of The Railroad To Zanzibar series!

[Veronica Walmsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Exile of Zanzibar is an enjoyable, intense read that transports the reader to a different universe and time, while prompting one with familiar life/human experiences. One reels with the rich imagery and deep symbolism in the book. Historical reference and beautiful vocabulary that is easily understood in the context of the work makes this book a delight to read. The narrative is compelling and sweeps one away from the here and now to another dimension. The mystery and intrigue of the world around Claire keeps one turning pages to catch the next glimpse of what is to come. The book tests the imagination with stunning views of the world that is created. Characters are well developed and defined. The Exile of Zanzibar is a must read.

Merged review:

The Exile of Zanzibar is an enjoyable, intense read that transports the reader to a different universe and time, while prompting one with familiar life/human experiences. One reels with the rich imagery and deep symbolism in the book. Historical reference and beautiful vocabulary that is easily understood in the context of the work makes this book a delight to read. The narrative is compelling and sweeps one away from the here and now to another dimension. The mystery and intrigue of the world around Claire keeps one turning pages to catch the next glimpse of what is to come. The book tests the imagination with stunning views of the world that is created. Characters are well developed and defined. The Exile of Zanzibar is a must read.

[Usman Zunnoor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning work of art with an impressive blend of traditional and modern elements.

The Exile of Zanzibar is a beautifully rich story, setting a high bar for future instalments of the series. Maidman’s debut solidifies his place as an author worthy of much attention.
The prose has a gentle yet uplifting flow which matches well with the setting of bronze-age Florence. Add onto this, the unique structure of events while mixing in a few doses of ancient tales and one cannot help but be immersed in this enchanting experience.

Maidman brings a great deal of emotion to the characters through their harrowing trials and the stakes are high from beginning to end.
Giving characters distinct voices and combining strong elements of mystery and intrigue while weaving a gripping story is all on display here. I would go as far as to say that Maidman is a master storyteller!

I will be greatly looking forward to the next book in the Railroad to Zanzibar series!

[Ljiljana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating. Inovative. Beautiful vocabulary. Sorcery, conflict, religion, time traveling, myth all these make this epic tale bloody damn brilliant. Maidman's attention to details is so visible in the way how he built up his characters and their Kingdoms. This is a tale that made me wondering how would I adapt if I time travel to another era in the middle of a military conflict. I will probably feel like Claire, just a shadow of my former self. This novel has a 400 pages, but it will keep reader taped to pages, because Maidman has created magical world full of intrigue which one doesn't want to leave too soon.

[Merav Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was able to read this book as an eARC, and you are in for such a treat. Written with exquisite attention to detail, this first novel stands out with strong characterizations, well defined relationships, and a constant overlay of shifting loyalties and conspiracy.

Set against a backdrop of war, the narrative engages with everyone at an intimate level, building lore to span a planned multi-book series.

For fans of John M. Ford, Gene Wolfe, and Guy Gavriel Kay.

[Christine Shia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Innovative and fresh, The Exile of Zanzibar is a thoughtful and well-developed universe that is easy to disappear into. The heroine Claire must pursue her own vision and desire while battling ideologies, fears and prejudices of another age. There is lots of action, a well-developed history, original ideas and characters with wonderful moments of observation. A good read but complex and so it needs proper time and focus, but the writing is clear and well-honed.

[Stephanie A · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Mr. Maidman did an excellent job building a world of interesting characters and well-described events and locations. His writing style is unique to my experience, so it took me a minute to get into the flow, but once I did, I was hooked. I definitely look forward to the next installment!

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gripping and thoughtful time-travel story. Claire’s struggle to survive in bronze-age Florence feels vivid and real, and Marcus Diophantus is a standout character with depth and heart. Their alliance, and the journey toward peace between warring cities, gives the story both emotional weight and adventure. A compelling and memorable read.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dazzling!

Hard to categorize...I couldn't stop reading, and when I came to the ending, it was as though I was awakening from a dream. I certainly hope there will be a next book, as I am entirely bewitched.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exile yourself from real life for a while and immerse yourself in The Exile of Zanzibar.

[Steven Starkweather · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautifully written and exciting

This is an immersive read. Maidman finds ample room for drama and discovery in his premise of a beautiful time traveler from a futuristic society lost in the bronze age and trying to get home. She comes up against timeless human problems of war and peace, tyranny and freedom, love, friendship, betrayal, and hate. The battle scenes are exciting, the court intrigue is compelling, and the book is strewn with startling, beautiful images, especially near the end, when the fantasy-novel magic really gets going. The book resolves the main conflicts while setting up a sequel quite nicely – looking forward to more in this series.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://sarahreads4.wordpress.com/202...

[Katharine Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well written fantasy genre. If you enjoyed Game of Thrones, you would probably dig this book.