Crease down front of softcover, pages browned with age, one crease to spine. 1965 Ace Books.

Calvin Morrison was a pretty good cop in Pennsylvania-until he was scooped up by the cross-time flying saucer and transported to Styphon's House Subsector, a 16th Century equivalent parallel time-line. Here the Indo-Aryan invasions went east across Asia and down the Aleutian Islands into North America, where they have stagnated for thousands of years. Dropped off into the middle of a local dispute, Corporal Calvin Morrison comes face to face with warriors armed with pikes and broadswords, not petty criminals. Lord Kalvan, as the locals call him, transforms the petty Princedom of Hostigos into a fearsome warrior Kingdom by inspired leadership and advanced military knowledge. Now, after having created and saved his new nation of Hos-Hostigos from destruction by Styphon's House, a tyrannical theocracy that holds sacred the secret formula for gunpowder, Kalvan, now Great King of Hos-Hostigos, faces his greatest challenge-keeping what he has won. The Holy Host of Styphon and the Royal Army of Hos-Harphax, two of the greatest armies in the history of the Five Kingdoms, are on the move and Kalvan will once again have to call upon his knowledge of military history to save his family and friends. This time it's personal!

Kalvan Kingmaker is the 3rd in the Kalvan Saga, after H. Beam Piper's groundbreaking parallel world's SF novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, and the sequel, Great Kings' War by John F. Carr and Roland Green. The Paratime Police patrol an infinity of alternate earths. Their prime directive is to protect the Paratime Secret thereby keeping this infinity of worlds from mixing and destroying each other, or from learning the parasitical Home Time Line is secretly looting their resources. When Penn. State Policeman Calvin Morrison is accidentally dropped off from a cross-time conveyer onto Styphon's House Subsector, he threatens both the Paratime Secret and leadership of the gunpowder theocracy, who owe their power to their secret knowledge of the "fireseed" formula. In just a few weeks, by the use of his knowledge of military strategy, Kalvan saves the small princedom of Hostigos from an invasion orchestrated by Styphon's House. Kalvan Kingmaker opens right after Kalvan's decisive victory over the Holy Host of Styphon. With Great King Kaiphranos of Hos-Harphax in mourning over his eldest son's death, the time is ripe for the Army of Hostigos to invade Harphax and topple the Iron Throne. At the holy city of Balph, the Inner Circle is reeling. Archpriest Roxthar, a rare true believer in Styphon, is conducting a full-blown inquisition of Styphon's corrupt upper priesthood. Once his reformation is complete, Roxthar's next job will to rebuild the Holy Host and defeat and destroy the Usurper Kalvan. Meanwhile, there is a great migration of nomads across the Sea of Grass; they are the wild card. As the nomads pour across the Great Middle River, pushing the clans and tribes that live there into the Great Kingdoms, the big question soon becomes: Will Styphon's House be buried by the human wave, or will they use the nomads in their war to the death with Kalvan and Hos-Hostigos?

This second hardcover edition of SIEGE OF TARR-HOSTIGOS is the fourth book in the Kalvan Saga and begins right after Kalvan Kingmaker upon Kalvan’s return from the Trygath and his resounding military success over the invading nomad clans. Unfortunately, this military action has given Great King Lysandros a year to rebuild the Harphaxi army and, together with Styphon’s House, put together the Grand Host of Styphon’s House—the largest army ever assembled on Aryan-Transpacific, Styphon’s House subsector. Kalvan has awakened the sleeping tiger of Styphon’s House and they are out for blood. The Grand Host under the aegis of Holy Investigatory Roxthar—the Torquemada of Aryan-Transpacific, Styphon’s House Subsector—will bring the full-fledged religious war to Hos-Hostigos and the Five Kingdoms that Kalvan has always feared. This is a campaign that—win or lose—will cost Kalvan some of his good friends, part of his family and possibly the Kingship of Hos-Hostigos. Attempts by Verkan Vall, Paratime Police Chief, to help Kalvan survive the Styphoni onslaught come to naught as he is frustrated at every level by Paratime bureaucratic regulations, the machinations of the Kalvan Study Team and First Level red tape. But far worse events will befall the University of Dhergabar Kalvan Study Team and Verkan himself, when they run head-on into the Styphoni juggernaut of the Grand Host at the Royal Foundry outside Hostigos Town. The courage and valor of Kalvan and his friends are put to the final test in this all-out war for the future of Hos-Hostigos and its royal family.

THE FIRESEED WARS opens right after the Siege of Tarr-Hostigos, with Great King Kalvan in full retreat from the victorious armies of Styphon’s House. With Hos-Hostigos in ruins and under Investigation, King Kalvan faces his greatest challenge since arriving in Hostigos. Kalvan has to find a way to outrun the Grand Host of Styphon’s House and save his subjects from the inquisition of Archpriest Roxthar and his fanatical gang of thugs. Using scorched earth tactics, Kalvan flees with a quarter of a million refugees and a ragtag army completely dependent upon him for salvation. To the northwest, lies the Upper Middle Kingdoms where King Theovacar of Grefftscharr awaits with his navy and army. Theovacar, the ruler of the largest territory in the Middle Kingdoms, doesn’t want any competition from an outsider—especially one with as army as big as Kalvan’s. Verkan Vall, Paratime Police Chief, faces his own battles on Home Time Line as his enemies engage in a relentless propaganda war against him and his administration. The Gunpowder Theocracy is determined to turn the Five Great Kingdoms into their personal fiefdom. It’s no longer just a fight between Kalvan and Styphon’s House; it’s a war of mutual destruction. And Styphon’s House intends to win by any means.

Now that the siege of Thagnor City has been lifted, Great King Kalvan finally has some breathing room. Styphon’s House has left the Upper Middle Kingdoms to lick its wounds and make trouble elsewhere in the Great Kingdoms. However, instead of waiting for the ruling houses to realize they no longer need Styphon’s House’s support, the Temple has decided to put its own puppets on the thrones of the Five Great Kingdoms. The result is Kalvan’s greatest fear—an all-out religious war. Styphon’s Own Voice has ordered Grand Master Soton to put together another huge army, the Host of Styphon’s Deliverance, to conquer the Kingdom of Hos-Agrys. The Agrysi League of Dralm begs Kalvan for aid against Styphon’s great host, but Kalvan has troubles of his own with Nythros, the last bastion of Styphon’s House in the Middle Kingdoms. He is more worried about this threat than anything that is happening in the Five Great Kingdoms. After all, where was the League of Dralm when Hostigos was under siege? A decision Kalvan may yet come to rue…. Meanwhile, Prince Phidestros has his own problems. Great King Lysandros is returning from the disastrous siege of Thagnor with his tail between his legs. But Lysandros is not going to be happy when he finds out what’s been going on in Harphax City while he’s been off fighting Kalvan—nor will Styphon’s House. Verkan Vall is enjoying the challenges of being the new King of Greffa, but in his absence things on First Level have gone straight to hell. New Paratime Police Chief Dalla Hadron is having the devil’s own time keeping the lid on the prole situation and it seems as though trouble is brewing all over Dhergabar City. After ten thousand years of peace and parasitically living off of other time-lines, the hounds of war are finally returning to Home Time Line with a vengeance!

Down Styphon! is the eighth and concluding volume of the Kalvan Saga; the story of temporally transplanted Pennsylvania State Trooper, Calvin Morrison, and his war against Styphon’s House, a nasty theocracy, started by H. Beam Piper in the novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen. After years of war against Great King Kalvan, Styphon’s House’s control over the Five Great Kingdoms is in jeopardy. In Hos-Bletha there are two great kings and in Hos-Agrys the Prince-Regent’s rule is threatened as the Prince reaches his majority. In Hos-Harphax the Great Queen Lavena is taxing her subjects to the breaking point, while in Hos-Zygros Great King Phidestros openly despises Styphon’s House. Only in Hos-Ktemnos is there a stable regime, that openly supports Styphon’s House. Nos-Hostigos is at peace for the first time since Kalvan landed on the Aryan-Transpacific, Styphon’s House Subsector’s time-line. Local threats in the Middle Kingdoms have been neutralized and Styphon’s House is busy trying to regain their former strength in the Five Great Kingdoms. Some of the new Great Kings have no love for Styphon’s House and its quest for power over the great kings. However, the Fireseed Temple’s resources are huge, including large mercantile houses, tobacco and grain monopolies, along with the Great Banking houses. Great Queen Rylla decides that the time has come to reassert Hostigi power and return home to Hos-Hostigos. Not everyone is happy with this turn of events, but Rylla is a force of nature and asserts her will. Now it’s up to Great King Kalvan to find a way to make their return to the Princedom of Hostigos a permanent one. His first task will be to defeat and subdue the Zarthani Knights’ great fortress at Tarr-Ceros. If he’s successful there, next he will then have to beard Styphon’s archpriests in the Holy City of Balph, the very heart of their power and influence.