Two Hawks from Earth

Book excerpt: From the New York Times–bestselling author of the Riverworld series: An alternate history classic in which the American continents never existed. Two Hawks from Earth, an expanded and revised version of Philip José Farmer’s The Gate of Time, is the story of an Iroquois pilot in World War II. First Lt. Roger Two Hawks is on a bombing run over Romania when his aircraft is shot down and collides with a German plane midair. Two Hawks bails out and survives, but when he reaches the ground, gone are the suburbs he saw from the sky. Instead, there are dirt roads, trees, farms, and an unsettling quiet. Then Two Hawks sees the soldiers: fur-clad men with shiny steel helmets shaped like wolf heads and armed with swords and arrows. Soon he comes to understand that, though a world war still rages, the Americans are absent—because they don’t exist, and neither does the land they’d come from. With his modern-day military and technical knowledge, Two Hawks becomes a prize that both armies covet. But he’ll have to learn to play by the rules of a new realm in order to survive—and live to see another world . . . Praise for Philip José Farmer “An excellent science fiction writer.” —Isaac Asimov “[Farmer’s work is a] blend of intellectual daring and pulp fiction prose.” —The New York Times “Farmer offers his audience a wide-screen adventure that never fails to provoke, amuse, and educate. . . . His imagination is certainly of the first rank.” —Time on The World of Tiers