John Eric Olsen

Ishmael's Burden: in Hoc Signo Vinces John Eric Olsen

Publisher Marketing: A burden is placed upon Ishmael - illegitimate first born son of the prophet Abraham - when he and his slave mother are cast away from the family and into the dessert. Ishmael is instructed to compile an Almanac and entrusted with a powerful secret to be employed with great discretion in the defense of history. This burden and its Almanac have been continuously maintained throughout the millennia in the world's oldest and least known university, forgotten at the proverbial end of the world, in the basement of Timbuktu's Sankore Madrasah. Professor Thomas Robinson of Princeton University is Ishmael's latest successor. His tenure upholding Ishmael's burden will lead him to Rome's Milvian Bridge, site of an ancient Roman battle. Pursuant to strict instructions written by the very hand of Ishmael in the Almanac, Thomas must carefully recruit an improbable group of three earnest people to execute his mandate. A troubled Lithuanian Rabbi, a mystical Sufi Muslim man from war torn Iraq and an old soulful black Christian woman from southern Louisiana are assembled by Thomas to do battle as instructed. Albeit separated by 1700 years, they are joined by a Roman Auxiliary Century and two audacious former slave boys to secure the outcome of one of history's most consequential battles. Ishmael's Burden is a work of Historical Fiction. It exclusively weaves well documented historical events and anecdotes into a breathtaking clash between nature's two most fundamental forces, quite literally the forces of Good and Evil. The premise is simple: Love Thy Neighbor.