1521 has arrived. A new year in a new world with new nations, new continents, new knowledge, and new rulers. Never before had so much power been gathered in such young hands. The tenth Sultan, the twenty-six-year-old Suleiman, ascends to his father's throne in one of the world's most powerful empires. The rest of the world hopes that the eastern threat has faded. Rhodes is Christendom's closest and most defiant outpost against the East. There the Knights of St. John's Grand Master has died. Strife and treachery await his successor. Some hundred knights have the task to defend the outpost. Their Grand Master's motto is "Victory or Death."

Author - Bo Giertz
Bror Erickson

"Bishop Bo Giertz knew that faith itself is adventure into unknown territories and on paths uncharted. This novel, set in the turbulence of an emerging new world in the sixteenth century, is a saga about the resilience of faith, a faith that "overcomes destiny." It is a potent story unadorned by shallow sentimentalities that invites readers to ponder the goodness of a God who engages human beings with all of their frailties and foibles as instruments of His service."
—John T. Pless
Concordia Theological Seminary

"This little known work of Bo Giertz (elegantly translated by Bror Erickson) is remarkable. Not only does it recount a pivotal yet long forgotten conflict between Islam and Christendom; its gripping narrative is sure to draw its readers into the convictions and passions that surrounded the Ottoman assault on the island of Rhodes in 1521."
—Adam S. Francisco
Concordia Theological Seminary