[2][3] An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form.

[3] The carnelian cube of the title is a small red "dream stone" confiscated by archaeologist Arthur Cleveland Finch from Tiridat Ariminian, one of the workers on the dig he is supervising in Cappadocia.

But he finds the individualist world one of rampant vanity and violence, in which megalomaniacal bully-boys like Colonel Richard Fitzhugh Lee uneasily dominate a population of extreme egocentrics defensive of their "originality" and touchy about being told what to do.

Hiring a medium-provided spirit to do the dirty work, Finch again obtains his current world's counterpart of the carnelian cube and makes his escape, this time hoping to regain his original existence as an archaeologist reconstructing the past.

He finds himself project head of a recreation of the Assyrian siege of Samaria, and quickly discovers the reenactment no mere fantasy; the brainwashed participants actually fight, kill and die in the furtherance of scientific knowledge.

"[7] Thrilling Wonder Stories praised the novel as "earthy, talkative, [and] frequently witty," saying "The authors have given full range to a pair of highly fertile imaginations and the reader does not suffer thereby.

[9] Astounding reviewer P. Schuyler Miller called the book "quite unlike anything else the reader will find on today's market," providing "more sheer entertainment than any the fantasy publishers have yet given us."