[Ransomed]

Have you read any Dan Simmons? The first Hyperion book is basically the Cantebury Tales in space. He’s a huge Jack Vance fan as well, and contributed to the recent tribute anthology to Vance set in his “Dying Earth” setting, ‘Tales of the Dying Earth.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Simmons

Back in the day he wrote a time travel story warning of radical islam that made the rounds on FR (871 posts), it is pretty tremendous and can be read here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610142/posts

Freegards

[GeronL]

As a warning about Islam, you can still download ‘Caliphate’ for free at Baen...

http://www.baen.com/library/books.asp

[Norm Lenhart]

Beat ya to it ;)

Also Poul Anderson “The Time Patrol” is a good, in the ‘dumb fun’ sense.

[tbw2]

I agree. His story was great. Here’s a direct link to it for those interested.
http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm