Beyond the Gap (Opening of the World) [Hardcover]

Harry Turtledove (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2007 | Series: Opening of the World

Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters' camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, it's the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Now Nidaros is an old and many-spired city; and though they still feel the breath of the great Glacier in every winter's winds, the ice cap itself has retreated beyond the horizon.

 

Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news.  A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice. The great Glacier does not go on forever--and on its other side are new lands, new animals, and possibly new people.

Ancient legend says that on the other side is the Golden Shrine, put there by the gods to guard the people of their world. Now, perhaps, the road to the legendary Golden Shrine is open. Who could resist the urge to go see?

For Count Hamnet and his several companions, the glacier has always been the boundary of the world. Now they'll be travelling beyond it into a world that's bigger than anyone knew.  Adventures will surely be had...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this promising first of a new saga, alternate-history maven Turtledove (Ruled Britannia) depicts a Bronze Age society in transition. A growing gap in the glacier that has formed the Raumsdalian Empire's northern border for millennia allows Count Hamnet Thyssen and Trasamund the jarl, of the nomadic Northern Bizogot, to become the empire's Lewis and Clark. They and their entourage, which inconveniently includes Hamnet's unfaithful ex-wife, Gudrid, depart the empire's capital city, Nidaris, to explore what lies beyond the glacier and search for the fabled Golden Shrine. On the way, a formidable and attractive (if unbathed) Bizogot shaman, Liv, joins the expedition—and Hamnet under the animal hides. If the Raumsdalians and Bizogots don't always get along, their culture clash is nothing compared to the threat they face on the other side of the glacier: the Rulers, a tribe of imperious, mammoth-riding warriors. A vivid setting and strong characterization bode well for future installments. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The Raumsdalian imperial capital Nidaros was originally a mammoth-hunter's camp at the edge of a great glacier. The glacier retreated, and city, then empire, grew. The glacier remains, out of sight beyond the northern horizon but not, with the houses of Nidaros built to withstand frigid northern blasts, out of mind. A chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots brings to Nidaros word of a narrow gap that has opened in a supposedly endless wall of ice, revealing new lands and new beasts. Are there new people? The emperor sends Count Hamnet Thyssen, an old soldier recently, painfully divorced, to explore. Rather than the fabled Golden Shrine beyond the ice, he finds enough blood, toil, and ignorance (also a few sympathetic women) to convince him that empire and Bizogots need to develop new defenses fast. Neither welcomes his counsel, and he'll have his hands full in subsequent books. Readers familiar with late imperial Rome will recognize the period and peoples Turtledove adapts. Not top-drawer Turtledove, but a solid actioner with an ironically attractive protagonist. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765317109
• ISBN-13: 978-0765317100
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry Turtledove is the award-winning author of the alternate-history works The Man with the Iron Heart; The Guns of the South; How Few Remain (winner of the Sidewise Award for Best Novel); the Worldwar saga: In the Balance, Tilting the Balance, Upsetting the Balance, and Striking the Balance; the Colonization books: Second Contact, Down to Earth, and Aftershocks; the Great War epics: American Front, Walk in Hell, and Breakthroughs; the American Empire novels: Blood & Iron, The Center Cannot Hold, and Victorious Opposition; and the Settling Accounts series: Return Engagement, Drive to the East, The Grapple, and In at the Death. Turtledove is married to fellow novelist Laura Frankos. They have three daughters: Alison, Rachel, and Rebecca.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a disappointment, June 26, 2007

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beyond the Gap (Opening of the World) (Hardcover)

The glacier has been retreating for as long as anyone can remember, but it will always be there, right? There cannot be anything beyond the glacier. But, when a nomadic Bizogot chieftain comes to the capital of the Raumsdalian Empire with the news that there is a newly-opened gap in the glacier, all of the accepted information is thrown into turmoil.

And so, a team is hastily put together to search the gap and find out just what does lie beyond. This is the story of Count Hemnet a haunted but capable man, and his adventures beyond the gap.

Overall, I found this book to be a bit of a disappointment. The first half of the book is filled with heavy dialog and character development, leaving the reader to plod along waiting for something interesting to happen. Finally, when the story begins to pick up, and the action grows interesting - POOF, the book ends!

Now, if the author goes on to make a sequel or two, then the lengthy character development might become valuable. But, as it stands, the book is just too slow, too heavy, and not interesting enough.

By the way, I must agree with the reviews that say that this book is not historical fiction - it is in fact fantasy literature. The story includes working magic, and the distribution of the various elements (horses, reindeer, polar bears, etc.) is a bit anachronistic. (For example, horses were not domesticated until about 4,500 BC.) No, this book is a bit of a disappointment, and I really cannot recommend it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit suprised, June 15, 2007

By 

R. Ward (Ogden, Utah United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond the Gap (Opening of the World) (Hardcover)

I have never read a book by Turttledove before. This one got my attention. Mr. Turttledove has a great reputation. That is what surprised me. I kept waiting for somthing to happen in this book. It seems like an account of a wandering nobel with a broken heart. All of the questions raised through the book go unanswered. All of the conflicts seem to disipate rather than resolve. There is no end to anything. There are pages of hand wringing about a lost love, all fluff, no action, again no end. The premise is great. The characters are interesting. I think an editor should have gotten hold of this and the likely next two books and made one good book. This is not a good book for someone new to Turtledove to start with. I will have a hard time picking up another one.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not even close to his usual standards, April 18, 2007

By 

J. L. Gillaspy "Author: "A Larger Univers... (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond the Gap (Opening of the World) (Hardcover)

This appears to be another occurrence of an author whose work I otherwise admire and respect selling out for some quick income.

First, the writing is "talky" and often lazy with adverbs describing said, such as "... said, blandly."

Second, the novel purports to be about a "lost" late bronze or early Iron Age civilization from the end of the last ice age or perhaps from a time between the ice ages, but the dialog often has a distinctly modern tone, to the point of being anachronistic. Many physical items in the story also seemed out of their proper time.

Third, nothing much happens. They go through a gap in the glacier, they briefly encounter some bad guys and don't find what they were looking for; they come back through the glacier and report what they found; and they go north to the Glacier again. The book ends.

Through it all, we follow the emoting of a male character about his ex-wife and a new lover. This would be fitting in a Harlequin romance novel, except the character is an otherwise alpha male, not female, protagonist. Most of the internal dialog from that character is repetitive musings about his evil ex-wife.

I also agree with the other reviewer in his complaints about working magic. The book is a fantasy--nothing wrong with that--not an alternate history.

I repeatedly asked myself as I was reading, did the author bother to read this even once after he wrote the first draft, or did he just send it off to his publisher?