Customer Reviews

The Gladiator (Crosstime Traffic)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I liked this book a lot! When I first started reading it, I for some reason thought that it might not be all that good, but that thought was short-lived.

The _Crosstime Traffic_ series is a juvenile (or "young adult," if you prefer)series involving a corporation of that name, which has a means of travelling between alternate timelines. They basically do clandestine import/export between their timeline ("home timeline") and the others ("alternates"). In this novel, you see mission creep setting in; Crosstime Traffic is engaged in subverting the political system in a timeline in which the communists won the Cold War. The story is set in a communist Italy of the late 21st century; I must say that it has a very realistic feel, in that it feels like it's been the 1940s for 150 years (I remember reading an editorial which stated that it was the 1940s in eastern Europe from the 40s until the fall of the Berlin Wall -- it makes sense to me). One of the Crosstime Traffic employees gets trapped there when the secret police close down their business (it sells subversive board games), and has to hide out with some acquaintances of his. The story is told from the point of view of the local characters, not the Crosstime Traffic point of view; it feels almost like Turtledove himself has spent time in a communist police state prior to 1990 or so.

In a previous review, I wondered what it is about Turtledove's writing that I like so much. I've thought about it, and a couple of things occurred to me. One is that his "local color" is always very good. His stories have little details in them that give them that sense of authenticity. Another is that his characters tend to be sympathetic, and seem real as well. His pacing is pretty good, too, so that it's easy to keep turning the pages in one of his stories.

I'd highly recommend this book (as well as the rest of the series) to anyone of any age, even though these books are written as juveniles.

I found this action-packed alternate world one of Harry's better juveniles... a good Heinlein replica 50 +/- years later. It moves swiftly, with well-drawn high school characters and their "supporting" adults -- and is an almost believable yarn. If you ever visited the old USSR and also understand some of our "real" historical turning points this story makes sense. It didn't happen in our world, but this apparently "re-made" socialist "paradise" a very believable Italy. It is a very "1980's Hungarian or Leningradian almost-replica. I'd debate whether or not such an empire would last 150 years, but that is author's perogative.

Bottom-line -- I enjoyed it thoroughly - and that is after 50 years of deeply reading science fiction, with a personal knowledge base going back to the 1930's pulps. Harry, while I thought some of your other recent books had "slipped," this is one of the better alternative adult world(s) you have invented. In some ways I enjoyed this as well as "Guns of the South." Quick, straight, relatively uncomplicated and easy to sort thru and out. As the saying goes, "you got your groove back."

Already the 5th book in this Crosstime series! Turtledove has impressive if not prodigious productivity. Commendable how this book continues the trend of describing a timeline quite different from those in the earlier books. Reading across the series, there is an unpredictability in settings that can be an attraction to some readers.

By the way, here there seems to be a slight reference to Turtledove's first big hit, The Guns of the South. The latter was also about alternate universes. In which the logo of Apple Computer was described. Also done in Gladiator. Turtledove probably put the remarks here, simply because a reader could recognise it, without him having to explicitly name the manufacturer. But maybe he's also reaching out to his earliest fans.

Another person who reviewed this book was spot on, hilariously but accurately, in labelling it "mission creep". An interesting development harking back at policy changes in the parent world.

Unfortunately, the narrative, in the combination of both the spoken dialog and the thoughts attributed to various characters, is often weak. There is a structure often present, usually involving a statement immediately followed by a counterpoint or negation of that statement. If you haven't noticed this, try rereading and parsing carefully. Once you see it, then you see it everywhere. Also true of the author's other works, like his 10 or 12 volume Civil War series. But in this book, the repetitive structure seems especially pronounced. As though he is dumbing down the narrative, for a young audience. Or that he is not putting enough effort into writing interesting prose. It can get stale to read, after you notice.

By contrast, look at Rowling's Harry Potter books. Also ostensibly for a similar audience. However the narrative flow is far more varied and interesting to read. You cannot easily deconstruct her works to detect a simple narrative pattern. Also reflected in the marketplace. Her books outsold any in the earlier Crosstime series books, probably by over an order of magnitude.

Granted, the typical reader of Gladiator probably will not consciously notice the repetitive structures. But unconsciously, this may be subsumed and expressed simply that the book is "ok but not great". And ultimately in sales. A pity, because Turtledove's series is a great idea, that deserves stronger expression. We need a successor to Piper's Paratime, and this series is the closest active approximation.

I was not familiar with the Crosstime Traffic series when I picked up this book (although I've seen other books in the series) but I was pleased with the storyline and the content of the Gladiator.

In this future communism dominates the world, thanks to the decline of the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. The main characters in the book learn about real capitalism the only way they can in this Soviet-dominated world... playing board games at a mysterious shop.

I will almost certainly look for more of these books the first chance I get!

I wanted to like The Gladiator. Unfortunately, while reading it, I kept coming across what at best I'd describe as very improbably plot elements that made it hard for me to take the book seriously.

(An aside: some may wonder how I can consider anything improbable in a sci-fi book about alternate realities but sci-fi works or doesn't work by getting the reader to accept one big improbability and then setting up a world that proceeds logically from that one changed premise).

For instance: the secret police shut down the game shop in Milan; one employee is left behind when the rest escape. He makes contact with the teenage protagonists and talks with one of their parents. By the end of this chat, he's got a cover story and a usable set of false ID. Is false ID really that easily come by in this police state?

A little later, repair people come by to fix the elevator in the apartment, which has been broken for years and years. The teenagers discover that the repairmen are from a company in Rimini- quite a distance away, and (correctly) guess that they must have been others from the alternative world searching for their missing colleague. How did they track him down? Why did they give up the search after fixing the elevator?

There are other similar holes in the plot...

I did read this book through to the end, but it was less fun than it could have been.

This Harry Turtledove series is loosely based on the Crosstime concept developed by H.Beam Piper, in which myriads of worlds with alternate histories exist parallel to our own timeline. In the 21st century of our timeline, technology has been developed that allows people to visit these alternate Earths and return, usually safely, but sometimes not. A massive corporation called Crosstime Traffic controls most of the access to these alternate worlds, and the plots of Turtledove's five Crosstime Traffic novels all revolve around Crosstime Traffic workers, their families (teenagers included) and the people they come in contact with in the alternates.

I found The Gladiator to be the most exciting of the Crosstime series so far. Its set in a world where the Soviets won the Cold War and set up a worldwide Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist command economy and political dictatorship. Gianfranco and Annarita are schoolmates and neighbors in Milan in the Italian People's Republic. They lead average teenager type lives until one day Gianfranco discovers an exciting new shop called The Gladiator, where games are played and books are sold that give basic instructions on how to be a capitalist. The State Security Police catch on to this subversive counter-revolutionary stuff, and close the shop down. Its mysterious proprietors all vanish except one, Eduardo, who turns to Gianfranco and Annarita for help getting back to his own timeline.

This is a fast-paced adventure story with plenty of attractive characters and a satisfying ending. The contrast between capitalism and communism is well developed, and there's plenty of interesting discussion about the nature of liberty, security, and progress. Like every other Crosstime Traffic novel, this one makes me wish I could get a job at Crosstime Traffic myself.

Interestingly enough, there seems to be a bit of confusion about the number of Crosstime Traffic stories. This book is labeled the fourth Crosstime Traffic novel and the second page lists the first three in the series: Gunpowder Empire, Curious Notions, and In High Places, but leaves out The Disunited States of America, which was published as Book 4 in September, 2006. Maybe Crosstime Traffic does indeed exist, and some glitch in the system got some alternate worlds confused!

While there is no denying Turtledove's competence as a writer, The Gladiator suffers from a most curious problem - namely, there's no drama involved. Once you get past the main premise (alternative society where the USSR won the cold war) there's very little left, as the 'man out of time' angle repeated from past Crosstime books is solved with remarkably little effort and intrigue*. Nobody gets arrested, nobody gets in trouble, and nobody is worse for wear. In short, this is a breezy and unfulfilling read, and I thought it was a huge step down from Gunpower Empire which at least had some genuine moments of danger and peril.




*one glaring exception - why did the elevator get fixed? Huge coincidence? It was central to the plot after all.

Turtledove's juvenile alternate worlds series has had a pattern until now - teenagers from the "home timeline" of the late 21st century (whose past looks very much like our world) travel to an alternate world, have a romantic entanglement there and some difficulty in returning home. Their purpose in the alternate world is to obtain food for an overpopulated world through trade of items the home timeline can produce cheaply and which aren't too alien to the culture of the other timeline (no computers for medieval worlds), or to watch an advanced potential competitor.
The world in this story is one in which Soviet style communism has conquered the world and stayed in power for over a century. Given a huge number of parallel worlds, the author can certainly find one where this static state holds and where the Soviets revive from their 1950's decline and go on to conquer after a decline of the West in the 1960's and 1970's.
This world suffers from the constant problem of Soviet type society - people don't produce more than they have to, because the person who produces more benefits no more than a person who produced little. As a consequence, there is no surplus food or anything else to trade with the home timeline and the society is not a danger to other timelines. The mission to this timeline is, therefore, altruistic - inspire them to change their situation through computer games which teach capitalism. Such a mission is intrinsically dangerous, so the usual home timeline teenager is missing - the usual romance is between natives.
Of course, being a totalitarian society, the communists suppress the games and the home timeliner needs to find a way to return home. The hunt for a means of return is a good portion of the story.
One item that is bothersome - there is a "show how much I know about Russian" section. If such needs to be included, it would be nice to be accurate. E.g. Russian for "dog" should be spelled with the Russian equivalent of "b", not a "soft sign"; "chelovek" means "person", not "man" (which is "muzhchina") and Russians "matavat", not "mat" when they swear. After all, if Turtledove can do such a splendid job on The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English Translation of Anni Mundi 6095-6305 (A.D. 602-813) (Middle Ages), he ought to be able to handle Russian.

Annarita is a star student, excelling in everything from math to Russian. Her neighbor, Gianfranco doesn't have much interest in school--instead he's fascinated by the games in a weird shop called The Gladiator--especially a game about railroads. But when a math problem asks about trains, all of a sudden, Gianfranco starts to understand. Unfortunately for him, the State Police have discovered that The Gladiator is spreading subversive material and the next thing Gianfranco knows, one of the shop's employees is asking for his help.

In a world where the Soviet Union won the cold war, and where Peoples Republics form the basis of every nation, getting into trouble with the State Police is serious--and potentially fatal. The only thing going for Gianfranco and Annarita is that nobody would believe the truth--that Eduardo from the shop actually comes from a different timeline, a timeline where the US won the cold war and then discovered cross-time travel. But with the State Police occupying his shop, his chances of getting back seem to be close to zero.

Author Harry Turtledove continues his Crosstime Traffic series with a look at a world where typewriters and mimeograph machines are registered as dangerous weapons, where saying the wrong thing can lead to a midnight knock on the door, and where the state is doing everything but withering despite having won in its battle against capitalism. With its teenaged protagonists, THE GLADIATOR should appeal to young adult as well as adult SF readers.

As with the other Crosstime Traffic stories, Turtledove creates an interesting and plausible future. While I think the best opportunity for Soviet Communism to win in the west probably took place earlier than the Cuban Missile Crisis (the inflection point in this story), strong Communist parties in Italy, France, and Greece could have resulted in a very different outcome than we experienced in our timeline, isolating the US and gradually making us irrelevant. It's certainly instructive to consider how this could have happened and what would have been the likely result.

THE GLADIATOR has its flaws. The discovery that Annarita's cousin was a criminal should have put Annarita and her father--as well as Gianfranco's family at more risk in a world where secret police have no limits and where correct thinking is essential. And the coincidence of just the right elevator repairmen making the repair and having just the right conversation seemed a bit forced. Then there's Turtledove's frequent use of repetitive phrasing (she wished she could, wished it, but she couldn't) which slows down exposition. It would be a great quirk for a single character but it makes dialogue and interior dialogue seem unnatural when applied to everyone. Still, THE GLADIATOR is an interesting read about an plausible alternate world. It just might also be Turtledove's answer to reviewer accusations that he's some sort of leftist--he certainly didn't make leftists the heroes of this story.

Mr. Turtledove is a supurb writer and this book shows his technical ability. What it lacks is a 3 dimensional character and some motion. He bogs down in replicating some of the aspects of a Heinlein juvenile and makes his points with a sledge hammer, where a nudge would have been sufficient. His criticism of Soviet Communism is too shallow. There was a lot more wrong with the system than he presents and he seems to equate Capitalism with personal freedom. His characters live in a totalitarian state with little realization of what that means to them. This was far from his best work and the editing was sloppy. I do not recommend "Gladiator" to anyone not familiar with Mr. Turtledove. He is one of my favorite writers and even I found it tedious.