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23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Beware, Turtledove fans!, October 8, 2005
This review is from: Gunpowder Empire (Crosstime Traffic, Book 1) (Hardcover)
An alternate history where the Roman Empire survives into and past our own time would make for a fascinating read if researched and written well, and Harry Turtledove would be one author who could probably do it. If so, he needs to try again, and a little harder.
Nowhere on the book jacket or cover blurbs or inside this $25 book is there are warning/indication that this is a book for children and maybe (very) young teenagers, but what is what it is. Since it is sold as standard science fiction/alternative history, and the author is well-known for that kind of standard fare for adults, it strikes me as a little cynical to just let the adult reader find this out for himself after buying the book.
Unfortunately, even as a youth-oriented adventure story that happens to be set in another "timeline," it falls short. JK Rowling need not fear this entry into her market.
It seems a little churlish to quibble about details in a kids' story, but kids are smart enough to pick up on this stuff, and Turtledove is smart enough to know better. So here are some of my personal quibbles.
The thing is set in the 2090s, and science has made interdimensional travel possible. Here, it seems to be used primarily for plundering oil and foodstuffs from the other worlds and bringing the goods back home, in exchange for slum trinkets like Swiss army knives and gaudy Japanese watches. Despite the "current" year being some 80 to 90 years ahead of us, very little besides this inter-dimensional trick has changed. Kids are still obsessed with TV and CDs, they shop at WalMart and Home Depot, use a PowerBook computer, and all of the gadgets in common use were in use in our time, 2005. They also speak English. Given the speed at which current fashions and customs have changed in the last 100 years, this is ridiculous. Only one SERIOUS change has occurred, and that is implied by the comment, "Guys in Los Angeles usually weren't so crude." Now that would signify massive change!
Sadly, the kids are too perfect by half, being politically correct to a mind-numbing and eye-rolling extent. Their physical revulsion at the concept of slavery is mentioned dozens and dozens of times, they abhor the idea of personal valor and even question the morality of self-defense, and they also seem to have a very strange aversion, again regularly bringing them to the verge (and beyond) of vomiting, when confronted with the custom of people wearing furs. Most odd, coming from kids wearing and using leather all the time, and craving a good burger and lamb vindaloo. Their precious and unwavering moral rectitude almost had me reaching for the airsickness bag myself at times.
Turtledove presents the Roman Empire roughly as it was in AD 150, adds the invention though not perfection of early gunpowder weapons, and at that point stops all progress. This seems way overly simplistic (and way too easy on an ambitious author). The Byzantine (East Roman) Empire outlasted the Western Empire by 1000 years, and there was significant progress made in that time in every field of knowledge. Why nothing new in 2000 years in this timeline? Why use time-dates at all; it would have been easier to say that the children went back in time itself. They don't need an alternate world for this.
Finally, every sf and alt/hist reader will be familiar with various logical and time-honored conventions concerning the genre. These are either absent or unevenly applied in this case. For example, they are prevented from interfering with the civilization as they find it...but are permitted (and encouraged) to trade goods technologically far advanced. And ultimately they negotiate with an enemy's king, free a slave, etc. This is non-interference? Better to allow them to actively interfere and deal imaginatively with the fall-out. Even the idea of essentially looting all the available food from a culture only slightly above subsistence level is pretty questionable for people who consider themselves moral paragons.
I can't recommend this book to either juvenile adventure readers (it is fairly dull and overly simply plotted) nor to Turtledove fans (way below his form).
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Turtledove is getting very, very lazy, January 6, 2004
This review is from: Gunpowder Empire (Crosstime Traffic, Book 1) (Hardcover)
When Harry is on a roll, he produces some of the best alternate history yarns of recent years. When he's not paying attention, however, his stuff can be overwritten and under-thought, sloppily edited and thin in the plot line. More than that, this first volume in a series is obviously a Young Adult book but there's no indication of the target audience anywhere on it. The premise is that sometime in the next few decades, we will stumble across the technology (never explained or even theorized about) to cross into variant timelines: Worlds where Germany won World War II, where the Armada conquered England, where the Vikings stayed in New England and beat off later European settlers, etc. In other words, all the usual alternate history themes. Specifically, this one is set in an alternate Rome where Agrippa survived into old age, conquered Germania for Augustus, and established a 2,000-year empire which is now just beginning to develop cannon and flintlocks. Teenagers Jeremy and Amanda Solters accompany their mercantilist parents every summer to an alternate town in Romania (Dacia in that world), where they carry on a brisk business in pocket watches, glass mirrors, and Swiss Army knives. They have to be careful not to upset things in that world by talking too much -- just what effect all this alien technology is supposed to have is lightly passed over -- and they take grain in trade rather than silver because the Home Line needs the food. Then their mother develops appendicitis and has to be escorted back through the portal by their father. And then the portal malfunctions and the kids, naturally, have to fend for themselves -- possibly forever. And then the Lietuvans (Lithuanians) invade. And then, and then, and then. The author takes every opportunity to impress upon the reader just how dirty and disease-ridden and ignorant and generally unpleasant Agrippan Rome is. (Yeah, so are Ecuador and Bangladesh and the South Bronx in this world. . . .) But he does it by talking down to the reader, using short sentences, and repeating the didactic messages over and over. I got two-thirds of the way through and found I didn't much care *what* happened to Jeremy and Amanda, so I tossed aside this not-thick book (288 small-size pages) and went on to something else that wasn't a waste of my reading time. The notion that this is only the first installment of a new series does not excite me at all.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A light read, November 25, 2003
This review is from: Gunpowder Empire (Crosstime Traffic, Book 1) (Hardcover)
The title deliberately evokes the classic "Gunpowder God" by H Beam Piper. While it was not the first book to introduce the concept of travel to a backward parallel universe, it is widely considered to be the one of the best of its ilk. Turtledove has made his name specialising in science fiction about alternate history. So this is a natural and slight shift in emphasis, where travel is permitted between the universes. None of his other books depict this, if I recall. Certainly, the cover raises high hopes of a similarly swashbuckling tale of war, akin to Piper's classic. Alas, it falls short. The book is not military science fiction. Rather, you might consider it as a fitting sequel to "Household Gods" that Turtledove wrote with Judith Tarr. Granted that was pure fantasy, while this is hard SF. But the bulk of both books are thematically similar. Household Gods shows life in ancient Rome. This book depicts it in a Roman Empire in about 2100 CE, but at the technological level of our 17th century. In both are the gritty details of everyday life that most novels set in those eras omit. It is quite well done for that. Turtledove shows his scholarship in his attention for historical detail. The plot is quiet. The war is just a backdrop. This may disappoint some readers. He does introduce some deliberate cognitive dissonance, by having his American characters loathe the touch of furs. He uses that to place some separation between us and them, since they are depicted as being from the late 21st century. But therein is my biggest problem with this book. His depiction of that is far too similar to ours. Apart from the ability to travel between dimensions, he posits very little change. And in one paragraph, one of the characters uses a Powerbook?! In case you didn't know, that is a computer made by Apple now, in the early 21st century. What are the chances that anyone eighty years from now will use that piece of junk? Turtledove goofed on that one, sadly. But the rest of the book is ok. The closing paragraphs are the most promising. They allude to the possibility that other technologically advanced dimensions might also develop this capability. The problem is that several of these are quite loathsome and would be a mortal peril to us. Which is why we have to keep an eye on them... Does this suggest sequels of a more warlike nature?
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