The Tide of Victory (Belisarius) [Mass Market Paperback]

Eric Flint (Author), David Drake (Author)

Book Description

Series: Belisarius | Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Led by the supercomputer Link, the Malwa Empire has built a deadly army that nothing on 6th century Earth can beat -- nothing, that is, except Belisarius, the greatest general and military genius of the age. Against overwhelming odds, Belisarius has prevailed in one brilliant victory after another -- but his greatest battle is yet to be fought and this time, the future of mankind is in his hands.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

High spirits and ingenuity mark the fifth volume in the Belisarius series from veteran Drake (Foreign Legions) and relative newcomer Flint (The Philosophical Strangler), who have devised an intriguing premise and developed it intelligently. Agents from two mutually exclusive futures travel back to the sixth century and begin to steer history in conflicting directions. One wants to mold humanity into a single pattern and is directing a ruthless, fanatical empire based in India but designed to take over the world; the other accepts human diversity and attempts to rally the quarreling nations of Asia and Africa to resist domination. Fortunately, the benign intelligence has teamed up with the Roman general Belisarius, a military genius with a gift for coordinating people as well as army maneuvers. This novel focuses on Belisarius's invasion of India. With all military history to draw on and action scattered across several continents, the story races through many scenes as steamboats launch Greek fire, telegraph lines connect the Romans and their allies and delicious palace intrigues simmer. The far-ranging locations and huge cast of characters may be confusing, but the book does include maps and a long glossary of names, places and unfamiliar vocabulary. More seriously, readers might wish for fewer conferences during which characters cheerfully congratulate themselves on how clever they are. Overall, though, the fascination of seeing familiar tactics applied in unfamiliar situations makes this novel a winner.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Guided by a crystalline entity from the future, General Belisarius's Roman armies continue their campaign into the land of Indus, seeking to thwart the malign plans of the Malwa overlord. Flint's fifth installment of his popular alternate history series (e.g., An Oblique Approach; In the Heart of Darkness) depicts ancient history as it never was, complete with alien intelligences, 20th-century technology, and modern sensibilities. Purchase where the series is popular.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Baen; Reprint edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743435656
• ISBN-13: 978-0743435659
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,119,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars And it goes on and on and on..., September 6, 2001

By 

T. Werelius "nullman200" (Woodinville, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tide of Victory (Belisarius) (Hardcover)

Ok
Overall the alterantive history series is good, very good actually. In general I recommend it. But...

As each new volume is released the characters begin to act more like comedians and less like actual people. It appears that the authors are trying to milk as much $$$ out of it as possible

The intra character quips which were charming in the first series are wearing really thin. The plot is pretty much done, we know whats going to happen, and who will do it, no mystery here.
I really cant believe this volume doesnt finish it up.

It would have been a great 3 book series! You can easily pull out the hokey banter (10%) the repeated quips (10%) the repetitive story lines (10%) and the history lessons for those who havent read the previous volumes (20%)

Of course you can filter and distill the 6 books (1 still unpublished) into 3 so that your left with a darn good story. But filtering out 40%-50% is burdensome. It gets so bad at times that I start skipping pages!

Im tired of hearing how big one characters breasts are, or how "only the soul matters in the end" or how one character looks like a weasel, and being told over and over again about past episodes that occured in earlier volumes etc. etc. etc ad nauseum...Sheesh...

This series could have been a classic, but it's degrading itself with every new volume. I still recommend the series, but thats more in the way of how bad most other works are, and how good this one "Could have been"

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Series But..............., July 4, 2001

By 

Peter Dykhuis (Grandville, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tide of Victory (Belisarius) (Hardcover)

This is an incredible series but it is also one whose time has come to end. This book leaves little doubt to the final outcome at the end of the novel and has very few suprises outside the death of two main characters. The book is well written but seems to almost have fallen into a pattern. The dialogue is starting to seem repetitious and the characters are almost beginning to act a little over the top. Quite a bit more occurs in this novel then in the previous installment in the series which is gratifying. Don't get me wrong, this is still an enjoyable book in a great series. The time has come for the series to end. I still recommend this as a buy and it is still one of my favorite series but it is beginning to seem a little stretched.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Don't judge a book by its cover, however ..., August 11, 2001

By 

WFK "alt historian" (Wolfsberg, Austria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tide of Victory (Belisarius) (Hardcover)

... in this case it could be justified. I 've read all the books of Drake/Flint's Bellisarius-series so far and like them a lot. It's just that the story becomes drawn out with so many sub-plots and -stories. The upcomming sixth book hopefully will conclude the story arc - but IMHOP four books would have done the job.

This book itself is well written, the characters are known even if there is some fluctuation: one major killed , a few new introduced. However for someone who doesn't know the story so far the book must be an enigma: there is this Roman General Bellisarius, who must be mad because he talks with some inner voice and ponders American Civil War decisions while campaigning in India....

Sounds crazy, reads crazy and then there is a book cover that crys SWORDS! SEX! EPLOSIONS! Please! Was this really necessary? This is a book of alternate history and is by and large meant to be serious. So why did the publishers burden it with this cover? Do they worry that because of the lenght of the series the readers might abandon it and know want to gain a new, somewhat different audience?