Rating: 
Summary: I am so happy...
Review: ...that I didn't buy this book (I borrowed it from the library).Other reviewers have mentioned how bad this book is, and that it should have been marked as a "young adult" book.
If i were a young adult, I would feel pretty insulted: good juveniles are very different than this preachy, badly written, boring, pseudo-politically correct piece of utter brainless trash.
Turtledove dedicates this book to Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton and H. Beam Piper.
He would have done much better to actually read them: Piper, for one, wrote much, much better alternate history than this stuff, and as for Heinlein, his juveniles never talked down to his readers like Turtledove does.
Don't buy this book: borrow it from a library, if you have to.
Rating:
Summary: "Young adult" book. PC many times over, otherwise primitive
Review: and very boring book! I did not expect such a low quality "material" from Turtledove. Even literary it's very weak. Looks like Turtledove's forgotten project written by his younger kid. Basically, 90% of book dedicated to telling us that the slavery is bad, very bad and awfully bad, that the life in the Middle ages was terrible, i.e. no drugs, immunization, etc. He "teaches" the reader over and over again that it's bad to wear furs for god sake!
No adventure, nothing. Just stupid moralization over and over.
This book was written for 10 years old, if the reader of course is willing to experiment on his children!
I would give it a negative rating, if i could. Waste of money and time!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Time (Either Crosstime or Otherwise!)
Review: As I read this book, I kept checking to spine to see if it had "T" for teen or "YA" for Young Adult on it. It reads like a slightly long "Magic Tree House" book--no character development, fairly boring & predictable plot, and glaringly obvious references that no 12-year-old could miss. The Solter family spends their summers in an alternate Earth timeline... one where the Roman Empire was never defeated. Life in this timeline is much as it was 2000 years ago, although gunpowder (and, therefore, cannons and such) has recently been invented. The Solters are very careful about fitting in with the natives and not disturbing the timeline (can anyone say "Prime Directive"?) When Mom develops appendicitis, the parents suddenly have to return to their Home Line, leaving the teens behind. How the teens handle the situation, in the midst of a brewing war, makes up most of the story. The premise of this book is promising, and it could be a great read... but it's not. Turtledove never truly develops the characters into people you might care about. Dad just cracks awful puns, Mom puts up with it, son Jeremy is appalled by the custom of wearing furs, and daughter Amanda abhors the practice of keeping slaves. The kids miss the comforts of home, but they deal with the situation. And that's about it! When the kids are left alone to fend for themselves, I found that I really didn't care what happened to them. A cannonball falls through the roof? Oh well. The officials try to investigate them, possibly discovering their real origins? So what. Overall, this book is truly aimed at a junior high audience. In that light, it might be interesting for your average 13-year-old. For adults, though, this book falls far short of the mark. If your young teen is interested in this sort of thing, tell him/her to check out the local library. Don't waste your money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Waste of Time (Either Crosstime or Otherwise!)
Review: As I read this book, I kept checking to spine to see if it had "T" for teen or "YA" for Young Adult on it. It reads like a slightly long "Magic Tree House" book--no character development, fairly boring & predictable plot, and glaringly obvious references that no 12-year-old could miss. The Solter family spends their summers in an alternate Earth timeline... one where the Roman Empire was never defeated. Life in this timeline is much as it was 2000 years ago, although gunpowder (and, therefore, cannons and such) has recently been invented. The Solters are very careful about fitting in with the natives and not disturbing the timeline (can anyone say "Prime Directive"?) When Mom develops appendicitis, the parents suddenly have to return to their Home Line, leaving the teens behind. How the teens handle the situation, in the midst of a brewing war, makes up most of the story. The premise of this book is promising, and it could be a great read... but it's not. Turtledove never truly develops the characters into people you might care about. Dad just cracks awful puns, Mom puts up with it, son Jeremy is appalled by the custom of wearing furs, and daughter Amanda abhors the practice of keeping slaves. The kids miss the comforts of home, but they deal with the situation. And that's about it! When the kids are left alone to fend for themselves, I found that I really didn't care what happened to them. A cannonball falls through the roof? Oh well. The officials try to investigate them, possibly discovering their real origins? So what. Overall, this book is truly aimed at a junior high audience. In that light, it might be interesting for your average 13-year-old. For adults, though, this book falls far short of the mark. If your young teen is interested in this sort of thing, tell him/her to check out the local library. Don't waste your money on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Good YA SF, poor for adults.
Review: As others have said, this really should be marketed as a Young Adult books. As a YA book it's a good introduction to Alternate History, and an enjoyable read. But if you put it next to the rest of his books and other Alternate History, there are two many holes for it to float on it's own. And as a aside, the most annoying thing to me was why in the world were they trading trinkets to the psuedo-romans in exchange for a few wagonloads of poor quality wheat when they could have just as easily grown millions of tons on it in robotic factory farms on one of the empty worlds that they used to get oil and minerals from?
Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: Being a big Turtledove fan I bought this book with great anticipation. Well I must not have researched this enough, it is a "juvenile" book. Might be OK in elementary school, or even junior high/middle school, but a long time has passed since I was part of that demographic segment. Shame on me, shame on you if you buy it expecting a regular Turtledove, may be OK for younger readers, but I couldn't finish it. I will doante it to my local library so maybe someone will be able to enjoy it?
Rating: 
Summary: Poor premise, moderate execution
Review: Being a fan of Harry Turtledove, I regret needing to rate this book so low. In fact, because I was able to finish the book I decided not rate it one star.
This book has been compared to the juvenile stories and books by Robert Heinlein. I must disagree. I started reading science fiction as a teenager in about 1950. My first Heinlein book was either Between Planets or The Puppet Masters, I can't remember for sure. I read his books through my teen years and on into my adult years. Many of his books I have read several times, enjoying even his juvenile stories as an adult.
I find that the book Gunpowder Empire fails on two levels: a weak premise and an attempt to simplify the basic story. The basic premise presents us with our future where we are exploiting less developed alternatives in a manner reminiscent of the European empires of the 17th and 18th centauries. By requiring that the characters in the stories not reveal that they are from a more developed alternative, they can't fully interact with the indigenous natives of the alternative and we are presented with a story that is more an observation rather than interaction.
The second flaw is execution. The main story is reminiscent of Household Gods. The difference here is that the story appears to be simplified in part to fit the no interaction premise and to write it at a juvenile level. Neither work. Simply put, this book lacks a strong story line.
If you are looking for good juvenile science fiction, try some Heinlein or Asimov. Yes, the stories are dated but they are good reads. In many cases the basic themes transcend the science in the stories.
Roy Laudenslager
Eugene, OR
Rating: 
Summary: Turtledove for Beginners
Review: Gunpowder Empire is a new entry for Harry Turtledove; it's a juvenile. That means the emotions are spelled out, the plot is straightforward, and moral ambiguity isn't dwelled upon. Our protaganists, 17 year old Jeremy and 16 year old Amanda, are put in danger's way but all is returned to as it was at the novel's start. This is a young person's introduction to the idea of alternative timelines. The difficulty in reviewing this book is that Turtledove hasn't written juveniles before. Several reviewers have dug into this one expecting Turtledove's usual writing and were disappointed. But are their low ratings based on the novel's failure to entertain them (as adults), or the book's failure as a YA/SF tale? I tried to keep the two audiences in mind when coming up with my rating. Certainly as an adult read, it deserves no more than two stars. But for a child between 10 and 14, this might be exactly what they'd want. Hence my four star rating; I'd give it five were I 12 years old, but I'm not. But I can't give it two, because this book wasn't written for me. I would dearly love to give it three and half. Another reviewer sees this as a sort of sequel to Household Gods. It's certainly similar, as far as evoking day to day life in the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Amanda's struggle with rigid gender roles are reminescent of Nicole's frustrations in Carnuntum. But Gods took place in the year 170. GE occurs in an alternate Roman empire (equivalent of our 22nd century) where Dacia (Romania) was conquered, but the Lietuvans (Lithuania) still attempt to win it back every generation. The technology is at the cannons and muskets stage of development, and isn't moving along very quickly. Jeremy, Amanda, and their parents are there not only to purchase needed grain for a hungry and crowded world of their own, but to gently nudge this world more toward scientific thinking. I see this book as more of a Turtledove Pastiche; I found references and lietmotifs of so many of his works I lost count. Early in the book, when Jeremy is in his turn of the century (22nd century) high school history class, his teacher refers to several alternate worlds that evoke Turtledove's novels. There is the mandatory phrase "I thank you" which has worked its way into every one of his novels since The Race attacked in the first WorldWar novel. The description of Jeremy's father reminds me of HT himself, especially with the bad puns. The dual point of view harkens back to Ruled Brittania, which also only had two POV characters. The introduction to society via classroom lessons is straight out of In the Presence of Mine Enemies (one of the alternate worlds alluded to in that very section). So, is it good pastiche, and is it a good juvenile yarn? The latter, yes. The teenaged siblings must handle a city siege, do business with locals while not losing the upper hand, handle obstinate government martinets, and do their best to blend into a very different culture than their own. Oh yes, all this while their parents are stuck back in their original timeline with all communications cut off. Turtledove doesn't really explain how crosstime works, so this book isn't pure SF. Crosstime is a deus ex machina, but showing its results in forestalling climate and governmental collapse is interesting enough. (Not enough food? Buy it from an alternate world! Problem solved! Drill for oil in people-free worlds, too!) As to the former, only the most rabid HT fan would even catch the references. And there are several places where it seems a section got moved into the flow, because the characters would violate their own rules they were determined to follow to the letter. If the entire city is full of snoops, then they can't speak of their life in the 22nd century at all, or ever use English, yet a page later they would do just that. There is a section where Jeremy and Amanda becoming not-very-willing informal truce carriers to the invading King, yet it doesn't really change anything; all it did was show Jeremy's disgust toward animal skins. I didn't take this as moralizing, as other reviewers did; cultural norms do shift. More of them should have shifted with this one, though. Too often Jeremy's reactions to Polisso remind him of his classmates' actions at Canoga Park High School. (And about that 22nd Century PowerBook....) Surely something would differentiate them other than an unwillingness to spit pickle seeds on the public square. Amanda, the more emotionally observant sibling, notices more, especially the entire concept of slavery and how it affects almost every relationship around her. Remember: this is a juvenile. Buy it for a young person who might enjoy Turtledove in another 5-10 years.
Rating: 
Summary: Life Among the Short-Lived
Review: Gunpowder Empire is the first novel in the Crosstime Traffic series. In the near future, economic conditions continue to worsen as oil reserves are drained and global warning intensified. Inflation drastically increased the cost of goods and services. The world was sliding into a worldwide depression. In mid century, however, Galbraith and Hester discovered a means of accessing alternate timelines. The world began to import petroleum, food and ideas from these other timelines. The economies of the advanced countries began to turn around and grow, but other economies barely improved. In this novel, at the end of century, Jeremy and Amanda Solters are children of Crosstime Traffic employees. Every summer, the Solters live in Polisso of Dacia within the Agrippan Rome alternate, trading simple mechanisms and manufactured goods for grain. As in previous years, they ride the transposition chamber across the timelines to a cave outside Polisso, carry a load of mechandise into the town, see the Stone family off to return to the mainline, and settle into the house for their tour of duty. While Polisso is part of a civilization that has existed for two millenia, the local technological level has not advanced much since the days of the Roman Republic. The town has paved streets, storm drains (in the more affluent sections) and public baths, but town still stinks of horse manure, sewage and unwashed humanity. The Solters hope that their olfactory systems will quickly become acclimated to the stench. Since the house contains advanced devices and other secrets, including a concealed subbasement for the transposition chamber, the Solters do all their own housework rather than using slaves or servants; in fact, they are expressly forbidden to buy slaves. Moreover, Agrippan Rome is a very patriarchial society, with strict customs concerning the roles of men and women; thus, Amanda and her mother do all the cooking and cleaning, using only primitive methods. Making your own bread by grinding the wheat in a quern and kneading it by hand is one of the less attractive features of this timeline. In this story, Melissa Solter becomes ill and has to return to the mainline. John goes with her, leaving their children behind. All goes well at first, although a war seems to be brewing between Rome and Lietuvia. Then the communications access to the mainline goes down and stays out of service for weeks. The city prefect starts asking questions about their parents and the source of their merchandise. The war heats up and Polisso is besieged by the Lietuvans. Cannons are firing into the town, destroying buildings and killing people. Jeremy and Amanda are really unhappy about their situation. The author provides a vivid portrayal of a way of life very different from contemporary Western living. Although this is SF, similar lifestyles could be found in many places in the real world during the past millenium. While this is a young adult novel, it is also a fascinating read for olders readers as well, combining the best in entertainment and education. One wishes that the author had more time to do historical fiction, for he has a flair for setting the reader into the heart of the story. The author dedicates this work to Robert A. Heinlein, Andre Norton and H. Beam Piper. Piper probably created the most extensive alternate timeline multiverse in SF with his Paratime series, establishing a demand for such stories back in the 1960s. However, Norton had already used alternate universes and timelines from the 1950s, including the novel Quest Crosstime. To the best of my knowledge, Heinlein didn't write any alternate timeline novels, although Farnham's Freehold used the concept. Both Heinlein and Norton wrote novels -- such as Tunnel in the Sky and Eye of the Monster -- about teenagers left to their own devices in hostile territory. Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy also has several similarities to this tale, particularly in terms of cultural shocks; people from technologically advanced cultures would probably not be accustomed to slavery or gladiatorial games. Moreover, the killing of animals just for the fur would probably be just as big a shock to our descendants. One wonders how the Solters reacted to their first exposure to an outdoor butcher shop! The author probably should have mentioned one other SF writer: Murray Leinster. Will F. Jenkins, under that pseudonym, wrote Sideways in Time (published in 1934), which may have been the very first crosstime story. A number of authors in addition to Norton and Piper have used this concept in the ensuing decades. Highly recommended for Turtledove fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of young persons coping with other cultures and customs. -Arthur W. Jordin
Rating:
Summary: Great book, if you go into it expecting a juvie
Review: Gunpowder Empires is dedicated to Heinlein for a reason. The style of this book and Heinlein's juvies seemed quite similar, to this reader. There's some explanatory text that's a fair bit longer than they might have been in adult fiction. I'm more than willing to forgive those passages, however, as when I was young, it was precisely those packages that set me to thinking and daydreaming.
As it was, I was able to finish it in a single day, and came away feeling good and quite entertained. Approach this expecting a fairly light and quick read, and you won't be disappointed. Approach this expecting mid-90s Turtledove, and you might be.
If you want a longer read with more historical detail, you might grab Household Gods, which Turtledove co-authored with Judith Tarr.
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