Rating: 
Summary: Not bad but needs more of a story goal
Review: Jeremy and Amanda Solters thought they'd just be spending summer vacation with their parents in an alternate timeline. In a near-future earth which has discovered cross-timeline travel, this is pretty standard. Our earth needs the food and resources that can be taken from other timelines and it also gives scientists and researchers a chance to really get their hands on history. When the Solters' parents have to return to their home timeline, Jeremy and Amanda are stranded in a Roman Empire where Agripola didn't die on schedule, where Augustus's conquest of Germany was successful, and where Rome still dominates Europe, threatened only by Lithuania in the north and Persia to the east. Big and slow-moving empires (Gunpowder Empires) have dominated a significant part of Earth's history as they do in this alternate timeline. In our own history, the breakup of Rome created a number of smaller nation-states whose frequent wars gave rise to the cult of innovation and also allowed free-thinking scholars refuge if they fell out with their current government. In this alternate timeline, Roman tradition slowed scientific development. GUNPOWDER EMPIRES follows the largely abandoned tradition of writing serious SF for young-adult readers. Author Harry Turtledove writes an approachable, almost easy-read alternate history that still manages to touch on significant moral issues (although slavery is the obvious one, it isn't really a lesson that modern readers are likely to find a lot of controversy about. More interesting is his discussion of cultural relativism--as in Jeremy's abhorance of fur coats but unthinking willingness to eat meat). Even recognizing that GUNPOWDER EMPIRE is intended for young readers, I found the simplistic dialogue and the frequent repetition condescending. Also, although this is a personal preference, I prefer stories where the characters have more of a story goal. Jeremy and Amanda didn't really have anything they were trying to do, any ticking clock that they needed to work against. Instead, they merely attempted to stay alive while warfare broke out around them, and dealt with their feelings on observing a world that is different from our own, but that has many of the same characteristics. GUNPOWDER EMPIRE doesn't stack up well against the great young-adult SF of Andre Norton or Robert Heinlein, but it's a good try and an interesting bit of alternate history.
Rating: 
Summary: Slavery is bad. Rinse. Repeat.
Review: My college-age son and a librarian I admire have long told me of the fascinating novels of Harry Turtledove, so when I saw "Gunpowder Empire" in the new book section of our library, I pounced. A few hours later, I feel like my intellect has gone down a few points. Perhaps the error is mine, in assuming this was a book for adults. Instead, it seems to be aimed at junior high students, for which it might make an interesting read. However, having not been 13 years old for many decades now, I was bored. Mr. Turtledove tells the story using an overabundance of very short sentences and a dearth of even quasi-scientific explanations. Enter timeline travel machine, voila, you're there. The thing I found most irritating was the almost constant repetition of the fact that the protagonists were repulsed by both slavery and the use of animal furs, to the point that it felt very preachy. Can't we just agree that yes, slavery is terrible; you don't need to repeat it over and over and over?!?
Rating: 
Summary: A light read
Review: 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?
Rating:
Summary: Homage to H. Beam Piper, and juvie coming-of-age
Review: This book is, first and foremost, a teenage coming-of-age novel. You know the kind: teenagers meet challenges that would bother adults, overcome them and prove that the young make better adults than the adults themselves. Trite, but can be entertaining. If you take it in that spirit, as a coming of age novel that happens to be SF, it's 4-star. The second thing that this book is, is an homage to H. Beam Piper. If you haven't already read Piper's _Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen_ and the Paratime stories, I'll go ahead and wait while you check those out and read them. OK, done that? Little bit on the sexist side for 2004's taste, but consider when they were written; for their time (the fifties), having Hadron Dalla be as active a character as she is in a science fiction novel was quite unusual, so Piper was doing a good job of thinking outside the usual parameters. Now, with Verkan Vall and Hadron Dalla in mind, you can see why Turtledove chose to have both a boy and a girl protagonist, and to have the girl chafe at restrictions. You should also go ahead and read Turtledove and Tarr's _Household Gods_ to get an incredibly deep feel for daily life in ancient Rome. That one's definitely not a juvenile. It's a time travel story, rather than an alternate history. In that book, our protagonist has a son and daughter, younger than the teenagers in this book. So we have a pair of brackets - the children in Household Gods, and the adults in Piper's books. That gives us an understanding about why Turtledove would choose to fill in the gap between those two. All that said - and boy, it sounds like I'm doing a book report, compare and contrast, doesn't it? - this IS still a juvie, and adult readers are still going to find it a bit lightweight. Since it's being sold as alt-history, not as a juvie, I would give it a 3-star rating: it's not bad, but it's not as good as I was expecting, or what I was expecting. I didn't really want to spend that much time reading about adolescents emailing each other from different histories. If you're a teenager, though, or an adult who wants just a light read, maybe something you can share with your teenagers to get them more into SF, or even to assign to a class, both for reading purposes and for discussions of real Roman history, and of Latin. For those purposes it would be a five-star. Hence my four-star average. The homage to Piper shows in the title, the characters, and details. Cross-time secret instead of Paratime secret, but the same secrecy. The disguise of traders as a way to get in and out of a more primitive culture. I expect we'll see more details that echo Piper in the future volumes of this series. I will be reading them - it's good enough for that - although I might opt for the paperbacks. In any event, it's good to see Turtledove do something besides his interminable alt-Civil-War, alt-WW2 series, which have been dragged out way too long if you're not someone who likes endless battle strategy scenes. This book has a few of those, but it's a different kind of war. In short? Buy it for a teen interested in SF, or for someone who particularly has an interest in the Roman Empire; read it yourself too, and enjoy it as long as you don't expect great depth.
Rating: 
Summary: Junior High material
Review: This story represents a lot of hard work for the author but it's not much of an adult reader. If I were selecting books for 7th or 8th grade English readers this would be on that list. The premis of two teen youth's caught in a time-traveling accident leaving them stranded in an alternate history (ancient Rome) is the kind of adventure the Harry Potter crowd would enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Yet another great one!
Review: Turtledove once again expresses his might.I was greatly amused by this novel of a nonfallen Roman Empire and can't wait for the next Crosstime Traffic.
Rating:
Summary: Two teenagers get a shocking introduction to old Rome
Review: Using the alternative reality device rather than time travel, Turtledove gives us a glimpse of what might have been 20th century Europe had Rome never fallen. He doesn't give the Empire much of a chance of progressing very far beyond its state at its peak.
Through the eyes of two teenagers, we experience the problems of sanitation, slavery and war. We also see them deal with the contemporary problems of snobbery, sexism and bloated government bureaucracy.
This book is simply written. Teens might enjoy it.
This is definitely NOT Turtledove's best effort.
Rating:
Summary: Turtledove is getting very, very lazy
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, uncomplex alternate history for teenagers
Review: When Jeremy Solters and his sister Amanda are not going to Canoga Park High School (class of 2092 or so), they join their parents in trading in an alternate reality where the Roman Empire has endured into the late twenty-first century. They can do this because their reality has developed technology which allows travel between alternate realities so cheaply that apples from "alternates" are for sale at the local Safeway. Since traders in the Roman reality often travel as families, Jeremy's family stays together in a Roman city in present-day Romania as they peddle such items as pocket watches, straight razors, and mirrors--simple items, yet advanced beyond what the locals have--in exchange for grain to be transported home. But things don't go as smoothly as planned. Jeremy's mom falls ill, and his father accompanies her home, leaving the kids on their own--and then, suddenly, entirely on their own as contact with their home universe breaks off. If that is not bad enough, they face an invading army, and pressure from local authorities to reveal the source of their wares. It will take bravery and thoughtfulness for Jeremy and Amanda to get themselves out of this one . . . An interesting concept which will apparently be used by Turtledove as the basis for exploration of more alternate worlds. But this one is not up to his standards. One never gets the sense that the kids are in any real danger, despite the bullets and cannonballs that fly near them now and then. And these teens are almost too good to be true--they never act irresponsibly, and are a little too politically correct (freeing a slave, reacting with revulsion to fur, etc.). The only non-PC element seems almost accidental (the only girls Jeremy gets the hots for are the daughters of other crosstime traders--he is manifestly uninterested in local girls). Seems very similar to childrens' adventure stories of a generation or so ago. Pluck and determination will win in the end, without the need for complicated moral questions. Recommended for Turtledove's readers, to some extent, or for a first alternate history book for young teens. Although frankly, as much as I enjoy Turtledove at his best, there are better books out there for both groups.
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