Rating: 
Summary: I loved it until I read some of the bad reviews!
Review: I am a time travel fan, so I picked up this book based on that aspect of it alone. And maybe that's why I really enjoyed it! Some reviewers rate Nicole, the main character, as a whiny uncaring person. Okay, maybe she is, but she is a well developed and well written character. You can easily slip into how she's feeling and reacting to all the situations. In the course of the book, she gets sucked back to ancient Rome. The authors have done a fabulous job of bringing ancient Rome to life! Sure, the gal may have thrown her brain out the window, not remembering history and being not too cautious with local food, but SHE WAS JUST SUCKED BACK INTO TIME! I think that gives her a little reasoning to not be reacting completely logically or level headed.So, in other words, if you like time travel, more specifically enjoy reading about time culture shock, this is a fantastic book to read. If you like well developed characters, read this book, I knew I was going to like it before she went back to Rome by the character development alone. MORE IMPORTANTLY, dont let the reviewers that whine about the main character ruin it for you. I was able to get lost in the story until I checked to see what people had to see about it. A fantastic collaboration and a nice addition to the historical time travel fiction!
Rating:
Summary: Worst Case Survival Guide for the Roman Frontier
Review: A very entertaining (more historical than science fiction) yarn -- excellent for escaping the reality of long, dull, delayed flights, or for a relaxing day in the backyard hammock. The period detail is wonderful and well researched. The contrasting of the "locals'" (Romans) attitudes about their life and its messiness with the attitudes, amazement, and often horror of a 20th-century career woman is very well done. This contrast makes the novel more engaging and "believable" than some historical novels where the supposedly born-and-bred in their time characters come across as over-modern. Although the protagonist initially doesn't come across as very sympathetic (and certainly as extremely ignorant about history in general, let alone the Roman Empire of 170 A.D., where she ends up) she grew on me. One thing though, even as a career woman, wouldn't she have thought about her kids who were left behind a more? But all's well that ends... (you'll find out how when you read it). I wish a slightly longer part of the novel had been set in the 20th century, to show the development of the heroine's ways of coping and growth, but the Roman section of the book is very good. There are a number of well fleshed-out characters, and the cameo appearance by emperor Marcus Aurelius is cleverly done and fun. Okay, so even if some of the political attitudes that are described seem excessively pragmatic, this is a fun, worthwhile book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good if you can done with the first half
Review: I have finally met something I thought I would never see in the writtings of Harry Turtledove, a character I thoroughly despise. Let me just say that whoever gave Nicole Gunther-Perrin history needs to go back to school themselves. The fact that anyone however ignorant of history could think that living in ancient Rome was greatest thing since sliced bread needs to have their head examined. Yes I realize that this is a fictional character its just that she is unlikable(in the beginning) that it makes me want to throw up. This character talks about precived "Offenses" a lot. She is offended that she is living in a man's world, she is offended that her husband will not pay child support, she is offended that she has to take care of her children and on and on and on. Well I'm offended that she uses phases like "Testosterone poisoning", and "Tolerance", like they are going out of style. Two things save this book for me
1.The fact that this book may have been written tongue and cheek(I'll give them the benefit of the doubt)
2.The fact that most of the other people in the ancient Roman seem to make fun of the characters foppishness. Overall-While I am a Turtledove addict and read every single one of his books this one was a painful experience. I call to mind the first thing that Mrs. Perrin remarked on when she was transferred make in time. What was it you ask? Was it that she might never get home? Was it that she may never know what happened to her children? No it was the lack of tampons. It was stupid crap like that that almost ruined the experience for me
Rating:
Summary: Lite historical fiction.
Review: This is not a true work of historical fiction...cross "The Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon with "The First Man in Rome" by Colleen McCullough and you'll have a rough idea of how this book is laid out. Nicole is weary, self-absorbed lawyer who is recently divorced with two children and longs for a simpler time. A series of circumstances causes her to pray to her statues of Liber and Libera (God/Goddess of wine) that they could take her back to a time when things weren't so complicated. Voila, she wakes up in a Roman city called Carnuntum around A.D. 170 as a widowed tavernkeeper and finds new meaning for the word stress. Trying to navigate the Roman baths, streets, filth and disease, religion and business world, Nicole finds that things may not be as bad as she realized back home. When she finally does return home, she is a medical oddity, having been in a coma for 6 days (in Carnuntum 1 1/2 years). Her mindset is changed, she no longer takes things for granted, and her life takes a turn for the better. If you are interested in Roman times or a fan of time travel books, this one will not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: Household Gods
Review: This is a long book, too long (about 600 pages), but it is useful for those interested in history. This is the first collaboration between these two novelists, and it is about twice the length that either of their novels usually run. Go figure! Tarr has a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale, and has published a dozen or so historical novels. Turtledove is best known for writing novels of "alternative history." His most widely read book is about the south winning the US Civil War. The main character in HOUSEHOLD GODS is a lady lawyer, divorced, with two kids, working for an L.A. law firm. One day everything goes wrong, and that night she prays to a statue of a couple of gods that she bought in Austria on her honeymoon. The prayer is that the gods will take her away from her problems and send her into a simpler time. They do it. Next morning, she awakens in Carnuntum, a city of the Roman Empire. It was the capital of its province, but was also an outpost of the Roman Empire on the Danube. Her new life is in the person of "Umma," widow of a Roman soldier with two kids, owner of a slave girl, and owner of a tavern. In L.A., she was a teetotaler and an advocate of women's rights. She is upset to be selling alcohol, to be owning a slave, to be in the position of having kids who respond only to corporal punishment, to the standards of hygine in Carnuntum, etc. She witnesses the local animal show, survives a plague, survives a barbarian invasion, survives the Empire's defeat of the barbarians, and has dinner with Emperor Marcus Aurlius during which she discusses with him certain legal theories. She fights with Umma's family for the right to set her slave free, she frees her slave, she learns to love a retired soldier who had been Umma's lover and doesn't know what has happened to her. This lady is never very introspective and has never examined her own values. She is the sort of selfish person of whom Henry David Thoreau wrote when he said, "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." In other words, she is not really a very sympathetic character, yet we cannot help feeling sorry for her and her lack of awareness. Besides the encounter with the Emperor, this novel is important for a history student because the life-style protrayed is the life-style everyone lived until sometime around 1800, and much of this life-style didn't change until 1900, or, in some respects, 1950! In other words, it's not just ancient history. It's amazing how much the world has changed in the past 50 years. As I say, the book is way too long. It could have been written in 400 pages at most, maybe 300, but it is pretty well written. By the way, Carnuntum is now a living history museum outside of Vienna, Austria.
Rating:
Summary: Ignore the main character and this is a pretty good book
Review: As every other reviewer has noted, Nicole, the protagonist in "Household Gods," is a selfish, bitchy, judgmental bore who threatens to suck the life out of the book. That she doesn't is testament to the strength of the story and the ability of the authors to recreate a vivid and enthralling snapshot of life in 180 A.D. Austria. As it is, she's an annoying distraction best dealt with by ignoring her as much as possible.
The story is at its best when it reports, rather than editorializes. Nicole, a 21st-century single mom and lawyer, is whisked back to the days of the Roman Empire after an ill-thought out wish for a "simpler time". Once there, she finds herself on speaking terms with all four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as Plague is quickly followed by War and then inevitably Famine, with Death practically doing a jig on the sidelines in anticipation. Inhabiting the body of a widowed tavern keeper, Nicole is appallingly ignorant about certain facts of life yet adjusts quickly to others: she has no idea that women had no rights in 180 A.D. or that slavery was common, yet has no problem making change with unfamiliar currency or navigating the marketplace. About the fifth time she admitted that she had no idea who Marcus Aurelias was or when the Roman Empire actually fell (she's half-convinced that every disaster is going to be The End), I started wondering exactly where she went to college.
Fortunately, once you tune out her judgmental rants (Allow me to summarize: "Men suck! Slavery is horrible! These people are all alcoholics! How dare these heathen pagans be mean to Christians! Spanking is child abuse! This place is sexist/filthy/smelly/just plain weird!") the story is actually pretty enjoyable, if somewhat overlong. There's no real climax, it's more a series of events that keep compounding on one another until Nicole finally accepts her life in Carnuntum - at which point she is whisked back to the 21st century and all her problems are solved. In between, we meet a series of likable secondary characters, each with their own foibles and endearing traits, none of whom are immune to the tragedies and dangers of everyday life in the second century. The small pleasures of life that balance the miseries are sprinkled throughout, relieving the dark tone that never quite overwhelms the story.
I doubt anyone who is not already interested in Roman history is going to slog through the whole thing, but for those who are this book offers a slice of life as it existed on the outskirts of the Empire - an slightly unusual, and thus refreshing, story.
Rating:
Summary: The ONLY Turtledove book I ever enjoyed
Review: I have tried many times to get through the downright awful alternative histories of Harry Turtledove. There are now so many and they are all so similar that seem to run together. We have Civil War, WW1 and WWII series and prequels and sequels and sequels to the previous sequels, ad nauseum, ad infiniturm. You think, My God, won't this thing ever end? But this time (most likely due to the presence of a helping hand) the writing is more crisp, the plot more lively, the characters MUCH more real. The prose does not wander nor wonder as is the usual case. A contemporary woman stares at a statue of Roman gods and wakes up in Rome. The daily life, struggles, trials and tribulations are played out before the reader. We see Rome through the eyes of the misplaced 20th century woman who, in the end, surprises the Emperor with her knowledge of writing. It's rather silly that she speaks Latin, especially since 90% of Romans spoke Greek at the time - the lingua of the masses. But this is a fictional story and we should give some literary license. The love affair - always total disasters in Turtledove's hands - this time is charming and rather innocent. Her adjustment to Roman life (she operates a restaurant) is superficially easy but again that allows for a good story. It is only too bad that Turtledove did not ask for help on his numerous other works.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing story, annoying protagonist
Review: Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr team up to write a historical novel with an overlay of time-travel atop it. Late 20th century Los Angeles lawyer Nicole Gunther-Perrin is stressed, stressed, stressed. She's a divorced mom of young children, her ex traded her in for a younger model, her babysitter quits with no notice, and she's been passed over for partnership in her law firm while a male colleague gets credit for her work. The firm's senior partner hits on her, then tells her she won't succeed if she's uncooperative. In short, she is having the Day From Hell. She's also a very unsympathetic character. She shows little concern with her own children. She's indifferent to why her sitter quit (sitter's mother in Mexico is sick). She's resentful toward those who succeed, and fails to see how her attitude and reactions affect how those around her will treat her. She's a bigot, generalizing about whole classes of people based on the actions of a few. After the Day from Hell, Nicole makes a plea to a plaque of two Roman "Household Gods" (smaller deities who helped with more trivial matters). Liber and Libera haven't been worshipped in more than a thousand years, so they honor her request to send her "to a simpler time." And then Turtledove and Tarr toss her into 2nd century Carnuntum, frontier Roman Empire. This city is near the Danube river (near present day Vienna), but far from Imperial Rome's center. Her attitudes run smack into her new reality. Won't drink? Surprise: you own a tavern! And a slave to run it! Oh, and she's a part-time prostitute, and you get to keep the money! And your kids ignore your requests unless you spank them! Any chance of returning home? No way. Everyone's petitioning the gods here, the line is always busy. Nicole is stuck here as Umma, widowed tavern-keeper. Life is difficult, painful, and monotonous. No electricity, little hygiene, no butter, no coffee, no antibiotics, no anasthaesia, no Tampax. And did Nicole think men were sexist pigs? Now she's stuck where women are second-class citizens by LAW. Bad enough? Okay, the barbarians are invading. That comes either before or after the plague. The details of day to day life are terrific, from attending Roman-style public baths to dealing with head lice. The story stays compelling despite Nicole's limitations. And in the end, while she has become a stronger person, she still isn't someone many of us would care to sit with for a spell. No matter. She doesn't end up anywhere as obnoxious as she started, so that's an improvement. While Nicole does learn from her experiences, her intial unpleasantness is hard to get over. Her ignorance of history and science don't serve her well when she arrives in Carnuntum, either. Perhaps this is why so many reviewers detest Nicole; the obvious audience for this book are SF fans, and they don't think much of scientific illiterates. How long does it take Nicole to figure out she ought to boil her water if there isn't any sanitation? Well, the typical SF reader would be doing so within 15 seconds of smelling the chamber pots dropped into the street. It takes Nicole about eight months. But not everyone thinks like an SF reader; there are lots of people like Nicole who manage to earn a law degree without remembering any history or science. She isn't unrealistic at all, just unlikeable. That shouldn't be a reason to downgrade the book; the story succeeds despite her.
Rating: 
Summary: Great premise. Lousy execution.
Review: I like Turtledove's books. I like Tarr's. I love historical fiction, especially when it's well researched. The premise of this book is excellent: a modern woman is sent back in time, and must cope with the day-to-day details in that era. How could this go wrong? But wrong it goes. I never did believe in the heroine. I find it hard to imagine that a woman could make it through law school and be *that* ignorant of history, from the long existence of slavery to the danger of drinking untreated water. I kept being thrown out of the story because I thought the heroine was such an idiot. Maybe the authors could have gotten away with it (there *are* dumb heroines, who eventually wise up) if the storytelling were stronger or the facts presented were inherently more interesting (or at least new to me). However, it's as though the authors wanted to shove a bunch of research at the reader... and the exposition isn't interesting enough to warrant that. Both Tarr and Turtledove have written far stronger books. If you like their work, choose another novel instead. If you're interested in stories that take place in the Roman era, I'd recommend any of the Steven Saylor "Gordianas The Finder" mysteries, which give a much better (and more riveting) view.
Rating: 
Summary: A different twist on time travel fantasy
Review: I greatly enjoyed this novel, both for the intensity of you-are-there realism in its depiction of the ancient world, as well as the self-discovery of the protagonist. She starts out as a caricature of an embittered, self-absorbed woman who can be satisfied with nothing and no one around her. As she observes the basic humanity of the ancient people she meets, despite their brutal and stressful surroundings, she comes to appreciate her own life. It was great.
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