Tag: Harry Turtledove

An Emperor for the Legion

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An Emperor for the Legion
Videssos #2
by Harry Turtledove
Ebook, 336 Pages
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I am now convinced Turtledove is a closet homosexual and afraid to say so.

I mean, two guys with “magic swords” “cross blades” and they are transported to another world? And in this book, they are afraid to “fight near each other” because they don’t know “what might happen if their blades cross again?”. Yeah, you don’t need to be a board certified Psychologist to figure that one out. Harry, just say you want some sweet manlove and be done with it.

Other than that, this series so far has bored me to death. Very little magic, domestic troubles, etc, etc. Why no just read Roman Homemakers Monthly?

The Misplaced Legion

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The Misplaced Legion
Videssos Cycle #1
Harry Turtledove
Fantasy
4 Stars
Epub, 288 Pages

a roman legion in Gaul ends up on another world through magic. They become mercenaries for the Vidession Empire. Enjoyed this very much. Magic and Roman legion tactics, a cool combo. The problem is that I had a very badly formatted copy. Whoever had scanned this did it as one solid block of text. No paragraph breaks, no indents, nothing. Calibre split it up into 4 xhtml chunks, but my reader had to chug through each whole section whenever turning a page and man, it killed my battery and the flow of the story. Am seriously thinking about working on it with Sigil and making a nice epub copy. Will see.

Fantastic! Not once did things ever drag and I found myself just speeding along this tightly written book. I’ve read some Turtledove’s alternate history and found them full of excruciating detail that bored me out of my skull [I’m not a history buff, so I wasn’t the intended audience] but nothing like that occurred here.

Highly recommended.

Into the Darkness

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Into the Darkness
World at War #1
Harry Turtledove
Fantasy
3 Stars
DTB, 684 Pages

Fantasy, even though it is almost alternate history. Seems to be a World War II’ish story but in another world that has magic. It was well written and even interesting, but I don’t know if I really want to read more of the series simply because it is a big investment of time. And I just don’t care enough to read a war history. Turtledove also throws in completely unnecessarily graphic sexual descriptions and situations.

Seems to be an alternate history fantasy more than just a fantasy. Well written and enjoyable, but not interesting enough for me to want to read any more in the series. And Turtledove threw in completely unnecessary sexually graphic descriptions that just didn’t add anything but lasciviousness to the overall plot.