Gunpowder Empire

November 17, 2003
Readers nostalgic for the juvenile SF novels of Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton will find much to enjoy in alternate-history master Turtledove's time-travel novel, the first of a new series, in which a late 21st-century world has eliminated pollution and resource scarcity by exploiting the resources of various alternative realities. The Solter family spends their summers in one such reality, on the frontier of a Roman Empire that never fell, trading Swiss Army knives and other hi-tech trinkets for grain. When the mother suffers an appendicitis attack, the Solter parents travel back home to Southern California for treatment, leaving their teenage children in charge. Then things start to go wrong—the parents are stuck back home and can't communicate with the kids, while invaders lay siege to the Roman city near their summer place, and ever-efficient Roman bureaucrats start asking the kids embarrassing questions. Turtledove (In the Presence of Mine Enemies
, etc.) presents his teenaged heroes with a series of moral choices and dilemmas that will particularly resonate with younger fans. This is a rousing story that reminds us that "adventure" really is someone else in deep trouble a long way off.

December 1, 2003
Jeremy Solter and his family lead a double life in the modern world of late-21st-century Southern California-and as traders and merchants in an alternate world in which the Roman Empire never fell. When a disaster closes the gateways between the worlds-trapping Jeremy and his sister in ancient "Rome" without the rest of their family-the siblings must learn to survive and hide their origins from prying Roman officials. Turtledove's (The Guns of the South) latest foray into alternate history brings both worlds together in a story of adventure and family loyalties that should appeal to YA as well as adult readers of historical fantasy. Recommended.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2003
The current master of alternate history honors genre founding father H. Beam Piper (1904-64) in a story set on an exhausted, early-twenty-second-century Earth that draws resources from a host of parallel time lines, in some of which the planet is a wilderness, in others inhabited--or uninhabitable. Jeremy and Amanda Solter, typical L.A. teenagers, are spending the summer with their grain-trading parents in a time line in which the Roman Empire never fell. The promise of an interesting experience evaporates when, in rapid succession, their parents go home because of their mother's appendicitis, the cross-time-traveling machine goes down, and the Lieutvans (avatars of the Lithuanians) invade. Tough as they are, Jeremy and Amanda discover that real war is indescribably more ghastly than described war, and dealing with slavery, fur-wearers, and other nonamenities of premodern civilizations is pretty grueling, too. Seemingly a series opener intended to introduce the concept of parallel worlds and Turtledove's take on it, the book succeeds as an homage to parallel-worlds pioneer Piper and a well-told, engaging tale. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)