Bank Holiday Weekends are a time for finding a nice patch of sun, sitting in it and getting pleasantly drunk. (And then being told by the police that you really shouldn’t be drinking there, they’ll let it go this time but they don’t want to catch you doing it again... but I digress...) Bank Holiday Weekends are also a time for catching up on all the reading that you meant to do but didn’t have the time for. That was certainly the plan for me and Harry Turtledove’s ‘Give Me Back My Legions!’ but it didn’t go quite to plan, I ended up putting this one down and won’t be picking it back up again...
‘Give Me Back My Legions’ chronicles the events leading up to the calamitous (for the Romans!) battle of Teutoburg Forest. I’m not a historian by any means, and know nothing about this period, but the blurb on the front cover left me wondering why I should bother reading this book if I already knew how it was going to end. In case anyone was wondering, the Romans lose...
Having never read anything by Harry Turtledove, I thought I’d give the book a go anyway. Maybe Turtledove had an exciting story lined up to make up for the fact that everyone knows how the story ends. Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t, I don’t know because I didn’t get far enough to find out. As far as I’m concerned, a book that’s only just over three hundred pages long needs to move along one hell of a lot faster than this one did. I managed to get just over a hundred pages in before putting this one down. Does there need to be a slow and laborious build up to an ending that everyone knows will happen? Harry Turtledove thinks so, I don’t (it’s an approach that I didn’t find entertaining at all and gave me no reason to keep reading, especially when I knew how it would all end...) and that proved to be the final straw as far as my reading the book was concerned.
Fans of Harry Turtledove will probably get a lot more out of this than I did. I’m not sure if I would give his work another go or not. Anyone got any recommendations?
I'm surprised in a way - given that Turtledove is known for his 'What if?' slant on things. Did it all pan out like it actually did or did it diverge a little?
ReplyDeleteOr didn't you get far enough to find out? :)
This wasn't one of his 'What if?' books, more of a straight history affair...
ReplyDeleteIf there had been a 'What if the Romans had invented the Atom Bomb?' plot or a 'What if the German Tribes had hovercraft?' scenario then I would probably have stuck with it...
despite all the characters introduced none showed an original voice & were like an authors narrative.
ReplyDeleteThe plot was slow & when there was an opportunity for a climactic / interesting twist the author choose not to bother...
The ending had a superficial heroism about it with a very unclear/ unuimpressive description of the environment which should have been the key to a climactic final sequence.
" Give me back my legions " ? no thanks you can keep em.