From: ted@loft.tnolan.com   
      
   In article <10j78em$72r$1@dont-email.me>,   
   Lynn McGuire   wrote:   
   >On 12/30/2025 4:36 PM, Ted Nolan  wrote:   
   >> Well, here's what I read in 2025.   
   >>   
   >> Everything up to the "====" mark, I believe I posted a review of.   
   >> It would be nice to post a link to each review, but I no longer   
   >> know how to do that with the demise of Google Groups (not that it   
   >> was easy *with* it).   
   >>   
   >> The ones after that I have not reviewed, but tried to say a few   
   >> brief words about.   
   >>   
   >> The links are generally Amazon affiliate ones which could, in theory,   
   >> earn me something, though in practice usually not.   
   >>   
   >> Anyway, maybe this will start some discussion though that is   
   >> iffy lately.   
   >>   
   >> Also, the heck with spell-check.  You get what I typed.   
   >>   
   >> To Turn the Tide   
   >> by S.M. Stirling   
   >> https://amzn.to/3CyPIn0   
   >   
   >When did you review "To Turn The Tide" ?  I would like read your review.   
   >   
   >Lynn   
   >   
      
   As I said, I don't know how to link to my previous Usenet posts anymore,   
   but here is the review:   
      
   ==   
   To Turn the Tide   
   by S.M. Stirling   
   https://amzn.to/3CyPIn0   
      
   Here Stirling returns to the sort of _Lest Darkness Fall_ story he   
   told in his "Island In The Sea Of Time" series twenty years ago,   
   and though this is not a bad story, he did it a bit better there.   
      
   In a time-line which seems to have diverged from ours in 2020, a   
   group of five American historians, all experts on the Roman era,   
   are lured to Vienna under false pretenses.  In fact their Austrian   
   physicist host has invented a working time machine, and (apparently)   
   wants to do a Mr. Atoz to Principate Rome to escape the (pretty   
   much clearly coming) nuclear holocaust.  We don't know much about   
   him aside from his being a manipulative jerk because just as the   
   American team arrives, the balloon goes up, and he activates the   
   machine just as the fireball is knocking out the windows, killing   
   him and stranding our heroes (still physically in the same place)   
   in Provincia Pannonia Superior in June 165 A.D..   
      
   Our party, stunned unconscious, and not fully understanding what   
   has happened is a mixed group: An older (but not old) Army veteran   
   professor, and four graduate students including two men and two   
   women.  As is necessary in this type of story (if it is not to be   
   short & depressing) they have incredible luck: They meet an   
   honest man -- A middling prosperous & ambitious Jewish trader, educated   
   and knowledgeable about Roman society, but enough apart from it to   
   not feel any special compulsion to take them to the authorities.   
   With his backing (abetted by the wealth & supplies provided by the   
   dead physicist), the group sets up shop on a Pannonian plantation   
   and begins to work to try and change the future they just escaped.   
   Complicating matters no little bit is that they have arrived on   
   site just before the start of the Marcomannic wars and that anything   
   significant they do is bound eventually to bring the attention of   
   Marcus Aurelius, who is no dummy.   
      
   I enjoyed this book, and will read the follow-on.  It was nice   
   to have a lot of hats tipped towards Martin Padway, as the group   
   has all naturally read LDF, and I enjoyed the explication (and   
   examples) of the two types of possible technological developments:   
   A) The stuff the Romans could do if they thought of it (wheel-barrows,   
   stirrups, chimneys) and B) The stuff that would take a lot more   
   working up to, like steam engines.   
      
   That said, as I intimated above, I believe _Island In The Sea Of Time_   
   is a better book, as the characters were more strongly drawn there,   
   or at least that's how I remember it.  Here they are a bit stereotyped,   
   and subordinate to the bootstrapping tech.  The professor has a bit   
   of a character arc, the others less so.  There is also not a lot   
   of establishment as to why the group should all stay together, and   
   why the "change the future" project should be their common goal.   
   Yes, they are all fish out of water, but three of them, at least,   
   do find love on the local economy and could easily take their   
   wealth and "go native".  To be fair, Stirling does make the point   
   several times that Rome is just the best thing going, not that   
   it is "good" by uptime standards, but I think some more debate   
   before everyone falls in line would be welcome.   
   --   
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   What's not in Columbia anymore..   
      
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