Title: Working Too Hard
Product review: Being a lover of H. Beam. Piper's Paratime Patrol-related books (especially Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) I hoped for something similar from Turtledove. Alas, I found I just didn't care enough about the characters to look forward to reading what was coming up next in their story. Turtledove seems to try to make them interesting but there are plot eccentricities that jar. Why would anyone sell gaudy wrist-watches and Swiss Army knives in a Roman time line that also has developed a hyper-bureaucracy that keeps track of every little thing that stands out from the bland norm? Or take payment only in grain when buyers offer gold? Or "go for a walk" when there's a Lithuanian army coming to invest the town?Turtledove could stand a refresher re-reading Piper, or, for authors whose characters I care about: Connie Willis whose plague-year story "Doomsday Book" is searing and wonderful; and Lois Bujold whose Miles Vorkosigan stories are, well, great.
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