This book collects a number of related short stories that Turtledove published in Davis publications. Back in the olden days, all the personally named genre magazines were owned by Davis Publications, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Isaac Asimov’s Literary Magazine. Come to think of it, I probably have some rejection slips myself from that very era in my book. So they published a collection of short stories here under the big letters ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS. It seems kind of funny that now, in the 20th century, Turtledove is more known than Asimov. Or maybe that’s just in the blogosphere, which went through a big Turtledove phase some years ago.
Anywho: This set of alt-history pieces is set in the late middle ages. In it, the Roman Empire never fell, as Byzantium held out. A young man in the military leads a daring mission to recover a new tool of the barbarians, which turns out to be a telescope, which is giving them an advantage. He becomes an intelligence officer and the stories feature him working on cases where he ends up recovering or applying new technologies to thwart the Persian empire.
It’s a good bit of reading. The interrelated stories make for easily chunked reading. The characters are engaging. The stories are interesting. On the whole, it reads better than a whole novel of Turtledove, which sometimes can drag on as he shows how much research and imagining he has done (such as Ruled Britannia).
Books mentioned in this review:
