Give Me Back My Legions

I finished Harry Turtledove’s Give Me Back My Legions. It’s a novelization of the Varian Disaster — the defeat of Rome by German forces under Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. It’s certainly an interesting topic, and Turtledove has produced a readable book.

It’s not really a great book, however. It’s chief flaw is its repetitiveness. Every time one of the characters does something, they reflect on it. When it rains, the Romans complain about the weather. When they have a cup of wine, they think about how people back home water it. When they offer some to Arminius, he reflects to himself how much better beer is. Not just once or twice, you understand, but over and over and over again. I’d guess you could cut out half of this 300-pager. Or you could really tighten it up and cut it to an 80 page novella.

I haven’t read much Turtledove, so I don’t know if this is just his writing style. I noticed he doesn’t like complex sentences. He likes it short and sweet. It’s like Joe Friday. Terse. Succinct. That makes me wonder if he thinks he’s writing for children. (I really liked his kids’ books; more importantly, so did my children.) But that can’t be the case with Give Me Back My Legions: it’s not awash in sex and violins, but it deserves at least a PG-13.

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