by Harry Turtledove
|
| List Price: | $23.95 |
| Amazon Price: | $16.29 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
| You Save: | $7.66 (32%) |
| Average Rating: |  |
| Lowest New Price: | $4.79 |
| Availablitiy: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
 |
|
Product Description
The Soviet Union won the Cold War. The Russians were a little smarter than they were in our own world, and the United States was a little dumber and a lot less resolute. Now, more than a century later, the world's gone Communist, and capitalism is a bad word.
For Gianfranco and his friend Annarita, a couple of teenagers growing up in Milan, life in a heavily regimented, surveillance-rich command economy is just plain dreary. The eventual withering-away of the state doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon.
Annarita's a hard-working student and a member of the Young Socialists' League. Gianfranco is a lot less motivated--but on the other hand, his father's a Party apparatchik. The biggest excitement in their lives is a wargame shop called The Gladiator, which runs tournaments, and stocks marvelous complex games you can't find anywhere else.
Then, abruptly, the shop is shut down. Someone's figured out that The Gladiator's games are teaching counterrevolutionary capitalist principles. The Security Police are searching high and low for the shop's proprietors, who've not only vanished into thin air, but have left behind sets of fingerprints that aren't in the records of any government on earth.
Only one staffer is left: Gianfranco and Annarita's friend Eduardo. He's on the run, and he comes to them in secret with an astonishing story: he's a time trader from our own timeline, accidentally left behind when the store was evacuated. The only way Eduardo can get home to his own timeline is if Gianfranco and Annarita can help him reach one of the other time trader sites in this world--and the Security Police will be on their tails all the way there.
Customers who bought this item also bought
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Ayn Rand meets Die Weisse Rose, 2008-11-21
This is the weakest novel yet of the crosstime traffic series. The mechanical (!) symbol/linking device of the elevator is a little too obvious (although Gianfranco's refusal to take it at the end is delightfully ambiguous). I agree with the reviewer who noted that there just isn't any real crisis in the novel. In particular, I expected jealous backstabbing as there would be in a real world threesome, but Turtledove only provides a few lame suggestions and then closes that thread, even at the repression level. Casablanca it ain't.
Still, while it doesn't reach the level of Philip Pullman or Orson Scott Card (I know, Ender's Game isn't supposed to be juvenile fiction, but just try prying it out of the hands of the next 12-year-old you see reading it), The Gladiator is better than the pap of JK Rowling.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
First of these I've read, 2008-11-01
I was not familiar with the Crosstime Traffic series when I picked up this book (although I've seen other books in the series) but I was pleased with the storyline and the content of the Gladiator.
In this future communism dominates the world, thanks to the decline of the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. The main characters in the book learn about real capitalism the only way they can in this Soviet-dominated world... playing board games at a mysterious shop.
I will almost certainly look for more of these books the first chance I get!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 More Turtledove, 2008-04-05
HT's newest angle on his Crosstime Traffic theme is a refreshing change of pace from the previous (good but overused) story lines.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Barn Burner with no Fire, 2008-02-27
While there is no denying Turtledove's competence as a writer, The Gladiator suffers from a most curious problem - namely, there's no drama involved. Once you get past the main premise (alternative society where the USSR won the cold war) there's very little left, as the 'man out of time' angle repeated from past Crosstime books is solved with remarkably little effort and intrigue*. Nobody gets arrested, nobody gets in trouble, and nobody is worse for wear. In short, this is a breezy and unfulfilling read, and I thought it was a huge step down from Gunpower Empire which at least had some genuine moments of danger and peril.
*one glaring exception - why did the elevator get fixed? Huge coincidence? It was central to the plot after all.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Static society, 2008-02-01
Turtledove's juvenile alternate worlds series has had a pattern until now - teenagers from the "home timeline" of the late 21st century (whose past looks very much like our world) travel to an alternate world, have a romantic entanglement there and some difficulty in returning home. Their purpose in the alternate world is to obtain food for an overpopulated world through trade of items the home timeline can produce cheaply and which aren't too alien to the culture of the other timeline (no computers for medieval worlds), or to watch an advanced potential competitor.
The world in this story is one in which Soviet style communism has conquered the world and stayed in power for over a century. Given a huge number of parallel worlds, the author can certainly find one where this static state holds and where the Soviets revive from their 1950's decline and go on to conquer after a decline of the West in the 1960's and 1970's.
This world suffers from the constant problem of Soviet type society - people don't produce more than they have to, because the person who produces more benefits no more than a person who produced little. As a consequence, there is no surplus food or anything else to trade with the home timeline and the society is not a danger to other timelines. The mission to this timeline is, therefore, altruistic - inspire them to change their situation through computer games which teach capitalism. Such a mission is intrinsically dangerous, so the usual home timeline teenager is missing - the usual romance is between natives.
Of course, being a totalitarian society, the communists suppress the games and the home timeliner needs to find a way to return home. The hunt for a means of return is a good portion of the story.
One item that is bothersome - there is a "show how much I know about Russian" section. If such needs to be included, it would be nice to be accurate. E.g. Russian for "dog" should be spelled with the Russian equivalent of "b", not a "soft sign"; "chelovek" means "person", not "man" (which is "muzhchina") and Russians "matavat", not "mat" when they swear. After all, if Turtledove can do such a splendid job on The Chronicle of Theophanes: An English Translation of Anni Mundi 6095-6305 (A.D. 602-813) (Middle Ages), he ought to be able to handle Russian.
Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
|
Store Categories
|