by Harry Turtledove
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Product Description
Count Hamnet Thyssen is a minor noble of the drowsy old Raumsdalian Empire. Its capital city, Nidaros, began as a mammoth hunters’ camp at the edge of the great Glacier. But that was centuries ago, and as everyone knows, it’s the nature of the great Glacier to withdraw a few feet every year. Now Nidaros is an old and many-spired city; and though they still feel the breath of the great Glacier in every winter’s winds, the ice cap itself has retreated beyond the horizon.
Trasamund, a clan chief of the mammoth-herding Bizogots, the next tribe north, has come to town with strange news. A narrow gap has opened in what they'd always thought was an endless and impregnable wall of ice. The great Glacier does not go on forever--and on its other side are new lands, new animals, and possibly new people.
Ancient legend says that on the other side is the Golden Shrine, put there by the gods to guard the people of their world. Now, perhaps, the road to the legendary Golden Shrine is open. Who could resist the urge to go see?
For Count Hamnet and his several companions, the glacier has always been the boundary of the world. Now they'll be traveling beyond it into a world that's bigger than anyone knew. Adventures will surely be had...
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Another good book, 2008-07-06
A path has finally melted through the great glacier to the north and a small expedition is put together to explore what is beyond the glacier. This book has a very interesting story, set at the end of an ice age and full of things such as mammoths and working magic. Turtledove puts together a very effective story of the group's journey. The characters are fairly unique and a great deal of character development goes on throughout the novel.
The only poor parts of the novel are that it can get boring in parts, as there isn't much action to break up the monotony of the group's journey. Perhaps this was intentional as a group can't fight off bloodthirsy wolves or barbarians every day. The novel also ends fairly abruptly as a way to open it up for the next book in what may be a trilogy.
Still a very good book, though definitely not amongst Harry Turtledove's best work.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Beyond the Gap at glacial pace...., 2008-02-20
I hadn't been able to find any Harry Turtledove books in audio form before so I eagerly grabbed this production with narrator William Dufris. Author Turtledove has a great reputation amongst the alternate history lovers but wading through one of his books after a day of eyestrain over the computer had daunted me till now. What I wanted was a nice man to read the book to me and this CD collection satisfied that. William Dufris reads....slowly...a slow story of a voyage of discovery through a glacier that has opened up slowly and is now allowing passage of a motley band of barbarian, wizard and shaman, hero, anti-heroine and all round skeptic, to mention a few. Dufris voices the whole crew in delightful fashion from the logical speeches of Hamnet the hero, to Ulrich the skeptic, and best voice of all Liv, the barbarian shaman....slowly. His very American narrator's voice doesn't help add any air of enchantment to this dragging story. And what he has to read...slowly...often sounds too modern, too neurotic, too much of the thought processes of our own day. I listened to this at bedtime over the course of many nights and kept hoping its snailpace would pick up, and that Dufris would help that by adding some extra vocal excitement. The tale ends abruptly it seems, but with hope of a sequel. It'll probably take forever for it to get written but please do so, Mr. Turtledove, Your Alternity. I can't resist knowing what's beyond the gap either.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Beyond the Gap, 2008-01-26
Harry has an extremely fertile mind and in Beyond the Gap, I can see the beginning of a magnificent saga. He has skillfully created his characters on the base of an Ice Age Fantasy. Mammoths and Musk Ox litter the landscape (or snowscape) as they must have in the Ice Age.
I can see the Rulers creating problems for the Raumsdalian Empire and the Bizogots. In the end the good guys should win.
Carry on Harry! I love it.
I like to keep my rerviews short and to the point. Waffle disinterests me. J
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Empires in the balance--good stuff, 2007-08-11
For thousands of years, the great glacier has been the central fact of life for the Raumsdalian Empire and the barbarian Bizogots living in its shadow. But now a Bizogot ruler brings word that the 'gap' no longer simply drives a wedge into the glacier, it has actually divided it in two. A way is now open to the long-forgotten and mythical north. Perhaps, the Raumsdialian emperor guesses, even the great Golden Shrine can be found. He authorizes a small party of Raumsdalians including a mage, a scholar, and a couple of fighters to head north to explore. Soon after they leave, though, they are joined by a group of soldiers and the troublesome woman once wed to Hamnet Thyssen (one of the fighters), is now married to Eyvind Torfinn (the scholar), and is having an affair with the Bizogot ruler who brought the news. Gundrid delights in making trouble and especially in tormenting Hamnet who has never gotten over her betrayal.
The journey to the north--into the land of the glacier takes the Raumsdalians a long way from home to a world where wood is virtually unknown, where crops cannot be planted, and where the nomadic life is considered normal. Fortunately for the Empire, the Bizogots have always been divided--and can be bribed to attack one another when they might otherwise threaten the Empire.
What they discover beyond the gap, though, changes everything. Because there are people living there--people who style themselves the 'rulers' and who look at the opening in the gap not as an opportunity to seek knowledge, but as a chance to conquer the rich lands of the south. And the Raumsdalian Emperor has absolutely no interest in hearing about a risk to his comfort.
Author Harry Turtledove spins a strong tale of magic, character growth, and cold. Turtledove is best known for his alternate history stories and BEYOND THE GAP, while not an alternate history, carries a lot of Turtledove's historical knowledge with the Raumsdalians standing in for the Romans, the Bizogots for the Germans, and the Rulers for the Huns.
Turtledove's fantasy stands out from much of what is being written now because it focusses on people and on the conflict between civilizations rather than the angst of particular dark elves or whatever. Not that Turtledove doesn't have his tortured characters--certainly protagonist Hamnet is tortured and equally clearly Gundrid carries demons of her own that she cannot shake. But we get the idea that the deeds of these characters carries more weight than simply their happiness or their acquisition of wealth. Civilizations stand in the balance as well as personal romance--and that's good stuff.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 A bit of a disappointment, 2007-06-27
The glacier has been retreating for as long as anyone can remember, but it will always be there, right? There cannot be anything beyond the glacier. But, when a nomadic Bizogot chieftain comes to the capital of the Raumsdalian Empire with the news that there is a newly-opened gap in the glacier, all of the accepted information is thrown into turmoil.
And so, a team is hastily put together to search the gap and find out just what does lie beyond. This is the story of Count Hemnet a haunted but capable man, and his adventures beyond the gap.
Overall, I found this book to be a bit of a disappointment. The first half of the book is filled with heavy dialog and character development, leaving the reader to plod along waiting for something interesting to happen. Finally, when the story begins to pick up, and the action grows interesting - POOF, the book ends!
Now, if the author goes on to make a sequel or two, then the lengthy character development might become valuable. But, as it stands, the book is just too slow, too heavy, and not interesting enough.
By the way, I must agree with the reviews that say that this book is not historical fiction - it is in fact fantasy literature. The story includes working magic, and the distribution of the various elements (horses, reindeer, polar bears, etc.) is a bit anachronistic. (For example, horses were not domesticated until about 4,500 BC.) No, this book is a bit of a disappointment, and I really cannot recommend it.
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