An Emperor for the Legion

A major continuation of HT's "Misplaced Legion" series, the conflation of a Comnenian Byzantium with a dimension travelling Roman legion yields a reasonable amount of entertainment. Having established his legion in a reasonable position vis-a-vis the state our hero joins in engineering a coup. Not HT's best but pretty good escapism.

This is the 2nd book of the series, the follow on to Misplaced Legion. The Legion and its Druid are still stuck in Videssos, trying to stay afloat in Empire politics. By this point it is obvious that Turtledove is engaging in his favorite pasttime - putting a famliiar historical element (the Legion) in a completely new situation, with enough real historical elements to provide the skeleton of a plot. Navigating Roman politics was nothing new for the Legions, so why not in Videssos? I enjoyed these books, but there is not enough emphasis on the strangeness of the situation for the troops, and not enough effort made to get them back to Rome. Still good, and one of my favorite series.

I am now convinced Turtledove is a closet homosexual and afraid to say so.

I mean, two guys with magic swords" "cross blades" and they are transported to another world? And in this book, they are afraid to "fight near each other" because they don't know "what might happen if their blades cross again?". Yeah, you don't need to be a board certified Psychologist to figure that one out. Harry, just say you want some sweet manlove and be done with it.

Other than that, this book has bored me to death. Very little magic, lots of domestic troubles, etc, etc. Why not just read Roman Homemakers Monthly?"