The Viddesos Cycle

I've been re-reading a series of books I read back in the late eighties or early nineties by Harry Turtledove called The Videssos Cycle.  It's about a legion of Roman soldiers  and a single Gaul soldier flung into a fantasy world where magic exists while not being common place.  It's an interesting concept.  The story doesn't spend a lot of time exploring the hows of what brought the Romans to Videsso.  I like that on the one hand, I just let it go and accept the premise on face value.  On the other hand it leaves a lot of questions that I think would be interesting if they were more deeply explored.  Turtledove might go into it deeper later on but if it sticks to the style of the books so far I doubt it.  I'm half-way through the third book and it doesn't show any sign of becoming more than what it is.  I'll get to that in a minute.

I originally loved the first two books, for some reason I never got around to the last two.  Reading them now it's interesting to see how my reading sophistication has been refined.  Or maybe how I've grown more jaded.  The big thing I remember about these stories was the political intrigue.  The story is based on events taken from Rome's actual history, something Harry has been marketing for decades.  I remember thinking at the time how twisted and deep the plot line was and while it still is, it isn't what my memory had it built up as.

I would liken the book to a frozen lake, the thin sheet of ice being what we see and the water below being what we could have seen.  The characters are flat with not much personality.  Even the most colorful character (Viridovix, the Gaul) is only interesting because of his funny lines and behavior, it's a superficial type of interesting.  The people only seem to be there to further the plot, not to engage the reader.  This is fine for the most part, I like more character driven stories usually but this isn't a deal breaker.

The pacing of the stories is another troubled area.  At times it plods along with not much happening, at other times I can't stop reading.  The entire quality of these books could be described as very uneven.  Book two and three have two major battle scenes that are almost exactly the same scenario.  The army falls to defeat with the collapse of the left flank through an act of cowardice and an act of betrayal.  The Romans march back defeated looking for refuge and picking up remnants of the Emperor's crushed army.  I got very agitated by this point for several reasons.  The continual attempted over throws of the Emperor may be based on historic events but history doesn't always make for compelling story telling.  The writing in general tends to be repetitive but no more so than some lesser books I've read.  To me the third book didn't progress the plot from the second.

Don't misunderstand though.  While not the miraculous masterpiece of the written word I originally thought it was it is a very good piece of fiction.  The world Harry Turtledove builds is fascinating and fully realized.  I think I would recommend it to friends that enjoy fantasy.