Gunpowder Empire, by Turtledove

[wkwillis]

The premise of the book is a family from a modern ATL in a primitive ATL, secretly, to trade. The theme of the book is how terrible it is to be stranded in a primitive culture. No problem. The motivation for people to be there is not very realistic. They aren't there to find and retrieve cultivars of fruit trees, or to study alternate timelines, or to pump oil or mine metals, but to buy wheat to ship home to their own timeline. Turtledove just does not understand technology. I mean, I wouldn't even do that as a satire.
Also, he has the locals worried about trichinosis. That's a New World disease. If you have trichinosis, you have syphillis, corn, and potatos.
On the good side, it's competently written and interesting. Too bad he didn't give it a more realistic premise. Anthropology, cultivars, or biopharmaceuticals would have been more realistic. I mean, how much would you have given for giant syphillum, the natural abortifacient that the Romans had that went extinct around the end of the Roman Republic?

[tom]

I tried googling "syphillum" and got nothing.

[Duncan]

Originally Posted by tom

I tried googling "syphillum" and got nothing.

I suspect he means silphium -
http://ancient-coins.com/articles/si.../silphium2.htm

[wkwillis]

I'm going to do something on this in the AH section.

[sbegin]

I just finished this book. It's well written and somewhat interesting, although, as wkwillis says, I just don't understand going to alternate timelines to buy wheat!! Seems to be a waste of a good technology.

[MerryPrankster]

Going to ATLs to buy wheat? That's silly. I'd trade for gadgets, tech, and drugs that don't exist in my ATL.

[Yellmic Wigwawa]

It's not just wheat that they trade; from the early stages of the book, you can see that "our" world is running short of resources, so that they ship in food, oil, raw materials etc.

[Namor]

Originally Posted by Yellmic Wigwawa

It's not just wheat that they trade; from the early stages of the book, you can see that "our" world is running short of resources, so that they ship in food, oil, raw materials etc.

Yup, and I'm sure that there ARE people who are trading for new drugs, gadgets or whatever else may tickle yor fancy. The book just focuses on more "ordinary" time traders...