@dannymcg --- Here's the promised review/evaluation
I finished reading
The Gordian Protocol by
David Weber and
Jacob Holo. David Weber has sold millions of books as the author of the Honor Harrington mega series and many other S.F. and a few Fantasy books as well. Jacob Holo was unknown to me. But he does have a few books to his credit.
Jacob Holo However, as none of them are known to me and all of them have less than 100 reviews, in most cases, much less, I'm confident he would not be considered one of the genre's super stars. Since he and David both live in South Carolina I'm guessing (it's never stated) that they ran into each other somewhere, hit it off, and decided to write a book.
The Gordian Protocol is a time travel book with a reasonably small cast of characters. The premise of the book is that in the thirtieth century time travel to the past has become possible but not to the future because the thirtieth century is the "true present." The time travelers from that age interact with the past in the same manner as pirates because they are convinced that nothing changes when they make changes because their present remains unaffected by actions as dramatic as stealing the entire library of ancient Alexandria. It turns out they are wrong about this assumption and the book proceeds from there.
On the positive side, this book does not suffer from some of Weber's obvious weaknesses. First, most people will appreciate is that there is nothing like a Weber info-dump in this book. Second, this book does not run to a bloated thousand pages. I read the Kindle version and it did not feel over long. The Amazon site gives the size as a rather normal 559 pages. Third, the battle scenes ring fairly true. Fourth the action was fairly continuous. Fifth, at least for people like me, the politics are of the progressive conservative variety which I admire, but they are at most a side issue, not given many pages, and are used to poke fun at some liberal pretensions. Sixth, at least for some, this is a stand alone novel and there is little room for a sequel.
On the negative side, I found the characters a bit wooden. They seem more like cardboard cutouts than true people. (And this comes from someone who loves the Honor Harrington character.) While the action took surprising turns from time to time, there was always for me a feeling of inevitability. A more detailed explanation of what troubled me is contained in the spoiler.
So.... I'm not sure how strongly I can recommend this book. It is pretty good, but not much above average, so a weak 4 stars. However I'd love to discuss this book. If someone reads it and wants to talk about it .... post to the Weber sub-forum and we'll chat.
www.sffchronicles.com
