Review: ... Failed Knowledge Rule
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 14, 2013
OK, this is a bit unfair, the book is probably worth 2.5 stars ... maybe 3 ... except for several *really* grating and egregious errors.The time travel part of the story more or less holds together, so that's a plus ... but, hey, if you're going to run a time travel story and spend some time in the past the "Rule of Knowledge" is that you get some fairly basic facts right.Like the fact that to get from Judaea to Rome in AD 30 or thereabouts won't take three days by boat.From Haifa to Rome is 1200 nautical miles, but that's as the crow flies, not as the ship sails. Your typical Roman merchantman, such as described in the book, could do, maybe, 6-8 kts per hour at full tilt, less on average. Say 160 or so nautical miles a day ... so, 1200 nautical miles would be a nonstop trip of 7-8 days, just for a start.Then there's the problem that Roman seamanship was such that the only route they sailed out of sight of land for any distance was the Alexandria-Ostia route, and that only for about 6-7 months of the year. On other routes, they coast hugged or island hopped for the most part and, on them, they did *not* sail at night. They either pulled the boat up on a handy beach (these were not modern VLCCs!) or anchored just off a beach, or in a sheltered port. I'd guess that a real commercial sailing from Ostia to the Judaean coast would have taken at least twice as long ... two weeks to sixteen days, at least.Then there's the problem that, as the boat arrives ... they see the lights of Jerusalem.Doesn't anyone have even the most basic of geographical knowledge any more? It certainly seems that the *author* hasn't got the slightest clew, and that neither did his editors and proof readers ... the nearest Roman port to Jerusalem was Joppa, and, my, its about THIRTY MILES from Joppa INLAND to Jerusalem. So, no, not gonna see the lights of Jerusalem from the coast.Most of the rest is plausible enough ... except for the pivotal events regarding Roman Legionaries attacking a random Judaean village to take slaves, it seems ... nope. Maybe after the great Jewish Revolt 30 odd years later, but in c AD 30, rubbish.Clean up those things and it would be worth, probably, 3.5 stars ... despite all the hype, the ideas aren't actually all that original if you read a lot of SF, and the twists aren't all that original, either. Not that its badly written, mind, just not all that original.A fair enough read, but no classic.