The Year of the Ransom by Poul Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poul Anderson is devoted to good history with his time-travel stories. I cannot stress how much I appreciate this.

He's also thoughtful in his analysis of myth-building and loves to play around with characters that violate and/or confirm those myths while still holding tight to a worldview that can be best described as cautious, allowing for much uncertainty, while also painting a very cool picture of the past. Oh, and there's a pretty nifty plot adding stolen time-travel equipment by the time-natives. :)


One thing I will mention is this: Poul has a major soft spot for the Germanic peoples. The focus is as obvious as it is detailed and there's nothing wrong with that. The good part is in how he unearths so many great, even obscure treasures.

There's so much time travel literature out there. I honestly wish that more of them actually did as good a job with ACTUAL history. Poul Anderson DID. :)

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