- Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Baen Books; Reissue edition (1 Aug 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0671877364
- ISBN-13: 978-0671877361
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 10.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,144,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
When Rome fell, the light of reason flickered out across the Empire. The Dark Ages had begun. Could a man from the 20th century prevent the fall of Rome? When lightning struck, Martin Padway was hurled backward into the sixth century. Like him, her fate was to bring Rome into being. Together, they must strive to bring the light, lest darkness fall.
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Tancredi took his hands off the wheel again and waved them. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tancredi took his hands off the wheel again and waved them. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
In this classic of time-travel originally published as a short story, academic Martin Padway is jolted back into the waning days of the Roman Empire. He then sets out to prevent the fall of the Roman Empire by introducing various technological innovations and inventions, which culminate to catapult him to a position of high political and military power. Of course since Martin is an academic in a certain field, he manages to have enough classical Latin to muddle along until he learns the Latin of the times. he is also suspiciously adept at figuring out how to remake certain modern tools with the materials at hand, most notably a printing press. And when he needs to be, he becomes remarkably politically subtle and charismatic. Altogether, rather contrived, but fun.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I came to this book after having read quite a lot of more recent 'alternate' history fiction. Lest Darkness Fall, is quite rightly regarded as a classic of the genre. If you are a fan of Harry Turtledove, you will probably know that Turtledove refers to Lest Darkness Fall as an prime infulence in his own writing career -- as he also explains in the introduction to this edition. However, for me, Lest Darkness Fall's main appeal was in De Camp's treatment of the technology involved, and the way in which his hero - Padway - is able to use his 1930s knowledge to run rings round the 'dark age' characters he encounters, buy inventing the printing press and telegraph, for instance. This aspect of the book is wonderful - it got me thinking how I might cope were I to be projected 15 centuries back in time. Rather badly I think given my own lack of Latin. Where the book doesn't work for me is in De Camp's treatment of the women in the book -- which to me at any rate came across as slightly sexist. If you buy this edition, there is also a short story at the end. I found this well-written, but as it involved a woman from Republican or early Imperial Rome (I forget now, but around 1st century BCE/1st century CE) being catapulted back into the mythic times of Rome's creation -- around 750 BCE -- I didn't really care because I couldn't really relate to either period particularly well. To sum up: Three stars. If you like alternate history, then I'd stil say this is a classic you have to read.
Format:Mass Market Paperback
For a novel which defined a genre, this was disappointing. The main character is little more than an automaton - transported from the 20th to the 6th century, he expresses little emotion of any kind, and every opportunity for considering the psychological/ physical/ philosophical effects of such an event is missed. Instead, he takes the timeslip as a personal business opportunity, wielding unbelievably detailed political recall of an obscure (and uninteresting) era to set up enterprises - these alone could have been engaging, but the details are scant, the problems of applied technology in ancient Rome rendered trivial and soon brushed aside.He also becomes an accomplished and unconcerned street fighter and master linguist overnight. Detail is an area of missed opportunity in general - names of utterly obscure chieftains are dropped in ad lib, but the day to day detail of food, furnishings,slavery and social habits and all the little gems of the imagined world are neglected, to say nothing of the jarring modern speech idioms.The narrative historical data is ponderous, but central premises - such as the manner of use of the short bladed sword - are lightweight... and wrong. The characters are thinly developed caricatures, the premise is terrific but the plot is boring, and the overall feeling is disappointingly dull for this "classic", which also stops short of the final development, namely the consequence of the time traveller's efforts on recorded history.Lazy and dated novel. Let darkness fall, let's.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Still the best "How would I change history"
It is rather old. It was written when it was politically correct to be a pinko and a racist - simultaneously. Read more
Published on 15 July 1999
Great time travel & alternate history book.
Lest Darkness Fall was one of the first great alternate history books. Since the time travel isn't given a plausible explanation it was initially considered to be fantasy. Read more
Published on 27 Jun 1998
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