Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
Then why to read this book/author?
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Because some parts the author gets right.
Lord Kalvan by H. Beam Piper, for instance, has two main threads. One is the accidental traveler from a parallel timeline finding out about the new timeline he's dumped in, and introducing new ideas and inventions. The other is a series of battles between groups following (or at least beholden to the priests of) one god, and those following other gods (or at least not wanting to be wiped out by the first group).
The first thread is interesting: how to make better paper, how to make gunpowder, discussions of democratic reforms, how to organize libraries, and so on. The second thread--army X under General Y does such and such, and armies Y and Z react to that by doing something else--is soporific. Tell me who fought--and more importantly, why--and who won, and that's sufficient. I'm no more interested in the tedious mechanics of it all than I am in how someone finally got their new toy to do whatever it was that had been troubling them.
Piper more or less balanced these threads. Unfortunately, the people who've continued the Kalvan stories set greater store by the battle bits than the socio stuff, so there's more to ignore. It's like picking the yucky peas out of a chicken pie: why should I deny myself something I mostly like because it has parts I don't?