Unlike many of Turtledove's alternate-history books, this one is a straightforward historical novel based on actual events. In the Afterword, Turtledove acknowledges where he is guessing about events and motivations, where the historical evidence is sketchy, etc. This helps the casual reader, such as myself, who is unlikely to go back and read the original Suetonius. The historical point on which this story is hung is important and fascinating: the total elimination of 3 Legions (almost 1/10 of Rome's entire army) in a single day's battle and ultimately the ending of Rome's ambition to conquer Germany.
My main problem with the book is repetition. Turtledove has characters recite over and over things that have already been said or exposed. Granted, for the characters, months may have elapsed in storyspace between these redundant conversations/thoughts. But it isn't for me; I will will have gone through that only tens of minutes ago. I found myself on many occasions saying out loud, "Get on with it!". Some judicious editing could have made the story flow much better.
[Audiobook note: Excellent narrator who made some interesting choices in his voicings. Rather than give characters German accents, he gives the German characters accents from various parts of the northern UK. Lower-class Roman soldiers get Cockney and London accents. Greek characters, well, its supposed to be a Greek accent but it comes across more as Spanish to my ears. While there are multiple German accents that German-speakers can recognize, I (and presumably most English-speakers) probably wouldn't hear the difference. Going with the varied English regions works immensely well.] ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It is Turtledove's dramatization of the events that lead up to the 9 AD battle of Teutoburg Forest, which prevented Germany from becoming part of the Roman Empire. There are historical references to the battle, but not a lot of specifics, so Turtledove is using his imagination,but the major characters were real people and the battle itself was real. I thought this was entertaining and interesting. ( )

The content was interesting and Turtledove's battle descriptions were excellent. His descriptions stayed true to the time period, so parts were graphic. But, he definitely kept you on the seat of your pants during the battle scene. The rest of the story, though, was long and drawn out. Turtledove also had a habit of repeating himself again and again and again and again.... If the repeated parts were edited out, and he had stuck to a brief storyline, I would have loved this book. ( )

If you watched Gladiator, read this book to find the history and archaeology behind the story. ( )

Disappointing

The novel "Give me back my legions" by Harry Turtledove is disappointing. The author concentrates on the psychology of the two main characters Varus and Arminius, which starts to repeat after a while. Besides this the author forgets a lot of other important things. For example I would have liked to see how Arminius managed to bring together the different Germanic tribes to common action. From a historical or novellist point of view the book is less than moderate. The novel ends with emperor Augustus reducing his plans to conquer Germany, but the fate of Arminius (murdered) and his wife and child (captured) is not part of the novel. Why? This is an integral part of this part of history! Just another disappointment.

What was more interesting is the description how different cultures cannot cope with each other and fall into systematic misunderstandings on each other without escape. This could teach us something. Funny was Varus' statement that Germans and Jews are the most stubborn peoples in the Roman empire. ( )