Post #2300432

I've been recently reading some oldish time travel/alternate history novels, such as The Cross-Time Engineer by Leo Frankowski. It's a fairly decent (with caveats) example of the genre - the protagonist is a modern-day engineer that travels back in time to 13th century Poland, and various adventures ensue. The character has an unrealistically wide gamut of skills and knowledge and is pretty much a Gary Stu, but if read as a fast-paced adventure novel, it's not that bad... until the author starts harping a bit too much about naked (from modern perspective) underaged girls - I mean, it's ok to mention it once that in 13th century Poland 14-year old girls were considered to be of age and likely were having babies (probably, this particular aspect iof history is not my strong point), mention it twice and I'll start giving you funny looks - but mention it more than that and I'll start thinking you have something else in mind than historical realities. It's pretty much a product of its time, first published in 1986, and I doubt that for the aforementioned reason it would be published in its current form if it were written today. I wouldn't say it's misogynous on purpose, but there's just that unsavory casual dismissal that was still a feature in many 80s sf adventure novels that we are well rid of (contrast that with Deathlands series of the same era, which does have its share of hot female protagonists with endowments, but at least there they kick ass with the best of them). #sciencefiction #books #bookstodon #alternateHistory #timeTravelAuthors