A Long, Thankless Trek Through Darkest Europe

There is undoubtedly a great novel to be written about a world in which Islam and Christianity has switched places but the Harry Turtledove novel Through Darkest Europe isn't it.

The chief problem with the novel isn't that it's a bad book -- merely a repetitive one. Turtledove keeps making the same point over and over again and while I appreciate his literary efforts on behalf of Team Tolerance, a little bit of his prose goes a long way.

The sad thing is that there used to be a time when reading the latest Harry Turtledove novel was not such a chore. But those days seem long-gone.