The central idea of this book – Pilate pardons Jesus, the Roman empire thus survives the centuries and still dominates in modern times – seemed ludicrous yet original enough for me to buy the book, and the task of depicting a modernized roman empire promised to be interestingly amibitious. But, not surprisingly, the execution falls quite a bit short of the aim. Counterfactual history requires a depth of understanding and elaborate world building skills, and Mitchell posesses neither. His Roman empire is the cliched version of B movies, with a few gadgets added without rhyme, reason or technological context. The story itself is uninspired, too, dealing with an uprising of psychic rebels in the Anatolian province and an intrigue inside the empire, both told in brief abstract dialogues, interspersed with random action sequences, making the book a failure on pretty much all levels. It’s too bad, I still think the idea is cute.
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