I have started the 2nd edit on book 3 – As I may have mentioned before I find editing very tiring so I try an not attempt to do too much of it at any one time. Looking for strange word usage errors, occasional spelling errors that have slipped through, convoluted sentence structures, sentences where my brain was moving faster than my fingers were typing and so forth is something best done in small doses. I start each day with a small session of editing while my mind is still fresh.
I am still struggling with book five – it’s only about half written and I have a lack of ideas happening about getting the story from points b or C through to the finish. Sigh Apparently an occupational hazard to have stories stall.
I have submitted a small short story for an Australian alternate history anthology – have had no word yet on whether my story made the cut – still it was satisfying that I was able to come up with an idea on short notice. If the story misses the cut I may include that version of the Earth in one of my Multidimensional Wizard books. Actually that makes a lot of sense to re-use all the backstory I did… hmmm
Right – back to editing… sigh
rhodanblog 
Been loving this series 🙂
one item that would be great to introduce and is VERY simple:
The Fresno Scraper
with that, roads, canals, sewers, foundations etc all become MUCH easier to build!
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Your point is valid to an extent but there are several issues.
1. I have tried very hard not to give Arturo too much detailed knowledge of stuff from the early history of earth – keep in mind he comes from a period several thousand years after our own and that things like steam engines, rifles, electrical anything and so are all going to be quick mentions in the sort of historical course he would have undertaken at the military college. So there will things he knows of but doesn’t know how to reproduce – electricity generation for instance and other things he may never have even seen mention of. You will note he has gone straight to a horizontal steam train like boiler/cylinder design, bypassing beam engines and vertical boilers because he remembers a diagram of a railway steam engine vaguely and not other types of steam engines.
2. the type of work a fresno scraper does (and I am not saying something like a fresno scraper won’t happen later in the books) especially as far as roads go is not really compatible with traditional Roman road building methods with it’s layers of stone and such like – and the similar methods being used for the railway track beds.
On the other hand I welcome any such suggestions from my readers as there is plenty I have overlooked I am sure.
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No worries!
it is after all YOUR novel series 😉 and I’m enjoying the heck out of it 🙂
Oh the Fresno Scraper just moves earth, nothing of an issue with that, just massively decreases time to move that earth rather than just use man power, and definitely do-able with Iron Age tech
One of those things you wonder why no one thought of it WAY before it was invented, and what would have happened if they had?
and any modern person would think “bulldozers” for earth moving and from that…you get the Fresno Scraper, which is exactly where the dozer blade came from 🙂
Cutting the roads/train tracks was colossal work, which is why explosives (gunpowder at the moment), Fresno Scraper and eventually, “steam shovels” would help Arturo’s folk
Romans were brilliant engineers and surveyors, but the hilly country of Wales, North/West of England and Scotland is a major pain to drive roads/railroads through
Another item would the “horse collar”, it didn’t appear to Medieval era in Britain
One of those things a modern science based person, a technological mindset, would likely pick up on
It greatly increased loads horses could pull
Like stirrups, it’s one of those” that’s obvious!” sort of things Arturo might well note.
stay well 🙂
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hadn’t thought of horse collars… hmmm. By the way – I’m not say the Fresno Scraper or something similar won;t pop up at some point – it just hasn’t yet….
AS far as technological mindset goes, if you took your average destroyer or nuclear sub captain of today and dropped him in 400AD the result would depend very much on how much historical reading he had done and less on his technological mindset….
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oh and didn’t want a superman answer for everything guy – truly – what Arturo is so far is really more than I’d originally planned by where the story is up to. I have a completely different book series in the works that deals with what do you do if do get super power – in real life – I mean it wouldn’t be like an Avengers movie….
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Yeah the horse collar is another one of those things you’d THINK people would have thought of, but didn’t, at least, In Europe when the idea spread from China where iirc it started around 3rd century BC
Initially they weren’t that great, more of a strap than a true collar, then someone realised making it far stronger, with a frame inside, let it evenly space the pressure so it didn’t pull on the horse’s neck and strangle it!
Our ancestors were definitely not stupid, but, they were ignorant of a lot of knowledge since they didn’t have easy distribution of knowledge, AND lacked the scientific method, which changed things enormously
many cultures and technologies stagnated because most folk didn’t care to change, or, worked against change (which is often blamed on the Church, for some fair reason but not all since some folks in the Church were innovators or rediscovered Roman/Greek tech from manuscripts, but actually anywhere on Earth cliques tried to stifle change they didn’t control…it’s a Human problem alas…as we see TODAY…ahem, Dr Fauci being scapegoated as an example)
between struggle to survive, the devastating effects of wars, famines etc and, cultural “blinders” things were badly hindered from advancement
another problem was the lack of dissemination of knowledge meant things could get lost, for example, how ot make Greek Fire
keeping things secret in a guild or whatever, meant when a siege or plague devastated a city, an important technology could be lost
a mindset of “innovation” supporting that was far from universal
yet, by trial and error, or flashes of brilliance, things did advance
it can be argued the waves of devastation that rolled over Europe encouraged innovation though again folk’s perception isn’t always right, up to about 1300 AD for example, British “peasants” were actually pretty well fed, healthy and quite a few could read/write (in their own tongue, phonetically, no dictionaries alas….Latin/Greek were another matter, but many merchants and nobles were schooled in those)
the Black Death, Edward the First’s wars, Climate Change, volcanic eruptions etc all contributed to wrecking things for centuries after that though
So, really, a modern person would likely note issues more than locals, and propose solutions or more likely, get others to work on such which is what we see in your books, which is cool 🙂
give the smith some ideas, and then let the expert work on it….
well if someone had a super power today…
in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king…unless they all group up to kill him! 😉
Looking forward to it, but am loving Arturo series 🙂
In a time when things are going to utter ****, alternate history stories, building civilizations instead of robbing and wrecking them, with enjoyable characters etc is uplifting!
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