The Gladiator (novel)

The Gladiator, Tor, 2007 is the fifth novel in the Crosstime Traffic series. It is set in Milan, Italy in the year 2097 AD in an alternate where Communism triumphed over Capitalism in the Cold War. The book was nominated for a [|Prometheus Award] in 2008.

The Point of Divergence for this timeline is the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States backed down, permitting the Soviet Union to maintain nuclear missiles in Cuba. This was the first signal that the US was not so resolute as it claimed. Subsequently, the United States withdraws its forces from the Vietnam War in 1968. Gradually all of Asia fell to Communism. In Europe popular fronts where built up between Democratic Socialists and hardline communists leading Europe and eventually the United States to fall to Communism by the end of the twentieth century.

As with the previous volumes of the series, the story is told through the point of view of two young people, Gianfranco Mazzilli and Annarita Crosetti. The Crosetti and Mazzilli families share a kitchen and bathroom between their two apartments, a consequence of Communist living. Aside from this, the two have little in common. Annarita is the overachieving daugher of a doctor. Gianfranco is the underachieving son of a midlevel Party bureaucrat.

However, Gianfranco develops a passion for a game called Rails across Europe, available only at a gaming shop called The Gladiator. The game, with its capitalist overtones, helps Gianfranco with his studies. Annarita, as a member of the Young Socialists' League, investigates the The Gladiator, and concludes it it ideologically sound. However, it is soon shut down by the Security Police. One clerk, Eduardo Caruso, escapes, and comes to the two for help. He reveals he is actually from another timeline, a world where the US won the Cold War and communism is inconsequential. The two resolve to help him get home, while at the same time pondering what his revelations about his own world might mean for theirs.

Literary Comment
Breaking with the series' pattern, both of the POVS are denizens of the alternate; Turtledove does not provide the reader with a POV from the home timelines. Thus, the POD and the history of the alternate are drawn in broader strokes than found in other "Crosstime Traffic" books. The fact that the history also comes from an education system designed to perpetuate communism and villify capitalism suggests that there might be "more" than Turtledove has shared.

The Gladiator also differs in that it shows Crosstime Traffic acting in a somewhat altruistic fashion. Eduardo admits that most of the time, Crosstime travel is done for trading purposes, with the added mission of insuring more advanced alternates do NOT discover the secret of crosstime. However, this alternate with its limited technological development and its callous abuse of its own resources is of little use to the hometimeline. Thus, Crosstime decides to subtly introduce notions of capitalism into this world with the hope that is might become a freer and better world.

The Gladiator is also unique in that it examines how denizens of one alternate deal with the idea of another, arguably better world, particularly when these denizens live in a system that preaches the inevitability of their own history. Annarita and Gianfranco have been taught all their lives that, per the writings of Karl Marx, communism was/is destined to win in the long run. The idea that it wasn't in most alternates is initially astonishing. Turtledove then compares and contrasts Gianfranco's and Annarita's respective reactions. Gianfranco enthusiastically embraces everything the home timeline seems to offer. Annarita still sees virtues in her own world, although does long for the greater political freedoms the home timeline enjoys.