Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Alternative Roman History From Robert Silverberg
Review: "Roma Eterna" is a collection of 10 different short stories masquerading as a novel, that raises some tantalizing questions to answer the central, overarching question in this book: What if the Roman Empire never fell, but not only survived, but endured to the present as the foremost empire on the globe? It is not Silverberg's best work of fiction (His finest works include early novels such as "Shadrach in the Furnace" and his critically acclaimed series, "The Majipoor Chronicles" which began with "Lord Valentine's Castle".), and yet remains a compelling collection of tales which should interest alternative history fans. The best tales include "Waiting for the End", where a Romanicized Greek bureaucrat awaits the conquest of the Eternal City by Greek Byzantine forces sent from Constantinople, attempting to unify the divided Latin and Greek halves of the empire, "Via Roma", where a young aristocratic Celtic Briton witnesses in Rome the bloody downfall of the Empire and the rise of the "Second Republic", and "Tales from the Venia Woods", where two Teutonic children unknowingly reveal the hiding place of the last of the Caesars, the last Roman emperor. The final tale, "To the Promised Land", about Hebrews building spaceships to escape Earth and an inevitable collapse of the Second Republic is among the least effective in this collection. And yet, to Robert Silverberg's credit, he has written a future history almost as compelling as Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Years of Rice and Salt".
Rating:
Summary: none
Review: A brilliantly realized alternate history of a Roman Empire that never fell, as only the equally brilliant mind and imagination of Silverberg could envision it.
Rating: 
Summary: Short stories that should have stayed that way
Review: A collection of short stories that, alas, should probably have stayed short stories. Grouped together like this, the niggling little problems with each one amass into one or two huge glaring headaches.
The premise of this book, of course, is that the Roman Empire never fell. Unlike most alternative history, this involves not just one point of departure, but a series of highly improbable occurrences that would allow the Empire - indeed, any empire - to last over 2500 years. If you can swallow that premise, you shouldn't have much trouble with any of the other stories in this book, give or take a few historical howlers.
The stories are interesting historical fiction, but not until the end do they become good alternate history. 90% of the book could conceivably have taken place during the actual time of the Roman Empire, and didn't need to be set in the 14th or 19th centuries at all.
The stories are told from an interesting perspective, all of them narrated by someone close to the Imperial throne but usually lacking any real power or influence. Unfortunately, there is no continuity in the characters from one chapter to the next. Kim Stanley Robinson achieved this masterfully in "The Years of Rice and Salt"; given the many comparisons to his book I wish Silverburg could have done the same. With no main character to root for, the chapters remain a set of disjointed short stories - enjoyable in and of themselves, but I wish a bit more work had gone into turning them into a full-length novel.
Rating:
Summary: mistaken assumptions
Review: Basically a seried of vignettes, not a cohesive story at all, Roma Eterna falls victim to a couple of mistaken assumptions. The first of these is that without Judaeo-Christianity and Islam the Empire would have stood. The empire fell more from its own weight than any "outside" influences. The second, and, for me, much more glaring one, is Silverberg's assumption of an industrial revolution without any of the pre-conditions necessary for one. As stated by S.M. Stirling in his review of another work, without the Aquinan worldview adopted by post-medieval Christianity, there is no scientific or industrial revolution. The Romans were notoriously incurious about what made the world around them tick and their system of gods and goddesses had no rationality. Without those two elements, you have reason or basis for the kind of systematic research which led to our world of today and simply cannot have the last third of the book. Still a nice read, but not anywhere close to Silverberg's best
Rating:
Summary: mistaken assumptions
Review: Basically a seried of vignettes, not a cohesive story at all, Roma Eterna falls victim to a couple of mistaken assumptions. The first of these is that without Judaeo-Christianity and Islam the Empire would have stood. The empire fell more from its own weight than any "outside" influences. The second, and, for me, much more glaring one, is Silverberg's assumption of an industrial revolution without any of the pre-conditions necessary for one. As stated by S.M. Stirling in his review of another work, without the Aquinan worldview adopted by post-medieval Christianity, there is no scientific or industrial revolution. The Romans were notoriously incurious about what made the world around them tick and their system of gods and goddesses had no rationality. Without those two elements, you have reason or basis for the kind of systematic research which led to our world of today and simply cannot have the last third of the book. Still a nice read, but not anywhere close to Silverberg's best
Rating:
Summary: Best not read in one go
Review: Hmm, well I have been a great admirer of Silverberg's short stories in the past, and there are one or two more than decent ones here. It does not however seem to have occured to the author that the idea of the roman empire persisting for 2000 years, rather than fascinating, could actually be quite dull if not handled very imaginatively. The problem with attemping this sort of thing is that the real history of the period in question is usually a lot more interesting than the alternate.It may be a a minor and idiosyncratic gripe, but abandoning the common english versions of names for the ubiquitous -us latin suffix, eg Hadrianus, Diocletianus etc etc etc, added noticeably to the sometimes pervasive sense of dullness for me at least.
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Summary: Good solid Silverberg...
Review: I have to admit to a soft spot in my heart for anything by Robert Silverberg, since he's written some of the books that most moved me over the years. From Thorns to Shaderach in the Furnace to Up the Line, he has written an amazing number of classic novels and shorter fare. Despite the fact that he's written many pure SF novels, he also has a fondness and penchant for writing about the ancient world.
Here we get a set of short stories (which is not clear from the cover: bad publisher, no biscuit!) which display the unique tone and amazing attention to detail that characterizes much of his work. The quality is a bit uneven, with some of the stories being somewhat unreadable, but the majority of them are quite good and one or two are very good indeed.
For example, the first story after the front matter ("With Caesar in the Underworld") bears the plot of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays, with a lead character of Faustus ("Falstaff"), set in the wonderfully decadent ancient Rome of this alternate history. There are little sparkly details throughout that make the story bump along, teasing you with both the puzzles that form the alternate history bits and the tidbits of fun (parallels with the lifted Shakespeare plot, for example). It... tickles.
Other reviewers have complained that Silverberg doesn't dive as deeply into the history part, that the stories are all little "what if..." one-trick ponies. But I think those reviewers are missing the fact that in virtually all of these character driven stories, there is at least one other "angle" that Silverberg is playing with. Once I recognized what he was doing, it was a lot of fun to both read the stories as straight AH yarns and also be watching for the sly games.
This isn't the Silverberg of the great early 70's novels. Nor does it quite match his lovely time-travel novel "Up the Line" (if you've not read that, get it with this). It's just that no one except possibly Gene Wolfe quite matches his style and careful, multi-layered craftsmanship. I enjoyed this collection (despite, as noted, some warts) and, if you like alternate history, you probably will too.
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Summary: Fantastical Author - formula writing
Review: I was disappointed. I have enjoyed all Silverburg's writing..going back muchas anos (I'm a'gettin' old). But, this one is too formulistic. It is fascinating and well written; but the premises are only loosley explained, loosley followed, and with all the possible emporers and their fauning courtiers and henchmen... loosely explained. There's plenty to think about... including some new (to me) twists and viewing of the new world and all its "glory." But greatness... no, I'm sorry Mr. Silverburg... Majipoor, among others is MUCH better (and don't even mention some of the other REAL grand masters - Like Aurthur Clarke/Heinlein/Asimov from years ago....the past was much better written (and more interesting)!!!! Don't try again. Just let young'ns having fun with their ideas (many of which are great) -- and have their day(s)!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Silverberg Just Coasting Along . . .
Review: I've been reading Silverberg for about 35 years and he's had his ups and downs. Lately his writing seems to be an exercise in sleepwalking. He can write so well that he doesn't need to put things in such as plot or characterization. He's done this in Alien Years and half a dozen recent books. Roma Eterna has two to three good novellas in them; the rest is blather. In fact, two of the middle stories (published in Asimov's no less) have no real science fictional content and are basically expository: someone is telling the reader of a story someone told _them_. There is little dialogue in this collection; mostly it's just Silverberg adroitly peppering his narrative with details he's gleaned from books about ancient Rome. Time and time again Silverberg seems to crank out passable stories and novels that will get published just because of his name's cachet. (Like Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card and Harry Turtledove, three more lazy writers.)
Having said all this, you can't beat the Silverberg of the late Sixties to the late Seventies. Man, he was good back then. He wrote novels that were quirky and new . . . and now he just coasts. In Roma Eterna, he's just coasting, coasting, coasting . . . .
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Summary: a bundle of earlier work - fuzzy
Review: Its easy for Silverberg to skip through the history, changing the facade to fit the "Roma" title. Aah generally I am very disappointed in this work. Nothing exciting. I gave it 3 stars ONLY for the attempt, not the result..
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