Originally billed as a new standalone novel from David Weber, The Gordian Protocol, coauthored by Jacob Holo, has since spawned four sequels. Weber knows you should never let a good universe go to waste. We begin with Benjamin Schröder, a history professor living in a timeline in which the Second World War Pacific Allies invaded Vladivostok to meet up with their German friends. His peaceful life is disrupted by apparently psychotic episodes in which he envisions other outcomes for the war. Then, he meets a time traveler from the far future who recruits him to help untie a knot in the timelines. Is it OK to destroy one universe to save fifteen others? It may depend on who asks or who has the time machine with the biggest guns. (It is a David Weber story, after all.) With more than a dozen timelines to play with and a bunch of high-tech weapons, is it any wonder that Weber and Holo kept the Gordian universe alive? ( )

Some interesting new ideas in time travel concepts, but doesn't hold so well together from a plotline point of view. not sure I will continue this series even if it's about time travel and includes Weber in the writing team. ( )

Weber and Holo serve up a virtual feast of timely conundrums, plot twists, and side relishes for the SF connoisseur!

As the opening dish to what is sure to be upcoming courses, The Gordian Protocol is replete with enough food for thought at many levels. From multiverse time travel to the ethics and morality of collecting ancient artifacts--let alone virtual existence--it is packed to bursting with non-stop physical and mental action.
I read this in nearly one reading and enjoyed every bit of the feast. You do need to pace the reading as the action scenes carry you along quickly, but then you have to slow down to digest the meat of this timeline twists and turns. I have noted some complaints that there are too many unneeded asides, but like condiments, they provide needed pauses and flavour to the final meal.
Reading this is a rich and satisfying read and I am hungry for more!
Well done Chef Weber and Sou Chef Holo! ( )

Very interesting story, though there's an awful lot of convenient coincidence happening. A society has time travel, and has determined that when they make any changes in the past it just heals up, "instantly" - if they leave and go back everything is the way it was before. So they very cleverly decide to rescue all the lost treasure of the past...and do so as bloodily and destructively as they like, because it just goes away. Then the timelines they've been screwing with finally break, and in a time storm tangle themselves into a Gordian knot - and if they're not straightened out pretty quickly, all sixteen universes involved are going poof. Not only not be, but have never been. One poor time traveler, an iconoclast anyway, happens to be in flight when the Knot forms....so it's up to him (and his two non-biological companions - one AI (very limited) and one computer-based person (no more limited than any other person)) to solve this. He goes back home to the 30th century...except it's not his timeline that he ends up in, and the one he does end up in is a lot more restrictive. All of this is really good, really rich. And I found Ben - all the Bens - very interesting people. But Kleio...on his own, or with Philo, he's a quite decent character - but any time he's interacting with Ben and other 20th/21st century folks he becomes unbearably perky (and apparently incapable of understanding that not everyone has shared his experiences). I don't know what's up with that characterization. I didn't like the end - Ben gets everything, happy ever after - and happily abandons his plans for the university (I was looking forward to that faculty party!). I suppose he can come back and start from a second after he left...but it seems unlikely. I don't know. I do plan to read the second book; I want to see what happens. ( )

Weber is up to his usual standards with this book. Loved the characters, the premise. He manages to convey the problems of time travel without getting bogged down in the technical details. Lots of adventures are had by Benjamin, Philo, Ella, Raibert, and Kleio. A really fun read. l look forward to the next book in the series. ( )