For the Eternal Glory of Rome

by Tom Kratman

GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!

In September of the year 9 A.D. three Roman legions are trapped in the Teutoburg Forest by tens of thousands of rebelling Germanic tribesmen under the Romano-German renegade, Arminius. In an attempt to save what can be saved, an alien starship transports one of those legions, Legio XIIX, to safety. But the aliens are rushed by events and transport the XIIXth not just in space, but through time as well.

Dropped four centuries into their future, under the leadership of their first spear centurion, Marcus Caelius and the young but promising junior tribune, Gaius Pompeius, Legio XIIX must fight to survive almost from the first moments of arrival. Moreover, they must march and fight across a continent to find their way home.

Because home, the Roman Empire, needs them—their discipline, their tactics, their indomitable fortitude—more desperately than it has ever needed anything . . . because New Years Eve, 406 A.D. is coming, and with it, a horde of barbarians are going to cross the frozen Rhine and, unless stopped cold, destroy the Empire.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Praise for Tom
“The author’s flair for fight scenes is undeniable.” —Publishers Weekly

“Tom Kratman's Dirty Water is a time-travel journey to Boston, where a gate that grants wishes brings fresh Christmas angst to the efforts of aliens, witches, a special toy store, and a grandfather's interest in exploring bygone Boston with his granddaughters. Time travel is vividly rendered and immersive in this gritty adventure, which links disparate figures and interests for a delightfully unpredictable romp. Both books are highly recommended for discriminating sci-fi collections.” —Midwest Book Review

In 1974, at age seventeen, Tom Kratman became a political refugee and defector from the PRM (People’s Republic of Massachusetts) by virtue of joining the Regular Army. He stayed a Regular Army infantryman most of his adult life, returning to Massachusetts as an unofficial dissident while attending Boston College after his first hitch. Back in the Army, he managed to do just about everything there was to do at one time or another. After the Gulf War, with the bottom dropping completely out of the anti-communist market, Tom decided to become a lawyer. Every now and again, when the frustrations of legal life and having to deal with other lawyers got to be too much, Tom would rejoin the Army (or a somewhat similar group, say) for fun and frolic in other climes. His family, muttering darkly, put up with this for years. He no longer practices law, instead writing full-time for Baen. His novels for Baen include A State of Disobedience, Caliphate, and the series consisting of A Desert Called Peace, Carnifex, The Lotus Eaters, The Amazon Legion, Come and Take Them, The Rods and the Axe, and A Pillar of Fire by Night. With John Ringo, he has written the novels Watch on the Rhine, Yellow Eyes, and The Tuloriad. Also for Baen, he has written the first three volumes of the modern-day military fiction series Countdown. He's recently co-authored the brilliant The Romanov Reign Series with Kacey Ezell and Justin Watson.

Genres: Time Travel, Alternate History, Fiction, Science Fiction

672 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 6, 2026

Reviews

[chvang · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

- Augustus

Addendum: I meant to give this 2 stars. The 1 star rating is an emotional reaction to the ending. It took too long to deliver, then didn't deliver, what it did deliver barely had any action, and then wasted more of my time promising a sequel.

Dull. Tedious. Overwhelmingly repetitive. Normally, when I give a book 1 star, it's because 1 star is the lowest rating available on Goodreads when what I really want is to give it 0 or even negatives tars. But not this one, it's a high 1 star. I would have given it 2 stars, but it wasted more of my time setting up a sequel with shenanigans in Britain (the book takes place on the Rhine frontier) and ends on a cliff hanger: the Huns arrive. To appreciate how how much goodwill that killed, know that this book's premise: Legio XIIX, destined to die in the Teutoburg Forest, is saved and transported through time into the 5th century when barbarian hordes are about to cross the Rhine and destroy the Western Roman Empire. The book doesn't deliver that. Instead, 4/5th of the book is spent setting up the final confrontation, then wastes rushes that and tries setting up a sequel.

Note: I know the audience for this genre, so don't get encouraged/ It's not the good kind of set-up, either, where the author meticulously details the logistics of a displaced legion defending a long frontier, nor the tactics of the Roman Empire at its peak being thrown against the Germans of 409 AD, nor the desperate strategy of needing to balance scarce resources against omnipresent need. No, it's just hundreds of pages of wasted pages filled with pedantic lectures about boring trivial the author wants to show off. We get it, you very shallowly browsed some Wikipedia articles about the Roman Empire you didn't fully understand and have even less understanding on how to bring it up naturally in conversations where you are literally puppeteering both sides of the discussion. Get on with it.

It's bad, but ... at least it's earnest? It's pedantic, but without being smug. The pedantry is also repetitive, and repeats the most uninteresting factoids, but again, in an earnest manner so instead of being an insufferable bore, it's ... a sufferable bore.

I hesitate to call the cast caricatures, because even though they are one-dimensional and unlikable, I don't think the author meant any malice in it. He meant right by them, he saw how heroes are depicted on TV and he wanted to emulate that, show that his guys are heroes, too, but this is just the best he can do.

Verdict: Picking up this book would be a waste of your time. I do not recommend this to anyone, especially not for fans of the "what if" and "versus" genre. The premise is awesome, but it doesn't give it to us until the last 4o pages (and it was too little and far too late) and then wastes the few pages we have left on setting up a sequel and side story.

"Tom Kratman, give me back my weekend!"

- Me

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting story. I assume this book is the first of a series based on how it ends. The character development is decent. It managed to hold my interest long enough for me to finish it (although I found myself starting to flip to the back to see how many pages I had left to read towards the end). I think this is because it starts out slow, picks up speed in parts, slows down a bit towards the end but then manages to finish fairly strong.

Regarding the character development: I found myself caring more for an historical character who did not make the jump - Flavus, a German ally of the Roman legion XIIX who had sneaked to join the 19th Legion (I do not remember how that one was named - maybe XIX?) to let them know the XIIX was going to march in hopes of meeting up with the XIX to join forces and either defeat the German traitors or escape. Flavus ultimately survives the ambush, for which I was grateful, but I was sad that he did not make the jump with the displaced legion because I really liked his character. I do not know what that says about the author's ability to develop characters that the character I "liked" (enjoyed?) the most (or had the most affinity for) was introduced and discarded early on in the book, hahahah!

The Roman legionnaires were fine as characters, I guess. Perhaps they will be developed more fully in future books because of how much "world building" had to take place in this book? Gaius Pompeius was fine as an inexperienced junior officer thrust into a command position in charge of several thousand men. Marcus Caelius was fairly solid as the "older, more experienced officer who takes the young buck under his wing and educates him in the finer points of leadership and warfare" and all that. The two of them had a good dynamic, overall, but at times it felt "forced" and "tongue-in-cheek" while winking at the reader. Other times, their dynamic did have a natural feel to it, so that was good.

I could see some of the Scythian women taken as wives becoming more important characters in future books. It was interesting, however, that many of the women "married" to the Legionnaires became Christians after crossing the Rhine and being exposed to Christianity, and this led to many of the soldiers becoming Christians as well. I was not necessarily expecting the author to go in that direction, so that was actually a pleasant surprise. I thought the Roman legion would remain exclusively ... "Roman" in its beliefs as opposed to members becoming Christians.

There were some other interactions between characters that I enjoyed. Granted, the one that comes most to mind is when the time-traveling Appius Calvus speaks with a humble Catholic priest to learn more about the various Christian sects in existence at this point in history in order to learn which sect's beliefs would best benefit the Legion. I thought they had some good interactions which surprised me as well.

I do have mixed feelings about this book because it feels like it took elements from different series and mixed them together into this book. When I read the premise, I immediately thought of David Drake's Ranks of Bronze and David Weber's The Excalibur Alternative stories. As I started reading it, I also got some vibes from Harry Turtledove's The Videssos Cycle involving a displaced Roman Legion as well as William R. Forstchen's Lost Regiment series. It also reminded me of elements of Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series (and the various offshoots of that series, such as Time Spike). So it was interesting to read this novel because I felt like I had read elements of it in other novels. Granted, the element of the Legion being saved by being moved across not just distance but time as well was an interesting concept; it makes me wonder more about the alien couple who were orbiting the Earth such that they were unaware of how their actions would displace the Legion across space (distance) and time. In Drake's book and Weber's book, the aliens who grab the human military forces are seeking to obtain low-tech forces to fight their battles for them on alien planets to get around the Galactic Federation's rules prohibiting using "modern weapons" against primitive races; this "event" is more of a "rescue" and "mercy mission" as the Legion is to be saved from extinction by the German foes.

The ending felt a little rushed to me as well as a little too convenient. Marcus Caelius arrives in the proverbial "nick of time" with reinforcements to save the Legion from the German horde that cross the frozen Rhine River. Which was odd to me - why could they not have fled back across the frozen river when they saw their camps were being burned? I do not recall it being said that the temperature suddenly rose such that the Rhine River was no longer frozen during the day as the forces battled.

It was weird. I know we the reader are supposed to cheer for the time-displaced Legion XIIX, but I actually found myself rooting for the Germans who marched across the frozen Rhine River and wanting them to win at the end, hahahah! I am not sure why that is, but I wanted them to if not win then battle the Romans to a stalemate and force more agreeable terms of co-existence. As it was, the Romans do not butcher the survivors of the Germanic forces (the Vandals, the Seubi, the Alans, and maybe some Goths) (thankfully!) but instead offer them terms that allow them to join the Empire while retaining aspects of their freedom. I realize the author did this to set up for the next couple of books or so in the series in order for the Roman forces in Germania to not just oppose the Huns but defeat them in the end (which is strongly reminiscent of The Lost Regiment series except that series takes place on an alien world that can support Terran life; the Union forces have to join forces with human civilizations on this other world to defeat an "alien" Horde called the Merki that sees humans as "cattle" for them to eat on their yearly cyclical migration).

I do think the author does a nice job of balancing out the "hate" and distrust the displaced Legionaries feel because of the German betrayal from 400 years before; it is still fresh in their minds despite it being "history" (if not quite "ancient history" to those living in the "current 'present' time" in which the story takes place) with the recognition they will need more men, more soldiers, to survive the encroaching Hun forces, and they can use these German survivors to their advantage in that regard. I also appreciated the admission on the part of the Roman leadership that atrocities had been committed by the "civilized" Romans as well, and it was interesting that each side considered the other "barbarians" and "barbaric" at times.

In the end, I enjoyed the book. Probably 2.5-2.7 generously rounded up to 3 stars (as I enjoyed it more than a 2-star rating would imply).

[Kent Bunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started out very slow, was originally a 2-3. But the book picked up, and was ultimately satisfying. It’s still no Misplaced Legion, but I did very much enjoy it.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book hopefully the beginning of series!

Very easy to read and the characters are not all good or evil. I still think it is funny as each group thinks the others are barbarians! And the fact, in their view they are correct. Tom is here to save the Roman empire or at least prolong it to skip the dark ages

[Ron Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if a Roman Legion was transported to the end of the Empire

This is an exceptional book by an excellent writer. The subject is well researched and the plot line and story believable.

[Tad Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

Fast moving, vibrant alternate history. Believeable characters, full of historical fact, as well as speculation.

A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Buy it now. Read it now.

[Harold Osburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great start to an intriguing new World

This is a story that exemplifies the extremes of the Roman army, from the rock hard legions to the watered down legions of a deteriorating empire. Tom has a great skill with world building and you will not be disappointed with this new novel.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jump forward, the old is (much) better than the new. In many ways a fun read.

[James Baldini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable

I'm looking forward to reading more of this series. I like your research into the time period and use of history. Let's see the Huns get their butts kicked.

[Thomas Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romping Read!

Loved this book from beginning to end with its evocative battle scenes, tales of solid Roman ingenuity and victory over the barbarians!!