/lit/ - Literature

Lest Darkness Fall - L. Sprague de Camp (1941)
I read this because I had seen it mentioned as an important novel of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi by various authors in various books. The Wikipedia article says that "The book is often considered one of the best examples of the alternate history genre; it is certainly one of the earliest and most influential."
The book was written in 1939, while "World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939". Mostly this was of interest because in the book it's stated at the very beginning that "There will be no more great wars, everybody knows it is too dangerous." I assume this was meant to be topical sarcasm, though he probably didn't expect what an understatement that would be.
The 30 year old American male protagonist*, an archaeologist, from 1938 is wandering around Rome and then lightning flashes and he finds himself back in 6th century Rome, in the midst of the Gothic War (535–554 C.E.). He adjusts rather quickly to his new circumstances. Luckily for him, he's well-educated and uses that to establish his place in this era. He opens a distillery and sells his knowledge about double-entry bookkeeping, the concept of zero, and other helpful ideas. I thought it was wonderful fun when was used his knowledge to do various things. Then of course, what would this be without the early invention of the printing press? I'm greatly interested in this sort of premise, but I haven't sought it out much. It was unfortunate for me that this slice of life couldn't last and he becomes involved with politics and war, which in this particular case were less interesting for me. I think it would be rather difficult to resist the lure of changing history in a drastic way. Many of the characters throughout the book were rather amusing which helped with the second half. Since he remembers the details of how the war will go and much else, it isn't too much trouble for him. His knowledge of the future doesn't help him at all though in the various relationships he has with various women. Probably the most important warfare technology he introduces is the semaphore telegraph. I would have liked to have seen how everything he did affected the future, but none of that was included, and it seems to be use branching timelines rather than affecting his own previous present. The book's central question is "Could the 'dark ages' have been prevented? If so, what would one need to do?".
*considering that the protagonist seems very similar to the author, including the same age at the time, if this had been written today, it'd probably be called a "self-insert isekai" by silly people.
Overall, I thought it to be a decently realistic portrayal of how someone would behave and I hope I find similar works that I enjoy more.
The rating is mostly for the first half or so. I went back and forth between rating it 3 and 4 stars. I'm not quite what it is about it that denied me from giving it an assured 4 stars.
Rating: 3.5/5