And Now, in a Change to our Published Programme...

I'm very grateful to Ian Potter, author of The Revenants, for lending me a couple of books. This means that I can now review Set in Stone properly, and also do a timeslip on The Mother Road (which sounded interesting from bethhigdon's review) - many thanks, Ian! Of course, it also means my schedule is going to be delayed somewhat. I'm typing the start of this notice on Friday morning with the intention of putting it up later today, and I could just post the announcement and leave it at that; but something happened yesterday which amused and impressed me, and might be of interest to you too.

I do try to keep ahead of myself in gathering material for the marathon, with mixed success. When ordering from the library I'm at the whims of the people who currently have a book checked out, and that delayed my review of The Time Travellers; but they didn't have Byzantium! at all, so I ordered a cheap copy. (Incidentally, other than some short stories that can easily be skipped this means I've got everything I need up to Iananbarbara's departure, other than The Plotters, which I will be bidding on soon.)

It arrived yesterday, in oodles of time. My son opened the package, looked at the cover, and the following exchange ensued (slightly paraphrased since I don't have an eidetic memory):

Isaac: When is this supposed to be? That's not a standard legionary helmet, but they are wearing lorica segmentata, so they're not auxiliaries.

Me (largely ignorant of details): Hm? Well, it's Byzantium, so it's probably the Eastern Empire.

Isaac: They'd stopped using lorica segmentata by then. Anyway, the helmet doesn't look right for that.

Me: Well, I was only guessing - let's check when it's set.

[I head off to get Lance Parkin's Ahistory; sure enough I'm wrong, and it's set in 64 AD.]

Isaac: So they would have lorica. But it wasn't used for as long a period as most people think, you know?

[Isaac heads off to get his copy of Adrian Golsworthy's The Complete Roman Army, and very quickly finds a picture of the helmet.]

Isaac: See? It's a cavalry helmet, and its from completely the wrong time period. And anyway, that doesn't go with lorica segmentata because legionaries weren't cavalry and auxiliaries didn't wear it at the time.

Who knew? I love it when people are enthusiastic about something! He wants to join the Ermine Street Guard when he is old enough.