Professor Martin Padway is an archaeologist and ancient historian visiting Rome. After a flash of lightning, he is transported back to 6th century Rome, at a time after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, when its carcass is being fought over by the Goths, who control Italy, and the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, which nevertheless still calls itself Roman. After a promising start, as Martin tries to find his feet and get his head round the dramatic and unbelievable change in his circumstances, he decides to make it his mission to change history, so that the Roman Empire will not fall, and the darkness of the so called "dark ages" will not descend. So he proceeds to create the printing press, telegraphs, clocks, and so on, as well as military technology to protect the micro-world he is trying to create. In my view, the novel deteriorates as he becomes very powerful and is quickly effectively running the government and is mainly able to persuade people to support his technological endeavours, despite a couple of close scrapes earlier on. In this respect, the novel is rather like an updated Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The final part contains a lot of descriptions of battles, which I always find a bit tedious. In places, this is quite funny, but overall rather a disappointment.