Lots and lots of potential in this one! I really enjoy the core idea of a newly discovered alien planet being linked with the Voynich Manuscript, one of history's most mysterious puzzles, and there is some solid setup to be enjoyed in the story. But Turtledove sort of lets the plot and suspense all fizzle out and die very quickly- the ending comes so fast and is quite dry, so that sucks up some of the enjoyment. I think the writing style was also effective: it starts out kind of technical and simple but as the story picks up the writing becomes more fluid.
Again, lots of potential, but just not fleshed out enough to make the story really stand out. ( )

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

A wonderful story by a famous writer of alternate history fantasies (UFOs in WWII = fantasy, don't @ me) about what the Voynich manuscript really means....

a hadadband from p66 of the Voynich manuscript, via Wikipedia
Suppose...just suppose...that intelligent life on other planets is as effed up as humanity is. Also suppose that intelligent life on a planet circling a red dwarf star, one of those very long-lived things, say for example TRAPPIST-1 (just to pull a name out of a hat!) has a lifespan commensurate with its star's huge lifespan. And now, in a final leap of the imagination, let's assume that the intelligence of these beings is similar to humanity's intelligence: Brutal, vicious, violent, and self-destructive.

Got the picture set in your head? Good!

Now assume that the sole survivor of a TRAPPIST-1 expedition to the recently detected life-bearing planet circling a middle-distance yellow dwarf star, one of the few in the galaxy that has no binary companion, got homesick after crashing in Renaissance Italy, wrote and illustrated a book of homely comforts, and somehow lost it in the course of living out his long, long life among the mayflies. He wouldn't worry about it much, no one could read it and there's no way to compare it to anything around so as to learn things they shouldn't know yet. But the mayflies get smarter...and the manuscript turns up to torment them with its inscrutability...and so our man from the stars gets a job cleaning the building where the manuscript lives.

For three hundred years.

Yep, you're in Turtledoveland! Read it free on Tor.com: https://www.tor.com/2020/02/19/manuscript-tradition-harry-turtledove/

Delightful. ( )