I started reading Janissaries because of Jo Walton's What Makes This Book so Great. (I may never finish the latter books because it keeps sending me to the library to checkout books that sound intriguing) To my surprise it caught my attention to the point where I abandoned other reading just to finish this (relatively) short book.
The concept is the familiar one where aliens have been visiting Earth secretly and abducting Earthlings. Where it differs is that this has happened during various eras, to the point where a whole other habitable planet has humans in it from various different epochs that are mysteriously stuck in a low tech environment.
The protagonist of the novel is an educated officer who's dropped into this settings with limited amounts of technology (a rifle, a pistol, limited ammunition, but no books, computers). We get to see him put together from his knowledge of military history how Roman legions were organized and how to effectively overcome them with archers and alternate formation and layout.
The book unfortunately makes use of a frequent trope, which is of people deliberately withholding information from each other even though there's no reason to do so, all so that there's a dramatic reveal in the last few pages of the book which (unfortunately) sets up for a series of novels set in the world. It was a fast, compelling, and fun read but not so great that I find myself wanting to run out and buy the sequels.
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