IN THE MAIL: Harry Turtledove’s The Gladiator, part of his Crosstime Traffic series of Heinleinesque junior novels. There are no gladiators in this story — it’s the name of a gaming shop that’s part of an effort at subversion in a world where the Soviet Union won the Cold War. These books are pretty good — the InstaDaughter read Curious Notions and liked it a lot, even though she’s not much of a science fiction fan.