Customer Reviews

Island in the Sea of Time

5 star:		(55)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Island In the Sea of Time is the first novel in the Island In Time series. In the nineteenth century, Nantucket had been the bustling center of the New England whaling industry. Now the island is a quiet resort community of five thousand residents. During the tourist season, however, this island across the sound from Cape Cod is crowded with a population of over sixty thousand.

In this novel, Nantucket Island is enclosed in a elliptical dome of fire in March, 1998 AD, and transported back in time to 1249 BC. The Coast Guard training ship Eagle is also trapped in the dome and is taken back in time with the island. Various people recognize that the stars have changed, but Doreen Rosenthal, an astronomy intern for the Margaret Milson Association, is the first on the island to determine their situation, using her scope and stellar progression software to match the current star pattern.

The dome of fire caused some panic, but not much rioting; New Englanders tend to be a phlegmatic lot and it was a little early for the "coofs" to arrive. However, the loss of contact with the twentieth century caused widespread depression, with some suicides among people now separated from their families. Even the Eagle lost her executive officer.

After the excitement died down a bit, the islanders and their fellow exiles in time began to plan for the future. Three fishing boats were in harbor at the time of the event and cod is thick in the surrounding waters. Luckily, Nantucket also had some truck farms dealing in speciality items as well as family gardens, but these farms needed to be greatly expanded to offset the loss of off-island food sources. Moreover, fabricated goods would have to be produced on the island, recycled from existing materiel, or replaced with something else.

Petroleum products, for example, are very limited on the island. However, the islanders can return to whaling, for these sea mammals are very plentiful in this time. Although some of the islanders preferred another approach, whaling was the most feasible alternative for fuel and for food.

Since Cape Cod and the mainland are populated by basically neolithic natives, the islanders make minimal contact with them. However, Europe is currently developing a cottage industry that could supply them with metal and fabric stocks. The Eagle is sent to England -- the Tin Isles -- to explore trade possibilities and there they met other traders from the Mediterranean.

This story is an alternate history much like de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, where contemporary people accidently travel back in time to create a nexus from which one or more additional timelines diverge. Their sheer presence will change the future, but as they develop anachronistic solutions to their survival problems, the timelines diverge even more radically. What will the future bring?

Other reviews have complained about the personality and actions of the various characters. Since there is plenty of historical evidence of similiar behavior in our own past (and present), what should the author have done? He is not writing an utopia (nor a dystopia), but an adventure story of castaways in time. Maybe these other reviewers ought to study the behavior of castaways and learn something about the real world?

Highly recommended for Stirling and de Camp fans and for anyone who enjoys tales of exiles in time recreating the world to meet their needs and expectations.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Very well thought-out and exciting with the right mix of detail and action. The author skillfully managed to balance the description of the world he created - recreated actually, invention by invention - without making the book slow and dull.

The book does slow in the middle a bit but picks-up nicely until it becomes hard to put down by the end. The first half of the book is equally exiting.

This really is alternate histories out there, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the residents of Nantucket lose then re-gain all the things we now take for granted.

When the entire island of Nantucket is thrown back into the bronze age, the islanders have a problem. Their technology depends too much on imports from the now-vanished mainland. And even feeding the island will be tough--with no grains closer than England. Fortunately, a coast guard training square rigger was caught up in the time event and so the island isn't helpless. But even contacting the bronze age civilizations of Europe, let alone the stone-age cultures of the new world, has its problems. Plague for one thing as the time travellers replicate the European accidental genocide of the Native American population. But the bronze age savages of Europe are tough--and are good enough sailers that they could reach the new world if they knew where to look--and learned what a treasure-trove an entire island of 20th century technology can offer.

The island has a chance if everyone pulls together and police chief-turned political leader Jared Cofflin and coast guard captain Marian Alston do their best to ensure that everyone does so. Unfortunately, human nature rarely allows pure altrusim. In the case of Nantucket, there are those who want to carve out their own kingdom and those who want to prevent the re-creation of western culture. Either could be dangerous. Together, the two forces might just scuttle any hopes for survival--let alone return to the days of the hot shower.

Author S. M. Stirling writes an exciting story. A small city like Nantucket has close to the critical mass needed for modern civilization, but lacks the raw materials that are essential to our lives. As the time travellers contact other people, their risk grows. Stirling personalizes Cofflin and Alston, making the reader care about these characters and their attempts to recreate order in the midst of madness. Fans of military SF will enjoy the battle scenes as the Nantucket residents create effective military technology without access to gunpowder or smokeless powder.

I especially enjoyed Stirling's descriptions of the celtic war bands. With echos of Homer and the Germanic invasions of the late Roman period, the war leaders were proud, generous to followers, and quick to adopt a new military technology. Stirling also hinted at some interesting philosophical questions by setting modern (mostly Christian) people in a world centuries before Jesus, Mohammed, or Plato would be born.

This book starts out well, but gets pretty mundane about half way through. I've read other shorter Sterling novels and found them entertaining, but I really don't think he is capable of writing a 600+ page novel. His characters are just too weak and grow boring. The book is too long and too politically correct. Too much tedious detail about forming a government, too much unbelievable claptrap about forming an effective fight force out of a bunch of Coast Guard cadets and Nantucket Islanders.
I believe Sterling just tried to make this novel do too much. I won't be buying the sequel.

This is one of the greatest works of alternate history/sci-fi ever. Brilliant speculation on how a twentieth-century community would interact with a bronze age world.

Highly recommended.

I'm going to preface this review with the statement that I was unable to finish this story and will not be reading the sequels either because I could not stomach the actions of the villans. This is not a series for anyone who can't cope with depictions of torture, and deliberate actions of cruelty. I sincerely hope that Alice Hong gets what's coming to her in future installments.

That aside, I really did enjoy the rest of this book. Unless you're an 'expert' with a bone to pick with anyone who dares to dabble with your field of expertise, or have issues with strong women, homosexuality, academics, vaguely left-wing politics or semi-graphic sex scenes, you have a pretty good chance of really enjoying this book.

The characters are interesting, varied and well fleshed out, as are the friendships and relationships between them. I enjoyed reading about the people of Nantucket reacting to the Event, organizing their society, travelling and meeting other cultures. It's obvous that a lot of research has gone into this story, and there is some fascinating as well as sobering stuff in here.

If this book didn't have Alice Hong, I'd give it five stars and pride of place on my shelf.

Until the last few chapters, I was enjoying this book. It was entertaining and a wonderful break from doing work. However, in the middle of the final battle and completely without context, the main heroine voices a very racist and derogatory remark. If it weren't for that comment, placed in the mind of a woman who the reader is supposed to admire, I would recommend this book highly. As it is, I don't feel I can recommend it at all, and I refuse to buy any more of his works. I don't want to sound preachy, but I can not condone truly insulting remarks like the one he made, which I do not feel comfortable writing in a public forum. The last thing we need is a respected author blatantly spouting ignorant, racist lies. There is really more than enough hatred in this world. For this reason, I strongly do not recommend this book. There are plenty of other works that are as well, if not better written, which do not insult approximately a third of the world's population and dismiss millions of people so inappropriately. I am an avid science fiction fan, and I do not object to authors characterizing the bad guys negatively. Bad mouthing the enemy in clever ways can be part of the fun of a book. But to talk about people who are entirely unrelated to the plot of the book and unrepresented in the book ignorantly, to reinforce all of the negative stereotypes that are circulating, is ridiculous. It insults his reader almost as much as the population he is insulting. Sorry for the diatribe -- I'm still a bit upset about reading it. I was enjoying the book, and I would have liked to read more. I simply can't now, without feeling like a complete hypocrite.

I tried reading it but couldn't complete it. A lot of what happens in here seemed to be way too convenient and easy, like people who just happened to have requisite Bronze Age survival skills on the island before it was blown back in time, the era's locals having a high-enough learning curve to pick up English within a couple of months, the Coast Guard training barque Eagle being on scene and her lesbian captain scoring a hot blonde native babe, and practically the entire Nantucket town government and police department being on the mainland before the transition as well as the Massachusetts State Police's Nantucket barracks (a ready-made ground militia right there) not even making the journey. There was also a fair amount of stupidity from some characters who wanted to commit some revisionism without fully understanding the situation, like a black Coast Guard cadet wanting to warn Africa about European slavers even though the great African kingdoms won't exist for a least another millennium, and one woman who wants to give the Olmecs a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica to prepare for the conquistadores even though they literally don't understand English.
It was a good idea for a book that just didn't play out that well.

S. M. Stirling's book, "Island in the Sea of Time," succeeds greatly as a piece of escapist fiction in a speculative history context. The story consists of the late 20th century island of Nantucket being unexplicably (Stirling doesn't even try to explain it) sent back to the Bronze Age. This book details their initial struggle to adapt and survive in this world, at once familiar and alien.

The main characters are largely believable. Stirling thankfully takes the time to develop them to be more than talking props for his storyline. One flaw is that by the end of the book, the characters do become rather predictable. Everyone except the villains seems perfectly content with their role and function, and perfectly comfortable with the roles and functions of each other as well. Ambition, unpredictability, and simple growth and change have abandoned the Nantucketers by the end of the book. Also (with the single exception of one Bronze Age woman rescued by the Nantucketers early on) Stirling leaves the Bronze Age characters very two dimensional, predictable, and inferior to modern people in every respect.

One notable success in characterization is Stirling's main villain, William Walker. Rather than casting him as stereotypical "evil" man, Walker is depicted as merely ambitious. His love of the Bronze Age and desire to rule it are perfectly understandable and plausible. His Machiavellian tactics and modern knowledge make him very powerful by Bronze Age standards, and therefore immediately and believably threatening to the Nantucketers.

Stirling's decision to cast his main hero as a female, black, lesbian is the first example of gratuitous multiculturalism I remember seeing in a book of this sort. There simply was no point to it. The plot would have been far more suited to a black male, or even a white male character. The only point of making this character a "triple minority" seemed to be Stirling's desire to place occasional tired shibboleths about tolerance and diversity awkwardly within the story. This choice truly contributed nothing of value, and forced the reader to ignore some unnecessary implausibility's - like the notion that women and men are absolutely equal in hand-to-hand combat ability, and that lesbianism would be far more accepted by Bronze Age people than modern people.

The other major flaw in the book is Stirling's mystical reverence for Eastern martial arts (referred to in the book as simply "the Art"). Characters without combat experience who have studied "the Art" for mere weeks easily stand toe to toe with hulking, powerful, Bronze Age warriors who are veterans of dozens if not hundreds of such battles. Those with more experience in "the Art" win every battle almost without breaking a sweat. This is silly on its face, and quite disappointing to the plot. Stirling's elevated reverence for the Eastern martial arts stifles his exploration of what Bronze Age martial arts might have been like, and their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Outside of the flaws, the story is interesting. From the characters' first struggles to survive in their isolation from modern society, to their exploration of Britain, to a few pitched battles described in great detail, there is a lot to enjoy. It is a fun book that only frustrates when one attempts to take it too seriously. Despite the flaws, it is still head and shoulders above most books of this genre.

Well researched, this book oozes detail, and well drawn characters. Nantucket island is cast back in time 3000 and more years where the characters have to create a life for themselves from what is left of the 20th century. Not only that but they must find a way to trade and build a place for themsleves in this new/old world.

The story is nicely paced and plotted in a way that makes you want to continue reading well into the night. It fascinates in the way it makes you wonder what you would do in a similar situation: how would you measure up to the dislocation and opportunities that 1250bc would bring to a 21st century individual?

The only gripes I'd have is that sometimes there is too much detail which distracts from the pace of the action at times. The Euro-centric focus has to be balanced by a black southern lesbian - a little PC contrivance - which makes it hard work for the writer to make believable and for the reader to believe it - the writer is a white, male, northerner afterall ... but I'd have to defer to others myself for an opinion on whether that it is sucessful or not. But it seemed contrived.