Island in the Sea of Time

I read this series a loooong time ago, but since I have become a published author myself in the interim, I have come to realize the value of reviews, so I am making a point to go back and leave reviews for some of the books I read that have stuck with me over the years.And Lord, this series is one of them. I have read and re-read this trilogy so many times I've lost count. And every time, I get to the end of the third book and curse a bit that Stirling never revisited the Nantucket-verse later on. I REALLY want to see what happens next!But back to the first novel.In some ways, I like this one the best, even though it had some problems. I find the adjustments that the Nantucketers have to make fascinating and fun to read over and over. For those who have criticized that the cast of experts on the island strained credulity, I would point out a couple things:1)It would have been damned boring to read about them summarily starving to deathand2)It's revealed much later in the Dies the Fire series that SPOILER WARNINGnone of this was random, it was all very intentional.END SPOILERThere are a couple things that bothered me about the first novel and the series. They've been mentioned before, but they did irritate me then and still when re-reading it.First, there was really no need to make Captain Alston a lesbian or even a woman. In fact, she would have been far more believable as a man. I don't care how skilled she was, there was no way she could have done what she did hand-to-hand against men who fought constantly as the Bronze-Agers did.Second, as has been said, Mr. Stirling is far too enamored with Eastern martial arts. I am a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and I have also trained for a year in Krav Maga and cross trained for a while in BJJ, two different styles of karate and judo. I've sparred with people trained in judo, BJJ, ju jitsu, kung fu and karate. While training in Krav Maga, my main trainer was a professional MMA fighter. I also boxed and wrestled in high school. And I can tell you that the style of fighting you follow is oh-so-much-less-important than the skill you've obtained and how much speed you've developed. Speed kills. Whatever you're going to do, if you do it faster than the guy you're fighting, you will most likely win.Which is why the Nantucketers beating guys mano-a-mano who've been fighting armed and unarmed their whole lives since they were boys is utterly ridiculous. Particularly Walker, who has only been studying martial arts for 6-7 years max, going in and beating a Bronze-Age warrior to death with his bare hands. Nope, don't buy that. The fighting is also unrealistic in just the plain physics of it.That said, MOST hand to hand fighting in science fiction in particular is unrealistic, so I didn't find it too hard to overlook this and enjoy the novel, and the novel was very enjoyable. I particularly liked that NO ONE among the Nantucketers really wanted to be in charge. That was very realistic, although it would have been better had there been one person who DID want to be in charge who was totally unsuited to it.All things considered, the ISOT series and this book in particular are among my favorite fiction books ever, despite a few flaws.One last thing. I have since bought the audible versions of all three books, and while they are in general very good and easy to listen to, a couple things bug me. First, the different voices are not well done by the narrator. His attempts at an "Asian American" accent are terrible, as is his attempt to represent Marion Alston's South Carolina accent. And second, his mispronunciations of common words is grating. He pronounces "corpsman" as corpse-man rather than cor-man, for instance. He also doesn't seem to understand how to use inflection to represent an italicized word. I think they definitely could have done better.

Saw this book many times and thought I’d already read it but hadn’t. I often enjoy the first book in a apocalyptic/time travel series but find the others in the series often become more fantasy than Sci-Fi, I hope this series doesn’t follow the pattern.

Great book contrasts technology, time and the human spirit. Great characters and personal challenges to rise to greatness in their own terms

This is a good set up but occasionally the heroes get lucky breaks for plot reasons.

As the author of  Escape to Freedom , I know a good novel when I see one, and this isn't a good novel...it's a great novel!After a strange electrical storm, the residents of Nantucket discover that their entire island and its surrounding waters have been sent back to 1300 B.C. Now this society, which is mostly based on a tourist economy, must figure out how to establish a new identity in prehistory. This includes clearing and farming land, building ships, finding new sources of fuel, salt, and other necessities, and most difficult of all, developing a constitution and befriending native trading partners.Fortunately, Nantucket has some citizens with valuable knowledge and skills who find themselves naturally rising to leadership positions: a brave and competent Baptist police chief, a widely-read and level-headed librarian, a black lesbian ship captain, a history professor, an astronomy student, the manager of the local grocery store, and a Catholic priest.But of course there are also some citizens who cause problems: the church whose pastor teaches that sending Nantucket back in time was Satan's plan to prevent the birth of Christ, and the "flake-and-nut contingent" who want to arm the natives so they'll never be oppressed by future Americans. Then there's the biggest threat of all -- the ambitious Coast Guard Lieutenant William Walker who sees all this confusion as an opportunity to set up his very own kingdom.I have a thing for time-travel novels -- especially the Survivor-style stories in which modern people are forced to live in more uncivilized and unsophisticated times. Island in the Sea of Time has the added fun of actually having modern conveniences but not having the power or fuel to run them. Thus, the people of Nantucket must disassemble their cars for sheet metal while raiding their museums for whaling and milling antiques.There's more to this story than survival and industrial revolution, though. Island in the Sea of Time is full of characters who feel like real people -- people you might actually know. For the most part their relationships and romances are believable and understandable as former strangers work together to create a new society. The villains, however, are over-the-top. It's hard to believe in the doctor's sadism, William Walker's vast knowledge and foresight, and the granola crowds' naiveté (their leader is shocked that the natives are "sexist," "patriarchal," and "abusive of animals" and that they don't immediately trust the Americans).At times, Island in the Sea of Time becomes a bit teachy as characters discuss token economies, division of labor, ship building, linguistics, farming techniques, iron casting, steam engines, canning, the production of gunpowder, the use and care of firearms, etc. And it gets a little preachy as they discuss the creation of a new constitution. But generally I thought S.M. Stirling did a good job with this aspect of the book.

This is my first book by S. M Stirling. It's also my first for alternate history which I tend to avoid in the belief that the genre is a cop out and a lot of navel-gazing (i.e. "what-if" is a waste of time).However, I was pleasantly surprised by "Island". It's a gripping read from the start, and I felt involved from the first page in the dilemma of the Nantuckians who are marooned many years in the past.Contrary to other reviewers' comments, I did not find the nautical references OTT. For OTT, read Patrick O'Brien. I felt that both the nautical and martial arts references added saltiness and veracity to the novel.WARNING - SPOILERS:I like the explanation for why the Mesoamerican civilisation came to an end - it's always been a bit of a mystery that such a huge and seemingly-sophisticated civilisation suddenly vanished. There's a theory that they became too big and couldn't sustain themselves because they ran out of food and the means to grow the food. I like the author's posit that mumps caused the males to become infertile. That seems all too plausible.What I found a bit incredulous and patronising is the author's belief that the people of that age didn't have very good sexual technique and Walker's observation that the primitive men lacked foreplay. I mean ... where did the author get this fact from? I can't believe that the primitive people weren't more than beasts where sex was concerned, and weren't inventive enough to have foreplay.The same applied to fighting techniques: 20th-century man (using Japanese martial arts techniques) proved superior to primitive man in hand-to-hand combat. Seeing that Japanese martial arts techniques are actually quite old and have taken many years to perfect, what's the possibility that primitive man may already have worked out some nifty techniques himself?I also started glazing over at the battle scene at the end - sorry. I just haven't got enough testosterone in me to find that interesting. It's not that I don't appreciate a good battle scene - I've read almost all the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell. It's just that the ending seemed to drag and I felt that the author tried to wrap everything up in a Hollywood alls-well way.CONCLUSION:The novel is good enough for me to have ordered the two sequels, and I'm interested in the author's other series. However, for me, the judge of a great book is whether or not I'll re-read it. And for me the characters in "Island" aren't gripping enough to beg for a re-read.Update 15 July 2011 - OK, I've finished the sequels and the first book was the best. The last book is a kind of catch-me-up with the author trying to tie up loose ends and making sure that the baddies get their comeuppance. In terms of originality, it's more of the same. So IMHO, don't bother with books 2 and 3. Plus he still has this misplaced idea that primitive man were less sophisticated in terms of sexual technique, but unless we can time travel like the Nantuckians, we will never know. Finally, a map would have been very handy.

This is one of those books that is often said to define its sub-genre (modern people thrown back in time to live amongst savages - it's a surprisingly common theme in bad scifi/fantasy), by an author who is a giant in his genre (alternate history). And it was pretty much what I expected. It has no literary merit whatsoever. The people in it have such oh-so-conveniently chosen skills and attitudes, the heroes are suitably heroic, the good guys are ever-so-good, the bad guys are particularly nasty and traditionally one-dimensional, and the fools are especially foolish. The plot is broadly predictable. And it was thoroughly enjoyable. It could have done with a bit of trimming, perhaps - a few scenes are completely unnecessary - but I recommend this book.However, it has Sequels. I'm going to read them, but I'm not expecting them to be anywhere near as much fun.

I have always liked alternate histories, although the quality varies. I also love time travel stories, some more than others. When the two concepts are combined then the results can vary but this is one of the better time travel/alternate history novels.This tells the story of a small community, on the island of Nantucket, where the island and surrounding sea is flung back in time by over three thousand years. The clash and coming together of differing cultures is told well and has forced me to buy the other two books in the trilogy, as I want to know what happens next.Entertaining stuff.Ray Smillie

Good page turning story and if you are not pedantic, quite plausible. The second book is almost as good. By the third he is over embellishing almost everything and by the last third of the third book I was skipping pages and speed reading sections. But to be fair I did read 2 and 3 in quick succession.Agree with other comments about the martial arts, its OTT.Too many blinking naval engagements aswell.'ayup'...irritating beyond belief, though I bet its authentic.Ends with too many characters overall and this is why some are weak. I'd have liked to see Swindapa explored more (sic:-)Second book Walker is the most interesting character and in the third he seems to realise this and tries to introduce half a dozen new characters and situations which means he skips about too much. 'The greek one' works well though :-)On balance take a break between the 2nd and 3rd book and you'll have a lot of fun with this trilogy

I can't really say much that hasn't already been covered, so just two brief points;first, I enjoyed it all especially the detail of how the people go about surviving and then developing. Second a small moan, I'd really have appreciated some simple maps, I had to get out an atlas in the end....