Rating: 
Summary: Snatched to the past
Review: In 1998, the island of Nantucket, and a Coast Guard ship sailing nearby, experience a bizarre storm followed by strange colored lights in the sky. After the storm, they find the stars have changed, and they're probably in around 1250 BC. Those who don't kill themselves or go crazy must find ways to survive, and they do so by forming a new government and militia headed by a former police officer and the Coast Guard captain (who's a lesbian). Things seems to be going well until a Coast Guard officer named Walker seizes the weapons and heads toward what will be Britain to establish his own kingdom. Unwilling to let history be mangled by a megalomaniac, the Nantucket Islanders send their militia to stop his plans. But even if they win, what cost will be inflicted on history? Stirling's highly contagious story is thought-provoking and inventive, although the sheer mass of the story's scope weighs heavily on the reader, making some passages rather tedious. Unfortunately, the final battle of the book becomes a hearty cliché, but that certainly doesn't deter from any reader's enjoyment of this story. Provided, of course, that the reader doesn't mind reading about the starring lesbian couple. Even with my hesitations with this book, I am rather eager to find out what happens next, and that's due to Stirling's driving storytelling.
Rating:
Summary: Smart plot, exciting story, yet something's a little off
Review: One thing I love in fantasy or science fiction which is rarely done is "something amazing happens, no reason is really given - and from there the plot takes off." It worked in Replay by Ken Grimwood, Jumper by Steven Gould, Inferno by Larry Niven and to some extent Rama by Arthur C. Clark. All these Novels take an idea that everyone would like to read about, something with a whole lot of "what if" involved, and immediately begin working on the plot without spending a bunch of time EXPLAINING why the "amazing" event happened - it just does. S.M. Stirling manages to capture this feeling very well in his book "Island in the Sea of Time". In this novel we're presented with a very simple question: what would happen if you took a 20th century community, with all their gadgets and cultural skills, and placed it in the middle of 1300 BC?".
Good points:
1) the historical research involved seemed utterly believable. I'm not a historian, and most folks aren't either, so I think most readers will feel the way I do.
2) All the characters are different. Its as if there was a different writer for each character (David Eddings could use a little of that, but I digress).
3) There was an incredible "Okay folks, we're trapped in 1300 BC. We have work to do if we're going to survive!" feeling. Organizing a group of 5000 shocked-out-of-their minds Americans to live through the first year was probably the best part of the book.
Bad points:
1) As other reviewers have mentioned, Stirling has a fixation on rape, human waste and bloodshed. To be fair, Vikings raped, people dying do "void" occasionally during their last moments, and violence and humanity have always gone hand in hand. I wish the story had stuck with "brave new world - lets explore it!", and not with "Military, kill, rape, crucify, torture!"
2) Stirling likes to jump around between some of his characters a tad too much for my liking. Plenty of readers don't mind that, and more power to them, but its not my cup of tea.
3) Lots of lesbianism going on. In the case of the captain of the Coast Guard ship I found it believable, don't get me wrong. What bugs me is it kinda drives home the point that this book was written for men. Just about everything in this book was written for men.
Overall I'd say this book is fun, interesting and very readable. But a little....off.
Rating: 
Summary: Very disappinting, couldn't get though the entire book.
Review: "It was amazing what a combination of strong emotion, faulty assumptions, and inexperience could do. Make a high-IQ type act like an utter natural-born darned fool, for instance."This quote was made by one of the main characters in describing some of the antagonists, but I found it ironic that it was the perfect quote to describe the "heroes" of the book. While I take it out of context to describe my criticism of this book, feel free to apply it to this review if you disagree. I was very disappointed with this book. After reading so many positive reviews and testimonials, I was expecting an amazing fast-paced book that had a very fascinating plot. After struggling to get through 300 pages of this book, I had to put it back, banishing it behind a copy of 1632 and other science fiction (ironic since 1632 and this book have the same premise). Overall, the book had a very slow pace, after starting off extremely quickly. That is, the Nantucketers go back in time in the first four pages, yet 296 pages later are still muddling about. This would be forgiveable if these pages were spent on plot or character development, but little of that seems to occur across the chapters. The slow pace would have been so bad if the book had been fun to read in the interim. What was most bothersome, was that I found the book offensive from an author/character point of view for three primary reasons: 1) Women good. Men bad. With the exception of one abnormal representative from each gender, every main female character is portrayed as "good" or someone the author wants you to like. Likewise, every major male character (with one exception) is portrayed as "evil". Men committ suicide, murder helpless women, kill their wives, rape the helpless, and wage war. Women are the last bastions of peace, love their neighbor, etc. 2) The main hero is a bigot. Captain Alston is a minority to the nth degree in any reality, as she is a black, gay, divorced, woman captain in the coast guard. A combination that would be difficult to find in the Coast Guard today, let alone within a three-mile radius of a Rhode Island island. Yet, this character is not at all tolerant of others beliefs, even though she perceives herself as a minority. She is constantly judging other characters on brief meetings, and yet is rewarded for her behavior throughout the book. 3) The author sides with his characters. Now all authors create characters and then want them to win. But Stirling defends every decision made by the "good" characters through twists in the plot, and punishes any decisions by "evil" characters through the same mechanism. The "good" characters can never be outwitted by their evil counterparts, even when there is no reason to suspect subtrefuge. An excellent example is Capt. Alston's instinct that the main "evil" character will become "evil", with no evidence whatsoever. In her own words, it is something "less than a hunch", yet the author is constantly twisting the plot to make the "good" characters right. When you combine the slow pace with the above points, it just made the book not at all fun to read. I was hoping for a nice series to sink m teeth into, but I went ahead and pulled the other two books in the series out of my shopping cart after only getting half way through this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great!
Review: The ISOT series is wonderful. It just pulls you right in and doesn't let go. Oh man. The characters are great- the good guys are interesting, even though I liked Ian Arnstien, the historian way better then the coast guard chick. The Villains are better though, especially William Walker, who is the most engaging villain I've ever read. Nearly no redeemigng qualities, but it's great.... This is a great book.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Interesting Time Travel Book I've Ever Read!
Review: The idea of taking a nearly self sufficient island (Nantucket) and a steel hull sailing vessel back in time 3000 years is a fascinating literary tool... couple that with decent character development, well developed plot, and detailed, and accurate, historic settings and you have a better than average book! That, will get you 3 stars from me every time but this book goes several steps further with what I like to call the "clarity factor!" Which means the writing is clean and it has great pace... you are reluctant to stop at any point in the book! I've read this book several times as well as the other books in the trilogy, which are as good as this one! All in all a definite must for anyone who likes a good "WHAT IF" story! (Author's Edit) After years of searching for a story that intrgiued me as much as Mr. Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time" I've given up the quest. This book, and the others which make up the trilogy, is what I pick up when I can't find anything new to read. Mr. Stirling if you are reading this please continue on with this story line. I am dying to find out what happens next!
Rating:
Summary: Liked the concept, but not the execution.
Review: To be fair, taking a modern society and placing it back at the dawn of civilization is something that hasn't been tried before in time-travel science fiction. In doing just that, S.M Stirling has managed to come up with a new idea in a fairly tired genre. However, that does not mean that the concept has been successfully put into practice in Island in the Sea of Time. In fact, there are major flaws in the novel, both in plot and in characterizations. First of all, the trip to Britain. If I were deposited back in North America during the Bronze Age and needed supplies, I doubt I'd place taking a road trip to Britain high on my list of priorities. Especially since, according to Stirling, the only real reason the only reason for going there would be to obtain some wheat. Societies have been known to survive without it. And as there a fair bit of readily available local fauna, I doubt that they needed to bring back pigs that desperately. Another part of the plot that I personally had problems with was the Conquest of Mexico, Part II. I can accept, with a little bit of trouble, that perhaps someone who'd once had a case of the mumps might be able to infect the Olmecs and sterilize some of the males. However, even sterilising a large part of the adult male propulation wouldn't be enough to bring their civilisation to an end. The children presumably wouldn't be sterilised, and given a few generation their growth rate would probably be restored to what it was previously. Which bring me to the next problem. If merely coming into close contact with an asymptomatic carrier was enough to infect the Olmecs, why on earth wasn't Swindpapa also infected during her stay in Nantucket? Although she was from Europe, I don't think that there were many cases of the mumps or the measles going around Europe at this time. In fact, I believe that the mumps is a disease related to the bubonic plague, which didn't hit Europe until the 1300's. Swindpapa would have been just as prone to being infected as the Olmecs, yet no one on the island seems to have realised this. I could go on, but this are a few of the more irrating problems I noted. Generally, I liked the book but there was just some things about it that didn't ring true at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Striling is a good author but a very sick man
Review: This and the other two books in the Nantucket trilogy are excellent, but there is a good deal of totally unnecessary objectionable material in all three books. He gives graphic descriptions of deviate sexual acts (S&M) and the main characters in all three books are a lesbian couple where one member is 30-40 and the other is a teenager. None of their graphic sexual relationship or any of the off-color language that he litters his books with are even remotely related to the plot. He also seems to have a fecal facination. Apparently, the last thing that a person or animal does when they are killed is defecate. This is another of his big hang ups. There is a lot of killing in these books and he just loves to write about how they "void" before they die. He must have written that hundreds of times in the books. He also loves to tell of the stench of defecation that is present at the scene of a killing or battle. It is such a shame that he couldn't seek professional help for his obvious sexual and fecal issues before he sat down to write these books. If all of what I just mentioned isn't offensive to you, then you should read all three books.
Rating: 
Summary: What if.....
Review: What if a modern community was suddenly thrown back into the past. How would they survive? What would you do? What about the people of the past, how would they deal with these modern people? S. M. Stirling has written a great book that explores these topics. Nantucket Island and 7000 twentieth century people end up in 1250 B.C. The residents use their ingenuity and resourceful, plus a few lucky breaks (a Coast Guard sailing ship and some unusually talented people) to keep their community going. My only complaint is the accelerated pace of language acquisition and the construction/reconstruction of technology- in the "real" world both would take much longer than Stirling hypothesizes. I'm not a big fan of battle scenes, however, Stirling writes them very well. Reading this book will make you wonder "What would I do..."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent potboiler
Review: The above is not meant to be faint praise. I prefer a good potboiler to a thoughtful but meandering book. This is a very entertaining novel which I read mostly in 2 sittings. It certainly has much less padding than the Turtledove World War books. I hope the later books don't spend 100 pages on background like the Turtledove books do. I think some of the negative reviews can be explained by a culture clash between the audience for military fantasy and general SF. Considering the crypto-fascist leanings of much of the former genre I find complaints about Sterling's "liberal" agenda a bit rich. I thought that making the hero a career military woman, black, divorced, battered, an estranged mother, a Southerner, and gay was a bit too much baggage for one character. That said I liked the Marian Alston character. You could see the lesbian love affair coming a mile away, but it was cute. The "multi-culties" go to Central America plot line was obnoxious, though I do see why Stirling felt he needed it to give the Guard troops some battle experience before they hit the Bronze age. The martial arts stuff was a bit silly, too (I would have preferred more siege engines ;}). The Alice Hong character seemed like merely an excuse for some hot and kinky sex scenes. Why can't the good guys have hot sex? Also, I think the editor should have noticed the Asian dragonlady stereotype (probably bubbled up from Stirling's subconcious memories of some B films) and nixed it. BTW, the Nantucket constitution in the story follows the Swiss model in so far as citizens get to keep their weapons after compulsory military service. Hardly anti-gun-rights.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Alternate about this Alternate History. Read It!
Review: It is difficult to find the words to describe how thoroughly I enjoyed this book and its two sequels. Other than Harry Turtledove, only Steve Stirling could pull off the premise of this series: that the island of Nantucket and all on it are thrust into the world of 1250 B.C. Their survival and attempt to create a just and equitable society without repeating the mistakes of the past (or is it the future) make for great reading. Wonderful characters including an excellently crafted villain make this book a must for the alternate history fan or just the fan of a rousing good tale. Recommended without reservation.
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