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Island in the Sea of Time |
List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19 |
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Product Info |
Reviews |
Rating: Summary: A Long Winded Political Harangue Review: This book combines a terrific idea and well crafted writing with an a boring, constant political harangue. In short, the island of Nantucket is transported to the Bronze Age. Luckily for this island group, the population is a cross section of just those skills a society would need living in the Bronze Age! Lucky indeed. Oddly from my pov, the author insists on making heros out of the strangest people. The political leader is a tyrannt, the military leader a strange neurotic lesbian who abandonned her family to captain a Coast Guard ship (right). The most interesting and sympathetic person is the first officer of the ship who runs a string of bad luck almost as unlikely as the 'good' guys run into good. Throughout the book, the author berates us with modern US far left liberal beliefs as being the only true and shining path for this group to take. That is, unless the subject is the native population who exist to either obey or die.
Rating: Summary: Excellent examination of modern man coping with the past Review: Stirling does a really great job of looking at how a small population of 20th century Americans learn to cope with suddenly being dumped into the bronze age. They manage it quite well, but Stirling gives them lots of advantages like an insulated location, a group of craft people who know weaving, farming, blacksmithing, engineering, sailing. Having a large sailing ship helps immeasurable. Ignoring the artistic license he takes with probabilities, it is a really great read!
Rating: Summary: Scary just thinking of the posability of changeing time. Review: How many people would love the chance to go back in time. The history would be real and the lifestyle would be real. He gives you a glimer of just what it would be like. Not a easy time but a on the edge, will I make it, time.
Rating: Summary: Interprets the workings of present & past eras brilliantly . Review: S. M. Stirling was extremely effective at communicating his dreams in a way that is clear and concise. The inner workings of everyday things that we tend to take for granted are explained with just the right amount of instruction and accuracy. Lots of enthusiastic action and graphic battle scenes keep you interested. Even though the story line moves around a bit, it is still easy to follow. He keeps you turning the pages so that you can find out what will happen next to each of the excellently well thought-out characters.
Rating: Summary: Great Read - With A RANGE of positive lead roles Review: I stumbled across this book before taking off on a two week vacation. I finished it in the first couple of days. I have not read much "alternative history" but this book has whetted my appetite for more. I thought the author handled the question of how the island realized they were affecting the future with their very existence was well handled. What are these people supposed to deal --sit there, eat nothing, and starve to death?....that is unrealistic. As at some point the book notes the fact that the charecters continue to exist proves that life goes on. I speculated in my mind of how "our" presenct would be like if this event had actually happened and civilization had gotten such s jump start. For the reviewers who don't like the lesbian captain....GROW UP. Gay men and women are and have always been here. We are just as "normal" as you and can be just as "emotionally screwed" up as straights. It was a delight to read a book with such a positive gay character. Thumbs up to the author. My only nitpick with it is that it seems a little to Tidy about how rapidly the Nantucketeers develop.....they just happen to have the people with the right backgrounds on the island. But a minor point
Rating: Summary: Fantasy - not science Review: In good sci-fi, explanations of extrodinary events are created based on present knowledge and speculation of our physical universe. The author here simply throws this so-called "Event" at us and makes no effort to explain it even quasi-scientifically. That's not sci-fi, that's fantasy. Also the concept that tampering with the past may have catastrophic effects on the future is just mentioned and dismissed, allowing the Nantuckettans license to slaughter all who oppose them. This story is very politically oriented with the author pushing militant-feminism, homosexuality, and gun control. Every character that voices opinions contrary to his views is mocked, made a fool of, or killed off. The Walker character was the only redeeming feature.
Rating: Summary: WOW! Magnificent Book! Review: I have to say that I absoulutley loved S.M. Stirling's 'Island in the Sea of Time'. It is a truly wonderful book. The idea of an entire island being transported back to 1250 b.c. is magnificent. This book is truly an outstanding read! If you like time travel or not, I encourage you to pick up this book!
Rating: Summary: Probably Stirling's worst book ever!!! Review: I'm sorry, but I really thought that this book was terrible. Part of the reason is me, but I just don't really see an emotionally messed-up dyke as a good main character. Furthermore, it was totally stupid in how the Nantuckett's were able to just sweep up the Walker's people. To be honest, the best character in the whole damn story is Will Walker, which makes the dyke Captain even more idiotic. And finally, Nantuckett? Why in the world would anyone want to do a story about one of the most backwards places in the world. If you're going to do a story like this, at least make it from a place that would actually have a good chance of making something happen. I really hope that Steve Stirling can come up with better than this (I loved the General series and The Rose Sea), but this was absolutely terrible.
Rating: Summary: Frighteningly real Review: I simply could not put this book down (sorry boss)! S. M. Stirling's ongoing series--of Nantucket Yankees ingeniously evolving the future while "cast away" into the Bronze Age three thousand years past--is a fascinating twist on the "alternate futures" genre of science fiction. Island in the Sea of Time is a wonderfully realized story of a modern peoples' struggle to adjust and survive in a time of great dislocation and desperate adversity. Transporting an entire group of modern Americans back in time means Stirling can legitimately give them modern politically correct personalities, and most effectively contrast these with Bronze Age mores. Thus understanding our heroes' modern motivations is "simpler" than in the "Byzantine" Videssos Cycle of Harry Turtledove, Stirling's model. The characters are very well drawn and differentiated, nor are we stuck only with laconic New Englanders as this colony in time expands. Only one person is a caricature, a New Age Environmentalist "Nazi" who is set up for a very bad end. I had real empathy for the desperate straits of the Nantucket Islanders isolated from everything familiar, and for the tension and anxiety regarding survival as the dire implications of their limited supplies unfolds. The tight focus on a small group of (once-fellow) Americans is highly involving: my god, what would I do if totally totally cut off from the 20th century? As an archaeologist I found Stirling's fleshing out of bare Beaker and Wessex Culture artifacts (like Stonehenge) to be marvelous, if incidental, fun.
Rating: Summary: Excellent read Review: I can't believe this sat on my shelf as long as it did. This is an excellent read. Take the island of Nantucket and throw it and its inhabitants back in time over two thousand years and then let them go. Excellent, excellent, excellent. I told myself to et busy and read the next one, but of course, it's sitting on the shelf waitng as well.I recommend this to all who enjoy time travel novels.
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