On the Oceans of Eternity

Rating:
Summary: Skip the rest, buy the best
Review: Alternate history tends to be idle speculations in a hackneyed series of the same 'might have beens' - the Persians beat the Greeks, Rome goes on forever, Napoleon wins at Waterloo, Hitler or Tojo win WWII in some absurd way. It takes a great writer to both do the research and bring it to life. Steve Stirling is that writer. The only complaint you can make at the end of the book is : WE WANT MORE. More on every story line, every character, every lose thread. It is a seldom a writer can make you think while writing characters whose fate you actually care about. A great ending to a great series.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as predecessors
Review: This is an entertaining book but not as good as its two predecessors. Overall, these books are a very successful continuation of the popular subgenre pioneered in De Camp's Lest Darkness Fall in which a contemporary American is transported to the past and changes history for the better. There are two major defects in construction of the present book. In the second book in this series, Stirling expanded considerably the geographic scope of the plot. This is understandable; who could resist the opportunity to play around with history in the Bronze Age Fertile Crescent or Myceanean Greece. Unfortunately, this meant introducing a number of subsidiary plot lines and by this volume, the parallel plot lines have become unwieldy and the book loses narrative coherence. Good editing would have been very helpful. Stirling also sacrifices some interesting lost opportunities; this book contains the historical equivalent of Ulysses and some other heroes of the Trojan War. More could have been done with these interesting characters without introducing new plot lines. The second major defect is the ending of the book. It appears that Stirling simply couldn't figure out a good ending and the conclusion is a transparent and largely unsatisfying effort to tie up loose ends. Several reviewers (see below) have commented on the schematic, pure good versus evil, nature of the principal characters. This is a fair but incomplete criticism. I suspect Stirling wished to avoid what might be termed western triumphalism. He wished to show that introduction of modern western technology is not by itself beneficial but only when driven by the right ideals. Consequently, the temporal transposition of Nantucket produces two offspring, the democratic and pragmatically idealistic Republic of Nantucket itself, and William Walker's Greek empire, a Stalinist state with the addition of chattel slavery. The latter is located, not coincidentally, in what would later become known as Sparta, the original totalitarian state. This is an attempt to be more intellectually honest than most books in this subgenre. Despite flaws, this is a superior and well researched entertainment with considerably more real intellectual content than most popular fiction. Stirling also has left open the door to sequels. These would be welcome but should be written more carefully than this book.

Rating:
Summary: A rather throwaway ending to a great saga...
Review: Island in the Sea of Time and Against the Tide of Years were fascinating stuff. Historical speculation, moral dilemmas, plausible heroes and villains (although Stirling's obsession with lesbians who are good at martial arts is something he might like to take up with his therapist) but even though I was gagging for the final resolution to the tale, I got the feeling the author was a bit bored with it all. Somehow this final volume doesn't quite hang together. The narrative jitters uneasily between several plotlines and I had the impression that we were seeing the result of several drafts, or several seperate short stories being dropped into the blender. I always thought that the point of having sub-plots was that they influenced each other, but there were at least two strands of narrative that resolved themself without seeming to influence anything else in the story, and I found myself muttering "get on with it" every time they came up. Perhaps they will feed into some future volume, but otherwise they seemed like padding.

I'm conscious that all this seems a bit peevish, and I don't mean to give the impression that this is a poor book. It's not. There are some wonderful moments, the best coming when Sterling concocts some really bizarre blends of ancient and modern - female ninjas at the fall of Troy, the villain appearing in a costume straight out of Star Wars, lines from Tolkein recycled for a tailor-made greek cult. There are times when Sterling is almost offensively clever, but I would still have liked to have seen a little bit more of the villainous Walker and a little less obsessive military detail. This book stil had something for everyone and I will still go out and buy Sterling's next ten books, but it was a dip from a previously very high standard.

Rating:
Summary: It f-f-fades away...
Review: I read the last 75 pages of this book with a feeling of dread. It had become obvious that all the threads were being gathered together for a quick and unsatisfying climax. There were far too many loose threads and 'oh yeah' sections to cover off all the leftover characters. The missing line at the end of the book was 'Stay tuned...' If Stirling is going to write a trilogy in four parts he should have the good taste to be clear about it. Or perhaps he could have done 5-10 pages to show us the new world of 199x and let us in on that secret.

Rating:
Summary: Like bad booze: A buzz with a bitter aftertaste
Review: Oceans, like Island and Tide, have shown that Sterling researches well and combines Bronze and modern age equipment, battle scenes, tactics and peoples resonably well. You will enjoy it again, but the feeling of frustration comes with this read.

While the first two books gave reasonable character development, the antagonists (especially Walker) turned into virtual idiots in sharp contrast to the "wise" politically correct dynamic duo super-heroines of Marian and 'dapa. (I thought they were going to pull out a magic lariot like Wonder Woman sometimes). Sure, having evil characters are great but they need a brain to satisfy and make you believe the author just didn't "stack the cards" to let the good guys win, which this book gave. Letting Arnstein live with the king at his leisure instead of interogation? Trying to start banks in an slave based economic system? Chasing an enemy through scortched ground and horrible weather away from your home base (a la Napoleon in Russia)? Sterling has tried to picture Walker as so despicable that he forgot that he is intelligent and adaptable to the lessons of history, which would have made him a more believable and realistic character, instead of a fool.

And the death of Walker and Alice looked like he was approaching his deadline. As a prior reviewer said, very Stephen King-like (Tommyknockers comes to mind).

But the story theme is a powerful and engaging one. You will probably enjoy it, but not as much as the prequels.

Rating:
Summary: Densely packed and satisfying
Review: Really enjoyed this one. Mr. Stirling creates a really rich alternate time line. I do have my doubts about a) how well Nantucket itself would fare if it really experienced the "Event" (I don't think modern folk are quite as resilient as those in the novels); and b) like other reviewers, I think the influence of Nantucket and its foes spreads far faster than would occur in reality.

But still, this series is a real achievement. Stirling displays his mastery of sea, air and land battle scenes (hey, a SEAL author!). I've read all Stirling's books, and he definitely has preferences for the same characters in different clothes (e.g. Alston and Swindapa compared to the female warrior couple in previous Stirling works), but I really enjoy his stuff.

He avoids the graphic qualities of his Draka series, which is both good and bad. On the one hand, some of the Draka stuff really disturbed me; on the other hand, it was being disturbed in a good way -- believable and logical in context, and you don't get disturbed by a book that hasn't successfully drawn you in. On the gripping hand (heh) I think Stirling really missed an opportunity to make Walker MORE evil -- I mean, Walker takes a main character prisoner and . . . doesn't do a whole lot with or to this person?

But all in all, a very good read. Would have been satisfied even had I paid a hardcover price for it.

Rating:
Summary: More of Same
Review: This series starts out with an interesting premise, but this third entry in the series really doesn't offer anything new. It's a competently enough written novel, but it just rehashes the same ground covered in the first two stories in the series.

If you are a die hard fan of the Republic of Nantucket, then it's a must buy. Otherwise, it's OK but no Hugo winner.

Rating:
Summary: Like a Chinese meal...
Review: ..._On the Oceans of Eternity_ is filling, but you feel hungry half an hour later. Stirling drops characters out, keeps the scene switching too fast (and without clear breaks), and leaves too many loose threads. Clearly at least one more book, or a second series, is in the wings, with Althea Walker seeking revenge from Ferghana, the fate of McAndrews still unknown (does he slip off to Nubia?), the question of whether Justin Clemens will be sending medical missions out to places like Meluhha up in the air, the disposition of the cult of Hecate is unmentioned, and the issue of what happens to the Tartessian base at Sacramento still not fully resolved.

I was deeply bothered by the abrupt way Walker, Hong, and co. were killed off. The use of the cardboard monster Helmut Mittler (H.Mittler, come on!)was, shall we say, overly contrived. The Walker-Hong sex scene was more annoying than disgusting, and probably unneccesary -- we already know they're creeps.

Rating:
Summary: Everything ties together but the story suffers
Review: The long story of the temporally exiled island of Nantucket finally ends with the villains dispatched or humbled and the forces of Political Correctness free to rewrite history forward of the bronze age.

Well, that's not quite fair. The author leaves quite a few potential enemies standing for another series of books. As I figure it, more than half the population of the world that survived the diseases spread by the Nantucket Diaspora will soon be armed with Civil War era weaponry, global mobility, and a grudge against Nantucket. Interesting times!

I wonder how the plucky citizens of Nantucket will deal with a Dragon fleet? Will their extremely rapid population explosion allow their republic to survive a change of administration? Or does (new president = civil war) every 4 years?

There is plenty of room for more adventures in this universe and a huge cast of characters. "On the Oceans of Eternity", however, shows a disturbing trend in this series toward too much research and too little storytelling.

You could cut every single song and poem out of the first half of the book and do nothing but improve it, IMO. The fascinating ideas Mr. Stirling played with in "Island in the Sea of Time" when he exposed Isketerol and Swindapa to 3000 years of human thinking are now totally ignored. Instead we are asked to believe 12000 Americans could build a global empire and field an army of thousands from nothing in 10 years.

This is all fantasy, of course, but I really cared about the story of the Nantucketer's struggle to survive the first few years and found their global empire in this book totally unbelievable. The battles went to the good guys a little too easily and were a little too recognizable from history or Stirling's previous work. The characterization of the bad guys really suffers in this book too. Only Isketerol, Ohotolarix, and MacAndrews have any depth.

I was particularly amused by the ease with which a UC History professor and an Astronomer were able to outmatch an ex-Stasi agent on his home turf. I pity their TA's!

To sum up, this book finishes the series. Barely. Certainly it does not maintain the level of ideas in the first book, nor it's storytelling.

Rating:
Summary: Another Excellent Book from Stirling
Review: Stirling seldom disappoints, and he hasn't done so this time. "On the Oceans of Eternity" is a fine book, every bit as enjoyable as its two predecessors -- though, frankly, there's enough going on that it could have been two slightly longer books. I'm not as sure as the other reviewers here that the series is over: Stirling has certainly been careful to give himself an opportunity for sequels if he wants them. Read it and you'll see what I mean.