Horror Book Reviews
More Details...Price: $7.99 |
Title: Island in the Sea of Time |
|
Review of Island in the Sea of Time
No Review at this Current Time
[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Movie Reviews Index ]
HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.
Submit Comment
Login / Join/Register for a free account
Comments for Island in the Sea of Time
- Posted on 2008-06-10
Excellent Idea and Execution, Subpar Conclusion
The first part was great, I loved the idea of Nantucket being tossed back to the Bronze Age. The contacting new cultures abroad aboard the /Eagle/ and dealing with problems back on the Island were the highlights of the whole book for me. Some parts I would've preferred not to have read; the Olmec jaguar scene for one.
Another thing that bothered me was Alice Hong. Pretty much every scene with her freaked me out. Remember: you have been warned.
When the book switched to dealing with Walker, I just got bored with it--I finished it, but it was forced, and I think that the book would've been far better if the author had stuck primarily with the exploration and contacting of the Bronze Age cultures, or at least make Walker a little more than a cruel ambitious empire builder.
All in all _Island in the Sea of Time_ is a wonderful piece of fiction and certainly much better than _1632_, which takes a much too similar premise. I would recommend this book to anyone who could handle the violence.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-04-22
A Fantastic, Exciting Read!!
This book was the first - but not the last - that I ever read by S.M. Stirling. After the first twenty or so pages, I was hooked. Forever.
The premise of the novel is simple: an unexplained electrical storm, of some unknown nature, sends the island of Nantucket back in time more than 3,000 years - to 1,250 B.C., the late Bronze Age. This strands seven thousand or so late 20th-century Americans alone in an ancient world. As the book's jacket blurb asks - "How will they survive?"
Stirling's answers to that question are not only brilliant - they are rich in detail, and they create AN ENTIRE, REALIZED WORLD. Many time-travel or alternative history stories interweave interesting ideas, but don't create a sense of actual, living, breathing reality; as a professional archaeologist, that's frustrating, because such stories are an imaginative way to see what might have been happening.
Not so with Stirling's book. The details about the lives of former Nantucket police chief Jared Cofflin, Coast Guard Captain Marian Alston, professor Ian Arnstein, astronomer Doreen Rosenthal, librarian Martha Stoddard, and renegade William Walker, are set in a complete world - with scenes ranging from Archaic period New England tribesmen, to the ancient Olmec city of San Lorenzo, to Bronze Age England - the "White Isle". And his characters from the past - Swindapa, Earth Folk Spear Chosen; Hardcase, clan leader and Native American entrepeneur; Daurthunnicar, lord of the Iraiina clan of warriors; and Isketerol, merchant lord of Tartessos - are believable, real, and FEEL like real characters with attitudes radically different than modern Americans.
This book is fantastic, fun to read, and very well written. I highly recommend it as a great read!!
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-04-14
island in the sea of time
Just enough science fiction to set up a very interesting situation---modern man meets ancient man (from 3000 years ago) in both settings. I am halfway through now, and look forward to the adventures in each chapter. If you like this type of thing, this is a good one.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-03-22
Very imaginative tale, characters and story well developed
Story premise of a modern American island and naval sailing ship displaced into a pre-historic time, but the same location, was made very real by descriptions of the event itself, it's affects on those carried along on this one-way trip, and their interactions with and reactions to their totally unexpected circumstance and primitive people they encountered. All the major characters were developed enough to have indiviudally unique and interesting personalities, with a real presence. Conjectured cultures for the people of England, Europe, and central America were quite believable in their variety of circumstances, behaviors, and the resulting inter-culture confrontations.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2008-01-25
It's a great book
JeezLoueeze, give the homophobia a rest, okay? The sex (of whatever kind) is mostly implied, and there's nothing graphic.
Anyway, if you like history, and always wondered what it would really be like to jump backwards in time, taking little along but your modern sensibilities, then this is the book for you. Stirling pretty much thinks of ALL the details: from the big (what to do about food) to the small (the town librarian prints all the CD-ROMs to hard copy before the power plant runs out of fuel). Amazingly, he really made me feel what it might be like, with all five senses, to actually be in another time period. That's pretty rare. The amount of research he must have had to do is pretty amazing.
The characters are REALLY believable. Nobody's superhuman, they all have strengths and weaknesses, and they all bring something to the plot. I'd happily invite quite a few of the characters over to dinner. The people from ancient times are all normal people - some bad, some good, VERY different viewpoints and perspectives, but they're still believable people. They're just from ancient times. Stirling is never patronizing about the "ancient" characters.
So if you like fiction that also engages your intellect, you're really going to enjoy this. And yes, I've just started the next book in the series.
Score: 5