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Title: On the Oceans of Eternity
ISBN: 0451457803
Author:
S. M. Stirling
Publicate Date: 2000-04-01
Publish: 2000-04-01
List Price: $7.99
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Mass Market Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.14
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $4.08
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.99
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Must read si-fi
Book 3 in series,book 1 Island in the sea of time, book 2 Against the tide, now book 3,,outstanding alternative history series, hard to put down so get all 3 then start reading,enjoy.....
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2: Final Volume of the Trilogy, Maybe
Or is it part 2 of the sequel to Island in the Sea of Time (IISOT)? Either way, it is a great read, almost bringing closure to the story begun in Against the Tide of Years (there is a hook for a sequel: William Walker's daughter Althea isn't killed, but escapes to somewhere in central Asia, where she may someday get into mischief).
Kathryn Hollard marries Kashtiliash (who was, BTW, an actual historical king, as was his father); Ken marries (the fictional) Raupasha, and several other marriages occur.
One scene really stretches suspension of disbelief: at Tom Hollard's place on Long Island, there appear 132 marines. "The faces under the floppy canvas campaign hats were young, sweating, and tired with the day's route-march out to Fogarty's Cove and AND BACK . . . ." (emphasis added) From Long Island, they marched the 700+ miles to Fogarty's Cove, which is on the south shore of Chedabucto Bay, and 700+ miles back, all in one day? What were they? 132 clones of Jason P. Garrick?
Kidding aside (the author is completely within his rights to create a fictional Fogerty's Cove on Long Island) OTOOE is a great deal of fun to read, and as a bonus, you even learn something about ancient history.
watziznaym@gmail.com
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3: A Great Finish to A Great Series (With a Few Bobbles)
This novel, the third novel in Stirling's Nantucket trilogy, depicts the climatic conflict between the Republic of Nantucket, the free, democratic (in the literal sense of the term) society created by the Nantucket Islanders after being sent three thousand years into the past by a mysterious Event, and the despotic empire founded by the renegade Coast Guard officer and warlord William Walker.
From the epic battle scenes, to the pictures of individual life in the year 10 A.E. (After the Event; 1240 B.C. in our dating), this book is a wonderful finish to a great series. The characters are strongly drawn - in the most detail of any of the books in the series - and Stirling is equally skilled at his depictions of Big, Epic Events and detailed pictures of the lives of families, communities and individuals within the Republic of Nantucket, within Walker's empire, and in the many cultures worldwide encountered by both. However, despite its strengths, a couple of bobbles affect this book, as with its predecessors.
First: two of the biggest battle scenes in the novel are lifted bodily from elsewhere. The conflict at "O' Rourke's Ford" is, action for action, the movie "Zulu" set 3,000 years in the past; and the conflict between the forces of the Republic and the Tartessians at Gibraltar is the Battle of Trafalgar yet again. Stirling is a marvelous writer, but these two scenes should at least have been acknowledged in the preface, even though the exchange between O'Rourke and Kenneth Hollard at the end of the former slyly acknowledges it.
Second, given the smallpox epidemic and the measures which had to be taken to contain it at the close of the former novel, I'd have expected the Babylonians to be weaker than they are depicted, and Justin Clemens to have more difficulty than he encountered, in the third book. While the book is still plausible, a bit more acknowledgement of what took place in Babylon in the recent past would have been more convincing.
However, these are relatively minor quibbles with what is otherwise a fantastic book. I look forward eagerly to Stirling's next entry in this series!
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4: Both strong female and male characters abound....
Why is it when lead characters are strong women with both light and dark shades.....it's feminism and when (in the majority of such books) male lead characters are fleshed out with traits that may not be mainstream.....there's no hue and cry of chauvinism? Women can be just as strong, just as weak, just as bad and certainly just as sexual as any man. Some of the greatest conquerers and warriors of the ages were into male bonding of the very intimate kind, ie; Alexander the Great, ancient Sparta and there was a very definite sexual component in the relationships of the gladiators in ancient Rome. There are a myriad of very good studies that discuss the sexual component of the traditional "male bonding" related to testosterone laden sporting events. It's the height of arrogance and male egocentricity to play the "feminism card" as I've read in some comments. It does a disservice to a fine series with extremely interesting characters....both male and female. The author's less than inspired and disjointed storyline and treatment of some of the characters in the 3rd book are the fault of the author and not the characters. You want traditional "strong males", pick up some of the usual hackneyed "adventure" paperbacks at Walmart. There are of enough of them. Ad nauseum.
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5: Not as good as the first
This book is a pageturner. There's plot in abundance, and plenty of action.
Unfortunately, this book suffers from being overly simplistic and idealistic. Most of it is war and fighting, with the Nantucket islanders either being superhumanly competent "good people" vs. evil sociopaths, sadists and neo-nazis. The supreme military commander always ends up on the front lines or the behind the scenes elite missions. The guy out for a trek through America can organize raiding parties with the natives in a couple of days and appear silently behind scouts to snap their necks with his bare hands. The leadership is brilliant, and none of the main characters suffers any serious loss or makes critical errors of judgment.
The first book in this series started out with an interesting premise, but at this point it's about as realistic and surprising as a Tom Clancy novel.
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