Island in the Sea of Time

By: S. M. Stirling

Narrated by: Todd McLaren

Length: 25 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

During a perfect spring evening on Nantucket, a violent storm erupts and a dome of crawling, colored fire blankets the island. When the howling winds subside and the night skies clear, the stars appear to have shifted. The mainland has become a wilderness of unbroken forest, where tools of bronze and stone litter the beaches, and primitive natives scatter in terror.

A startling phenomenon has occurred: The island of Nantucket has been swept into the long-ago past. With its inhabitants adrift in the year 1250 BC, there is only one question to be answered: Can they survive?

©1998 S. M. Stirling (P)2008 Tantor

This is one of my favorite book series!

Would you listen to Island in the Sea of Time again? Why?

It is a great story and an extremely well crafted novel. The complaints I am reading in the reviews seem so similar in theme - calling the book politically correct, objecting to a strong lesbian character, etc. So obviously homophobic and misogynistic. If you don't have a low intelligence or a closed mind I think that you will enjoy this series a great deal. There ARE many coincidences in this book and the coincidences are part of the story and are brought up. To criticize the story for the coincidences that are core to the story is a bit obtuse. It basically helps to convince me that someone has organized a hatchet job on the series and the author.

Which character – as performed by Todd McLaren – was your favorite?

Most of the main characters will very well developed. Both the heroes and villains. They all were interesting and I thought, very human if often quite exceptional. I would have a hard time picking. Martha might be my favorite. Strong woman with an extremely sharp mind.

I got lost in this sea of time

and I am richer for the experience. These travels back through time somewhat reminiscent of Weber's Safehold series are such an enlightening mix of history and science fiction. Nantucket citizens of the present are cast back 30 centuries into the past privileged to forge a brave new world. The characters are unexpected time travelers. Who would conceive of a black woman admiral in command of the Nantucket navy doing battle with the ancient Greeks and Egyptians led by one of the most evil characters ever brought to life in literature? I cheered her victories out loud. 75 hours of relentless interest. What a great series. Buy this and you won't be disappointed if you would love to change the past.

Great premise too much bigoted language for 2020

I love alternate history. I live time travel. I love technology expansionist books. I thought everything would be here. Well, it was, but only if you can stomach the offensive terms, trends, and descriptions used all throughout the book.

Listen to this before "Dies the fire"

I got this after i had listened to the "Dies the fire" series, and was slightly disappointed. Not that the book is bad, it isn't. Its quite good. But many of the same ideas, themes and plot devices are used in his later books (only natural, as they are all tied together). However, Island in a Sea of Time feels far less polished then the later books. Again, not surprising, but for maximum enjoyment and to try ro follow the proper timeline, this one first.

Great narration, and regardless of the order they are read, i enjoy SM Sterlings' writing, and this was no exception.

Great Listen

This is my first review of any audible "book" in the 4 years that I've been a member. This book held my interest and was so interesting that upon finishing this book I downloaded the other two books in this specific series. It's also my first foray into science fiction from mysteries and adventuer novels and I'm glad I downloaded it. It sure held my interest and made me want to listen to more books that the author has done. For me, it was a wonderful choice.

I Enjoyed This Book

I love time travel and this is well done. There are some strange plot contrivances (the hero is a female, black, gay ninja coast guard officer)but the battle scenes are gripping and fast and the adaptation of the moderns to bronze age realities is also realistic and interesting, though in my opinion, a bit optimistic. The main plot mechanism is a mutiny by a thoroughly evil subordinate so it is also a tale of good versus evil. We good; he bad. But for entertainment, the book is fast, interesting and plausible event though the precipitating "event" is never explained. The people have to live with the situation they are placed in. Hope this helps.

Full of characters who feel like real people

After a strange electrical storm, the residents of Nantucket discover that their entire island and its surrounding waters have been sent back to 1300 B.C. Now this society, which is mostly based on a tourist economy, must figure out how to establish a new identity in prehistory. This includes clearing and farming land, building ships, finding new sources of fuel, salt, and other necessities, and most difficult of all, developing a constitution and befriending native trading partners.

Fortunately, Nantucket has some citizens with valuable knowledge and skills who find themselves naturally rising to leadership positions: a brave and competent Baptist police chief, a widely-read and level-headed librarian, a black lesbian ship captain, a history professor, an astronomy student, the manager of the local grocery store, and a Catholic priest.

But of course there are also some citizens who cause problems: the church whose pastor teaches that sending Nantucket back in time was Satan???s plan to prevent the birth of Christ, and the ???flake-and-nut contingent??? who want to arm the natives so they???ll never be oppressed by future Americans. Then there???s the biggest threat of all ??? the ambitious Coast Guard Lieutenant William Walker who sees all this confusion as an opportunity to set up his very own kingdom.

I have a thing for time-travel novels ??? especially the Survivor-style stories in which modern people are forced to live in more uncivilized and unsophisticated times. Island in the Sea of Time has the added fun of actually having modern conveniences but not having the power or fuel to run them. Thus, the people of Nantucket must disassemble their cars for sheet metal while raiding their museums for whaling and milling antiques.

There???s more to this story than survival and industrial revolution, though. Island in the Sea of Time is full of characters who feel like real people ??? people you might actually know. For the most part their relationships and romances are believable and understandable as former strangers work together to create a new society. The villains, however, are over-the-top. It???s hard to believe in the doctor???s sadism, William Walker???s vast knowledge and foresight, and the granola crowds??? naivet?? (their leader is shocked that the natives are ???sexist,??? ???patriarchal,??? and ???abusive of animals??? and that they don???t immediately trust the Americans).

At times, Island in the Sea of Time becomes a bit teachy as characters discuss token economies, division of labor, ship building, linguistics, farming techniques, iron casting, steam engines, canning, the production of gunpowder, the use and care of firearms, etc. And it gets a little preachy as they discuss the creation of a new constitution. But generally I thought S.M. Stirling did a good job with this aspect of the book.

I read the audio version of Island in the Sea of Time, narrated by Todd McLaren and produced by Tantor Audio. The best thing I can say about it is that I mostly forgot I was listening to an audiobook ??? McLaren???s voices and cadences were so natural that they never called attention to themselves. The only time I was brought out of the story was when McLaren used his ???Boston??? voice for the U. Mass astronomy intern. But that???s not McLaren???s fault...

Island in the Sea of Time comes to a satisfactory end, but most readers will be eager to continue the islanders??? advances and adventures in the next book in S.M. Stirling???s Nantucket series: Against the Tide of Years.

Promising but mostly tedious

Hard to relate to the characters as the story drags on and on. The only interesting part is the Eagle, the captain and her love affair. I'm probably painting a rather dark picture of the book, but this is what I remember.

The best in ancient time travel

This is one of my favorites time travel series. If you every wondered what it would be like to go back to 2500BC (with our current tech) then you will be as fascinated with this book as I was. What makes this book so good is the great characters and their reactions to this impossible situation. Highly Command

Awesome Alternate Universe/Back in time Novel

S M Stirling wrote a great sister series to the Emberverse Series. With Emberverse, all technology including gun powder not longer works. In this series, Nantucket island is transported to pre-historical time like when Stonehenge was built and when Alexander the Great ruled.