On the Oceans of Eternity 
asked by skywalker on November 3, 2006 9:39 PM
In the bestselling Island in the Sea of Time, 20th-century Nantucket was inexplicably hurled back to the Bronze Age. In the sequel, Against the Tide of Years, the villainous renegade William Walker introduced muskets, cannon, and other deadly anachronisms to Odysseus's Greece, making himself king and positioning himself to overthrow the democratic Republic of Nantucket and destroy his archenemy, Commodore Marian Alston. Now, in the trilogy's rousing conclusion, On the Oceans of Eternity, Walker's powerful army conquers Troy and invades Babylon, Nantucket's last great ally, as Walker's blood brother, the king of Tartessos, blocks Commodore Alston's Nantucket navy at the straits of Gibraltar. If Nantucket's tiny forces cannot defeat Walker's army and allies, the world will be plunged into a Dark Age bleaker and more devastating than any known in our history.
On the Oceans of Eternity ends cleanly, yet leaves the door open for a number of interesting sequels--and how often can you say that? Like its prequels, On the Oceans of Eternity is big, bloody, and ambitious, but always fast-paced and fascinating. This fun, intelligent series is perfect not only for action-adventure, alternate history, time travel, and military-SF fans but also for epic fantasy readers, for Burroughs and Haggard fans craving a modern update of the lost-civilization novel, and for anyone who loves Patrick O'Brian's sensational sea battles. --Cynthia Ward
Reviews
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I'm very disappointed by the fact that Mr. Stirling plagiarized scenes from the movie Zulu for portions of this book. I was loving the series and reading it as fast as I could when I came across scenes virtually copies from the movie. I've enjoyed everything Mr. Stirling has written so far, but this was just very, very disappointing to me.
reviewed by gilbert on November 19, 2006 7:12 PM
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The first two books of this trilogy were actually quite good. I was impressed with much of the detail for books 1 and 2. However, Book 3 was very choppy and inconsistent. It's unfortunate that instead of creating a credible battle at O'Rourke's Ford, Stirling had to copy the movie "Zulu". One thing I never understood about that is at the beginning of the battle, the Nantucket commanders were worried about the dead ground and how enemy mortars would play hell on their position, but there was no more mention after that. It seems inconceivable that as intelligent as Walker was (I liked the fact that there was a smart villain), he would not have supported a force of that size with some rudimentary artillery to reinforce the attack. Bear in mind that in the Bronze Age, a few thousand troops was actually a considerable force. The historic Battle of Kadesh, which Stirling mentions several times, is remembered primarily because it was a huge battle (about 20-25,000 men on each side, with lots of chariots). Relatively, this battle between the Hittites and the Egyptians would have been the equivalent to a modern day NATO-Warsaw Pact war.
Secondly, I was a bit perplexed concerning the Nantucket-Tartessos war. It seemed to me that Stirling ran into a problem of how the Alston "pincer plan" would work if Tartessos was not neutralized, and so created the surprise attack on Nantucket. But even this is somewhat farfetched. Isketerol is supposed to be some sort of genius, but launching a half-hearted attack (a few thousand second-class troops at that) on what would have been the technological superpower of the world at that time seems more ridiculous than brilliant, especially given the fact that it gave Nantucket the opportunity to put their pincer plan to work. No moral considerations are needed if you're attacked first.
I was also waiting for Isketerol to unveil some sort of strategy for fighting Nantucket after the war started and hinted several times about measures undertaken to ensure success. However, all that is shown is another half-hearted attack on Alston's naval force (of course the Farragut comes in the nick of time despite ridiculous damage caused by a storm). The gist of the Tartessian plan seemed to be to sit on the defensive and let the Nantucket military hammer away at them (a la Iraq). My point is that if Isketerol was as smart as Stirling attempted to portray him in the book (Alston thinks he's probably a genius), he would have either never went to war with Nantucket (thus forcing Nantucket to declare war for very dubious reasons) or would have thrown everything he had at Nantucket to start (which given how the invasion turned out in the book, probably would have been enough to conquer the island). All and all, the Tartessians, rather than being an interesting opponent, end up being a bunch of clowns who get smacked around at will (in Africa, Spain and yes even California). I'm not even going to comment on the California episode, other than it's highly unlikely that several Nantucketers with some Native Americans are going to annhilate a major Tartessian foothold in California.
Finally, I had a problem regarding combat involving chariots. It is true that chariots were huge in Bronze Age warfare, particularly in the Near East (they were essentially the elite troops of any army). However I question their usefulness in book 3. In Book 1, the Zarthani chariots are handled quite easily by the Nantucket troops. However, Mitanni chariots are just roaming the landscape at will in book 3 and causing all sorts of good ole fashioned havoc. This is patently absurd. The main reason why chariots were as effective as they were during the Bronze Age is because the weaponry was fairly crude. In an age were gunpowder was introduced, it would have been suicide to keep chariots as mainline combat units.
In fact, chariots lost their usefulness by the end of the Bronze Age. Alexander handled Darius' chariots quite easily at Gaugamela (which would have been roughly 1500 years later and 1200 years before the historical use of gunpowder) and he had just heavy pikemen and cavalry. Bottom line, Raupasha's Mitanni chariots would have been whittled down to nothing fairly quickly, I don't care how much small scale raiding they did.
Overall, I felt a bit let down. Given the first two books, I think Stirling could have written a better book, or even extended the trilogy to a fourth and/or fifth book.
Secondly, I was a bit perplexed concerning the Nantucket-Tartessos war. It seemed to me that Stirling ran into a problem of how the Alston "pincer plan" would work if Tartessos was not neutralized, and so created the surprise attack on Nantucket. But even this is somewhat farfetched. Isketerol is supposed to be some sort of genius, but launching a half-hearted attack (a few thousand second-class troops at that) on what would have been the technological superpower of the world at that time seems more ridiculous than brilliant, especially given the fact that it gave Nantucket the opportunity to put their pincer plan to work. No moral considerations are needed if you're attacked first.
I was also waiting for Isketerol to unveil some sort of strategy for fighting Nantucket after the war started and hinted several times about measures undertaken to ensure success. However, all that is shown is another half-hearted attack on Alston's naval force (of course the Farragut comes in the nick of time despite ridiculous damage caused by a storm). The gist of the Tartessian plan seemed to be to sit on the defensive and let the Nantucket military hammer away at them (a la Iraq). My point is that if Isketerol was as smart as Stirling attempted to portray him in the book (Alston thinks he's probably a genius), he would have either never went to war with Nantucket (thus forcing Nantucket to declare war for very dubious reasons) or would have thrown everything he had at Nantucket to start (which given how the invasion turned out in the book, probably would have been enough to conquer the island). All and all, the Tartessians, rather than being an interesting opponent, end up being a bunch of clowns who get smacked around at will (in Africa, Spain and yes even California). I'm not even going to comment on the California episode, other than it's highly unlikely that several Nantucketers with some Native Americans are going to annhilate a major Tartessian foothold in California.
Finally, I had a problem regarding combat involving chariots. It is true that chariots were huge in Bronze Age warfare, particularly in the Near East (they were essentially the elite troops of any army). However I question their usefulness in book 3. In Book 1, the Zarthani chariots are handled quite easily by the Nantucket troops. However, Mitanni chariots are just roaming the landscape at will in book 3 and causing all sorts of good ole fashioned havoc. This is patently absurd. The main reason why chariots were as effective as they were during the Bronze Age is because the weaponry was fairly crude. In an age were gunpowder was introduced, it would have been suicide to keep chariots as mainline combat units.
In fact, chariots lost their usefulness by the end of the Bronze Age. Alexander handled Darius' chariots quite easily at Gaugamela (which would have been roughly 1500 years later and 1200 years before the historical use of gunpowder) and he had just heavy pikemen and cavalry. Bottom line, Raupasha's Mitanni chariots would have been whittled down to nothing fairly quickly, I don't care how much small scale raiding they did.
Overall, I felt a bit let down. Given the first two books, I think Stirling could have written a better book, or even extended the trilogy to a fourth and/or fifth book.
reviewed by alexis on November 26, 2006 7:57 AM
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It's amazing how a phenomenally good series can crash so magnificently in the end of one book. This book ends in the opposite way from which it started. It is dismal, disappointing, and makes me want to put the book down. Actually, that's not fair. It makes me wish I'd never picked the first book in the series up.
Stirling continues to write well, when he writes. But it's like he got really, really tired at the end of the book. He needs to collaborate more with Robert Jordan, whose Wheel of Time series is now at an agonizing 12 books and counting. Jordan can't seem to summarize well. Stirling does it too well. It's odd too- there was no reason to wrap everything up as quickly as he did. Much is left unexplained. We are suddenly shuttling back and forth between people and places, and you barely know what is going on. Everything finishes up far too quickly- and unsatisfyingly. After reading for about 1500 pages, you want a dramatic ending, where justice is met, where questions are answered face to face. This is not the ending. I must admit, I thought it was a dream sequence as I was first reading it, it was so bad. It's like the ending of European movies, where nothing is fully resolved.
Additionally, the problem that has regularly plagued this series continues in this book- Stirling can't seem to resist depicting aberrant sexual activity in exquisite detail.
Lastly, Christian groups are portrayed in a very sad way- Christianity continues 1000 years before Christ, but it is a violent expression, knowing nothing of the life of Jesus as a man of peace (Quakers are mentioned in passing only once in the trilogy, as not participating with other Christians), and focused inexplicably on the holy trinity of father, son, and his mother. But perhaps this is an expression of what Christianity might become, if only the death of Christ was known, and not his life.
Stirling continues to write well, when he writes. But it's like he got really, really tired at the end of the book. He needs to collaborate more with Robert Jordan, whose Wheel of Time series is now at an agonizing 12 books and counting. Jordan can't seem to summarize well. Stirling does it too well. It's odd too- there was no reason to wrap everything up as quickly as he did. Much is left unexplained. We are suddenly shuttling back and forth between people and places, and you barely know what is going on. Everything finishes up far too quickly- and unsatisfyingly. After reading for about 1500 pages, you want a dramatic ending, where justice is met, where questions are answered face to face. This is not the ending. I must admit, I thought it was a dream sequence as I was first reading it, it was so bad. It's like the ending of European movies, where nothing is fully resolved.
Additionally, the problem that has regularly plagued this series continues in this book- Stirling can't seem to resist depicting aberrant sexual activity in exquisite detail.
Lastly, Christian groups are portrayed in a very sad way- Christianity continues 1000 years before Christ, but it is a violent expression, knowing nothing of the life of Jesus as a man of peace (Quakers are mentioned in passing only once in the trilogy, as not participating with other Christians), and focused inexplicably on the holy trinity of father, son, and his mother. But perhaps this is an expression of what Christianity might become, if only the death of Christ was known, and not his life.
reviewed by john316 on November 26, 2006 2:55 PM
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I thought the first two books in this series were much more livelier and interesting. But then I did make the mistake of reading all three in as many weeks which, in hindsight, is probably not the best way to appreciate a work such as this. At times it seemed like an endless updating of previous plot lines interjected with new lines and the continual jumping back and forth grew more than a bit tedious. Overall I enjoyed the series but this seemed the weakest of the bunch and I found myself skimming through several parts.
reviewed by vern on November 27, 2006 7:33 AM
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At the risk of repeating what others have said here, the ending of this series was a monumental let-down. The reader's impression is that the author suddenly tired of the entire concept and decided to wrap it up as expeditiously as possible. The conclusion is so lame that I would recommend you not even get started with this series.
reviewed by willie on November 28, 2006 1:46 PM