Category:ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME SERIES
From S.M. Stirling Wiki
|
[edit] Summary
In Island in the Sea of Time the island of Nantucket is transported by an unknown phenomenon (called "The Event" in the series) back in time into the Bronze Age circa 1250s BC (corresponding to the late Heroic Age of Greek mythology). The trilogy describes the conflict between the different factions of the island's population — some trying to dominate the world for their own benefit, others trying to better it, while most just want to survive, work hard, and claw their way back to something approaching their pre-Event way of life.
As the series progresses, it becomes clear to Nantucket's scaled-down Government that sitting back and reinventing isolationism will only profit those renegades who, under the leadership of ex-Coast Guard lieutenant William Walker (inspired directly by William Walker), have fled the island to live like gods amongst the Bronze Age peoples of Europe and the Middle East. Walker — who, unfortunately, is as smart as he is callous — exploits the 'magic' of gunpowder, iron-forging, and the spinning-jenny to build up an empire of his own, one that will inevitably conquer the entire world unless the people of Nantucket build an army, a navy, and a set of foreign alliances of their own and take the fight to Walker.
By the end of the third book, Nantucket is the dominant member of a sizable and expanding network of allies, rather reminiscent of the British Empire (though Britain itself is called "Alba" in the novel, one of Nantucket's protectorates and a source of "warrior tribes" to be enrolled as mercenaries in its armies), and the Nantucketars ("Eagle-People", "Islanders", "Nan-Tukh-Tar", etc.) seem well on their way to re-enacting the United States's Manifest Destiny three thousand years early.
Nantucket has 'Outport' colonies spanning the globe, with bases in the Caribbean, Argentina, the Azores, South Africa, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Mauritius, Bombay, etc.; basically, anywhere there is a good harbour situated close to existing or future trading routes, the Republic is on the scene. The Alban Alliance rules the British Isles where Walker initially tried to carve out his empire, and are a close ally, a source of labour and military recruits, and, as its people absorb more of the New Learning, look like being at the heart of a very early Industrial Revolution. Babylon and the Hittite Empire are also allies, though how long that will last now that they have arms industries of their own is anyone's guess, even with an Islander military officer married to Babylon's ambitious young king. At the end of the third book, the allies are already laying plans for carving up the Caucasus and Persia between them.
Other major powers:
* Achaea (Greece), which was the location of Walker's second — and much more successful — attempt at empire-building, but which is now ruled by King Odikweus (Odysseus/Ulysses of Iliad and Odyssey fame).
* Tartessos, an Iberian city-state which gained greatly from its new King's decade-long alliance with Walker's Meizon Achaea, and which managed to survive its unsuccessful challenge of Nantucket for control of the sea.
Minor powers include:
* Egypt, which gained some basic New Learning from one of Walker's lieutenants who was a fanatical — and naïve — Afrocentrist who was shocked to discover that the "Black Egyptians" were not truly black. After Egypt's defeat at the 'Battle of Armaggeddon', the same lieutenant fled to Meroe, a region in east-central Africa, with the intention of giving the black population a leg up before armed Caucasians started arriving in numbers.
There also appears to be a threat growing out in Central Asia, where Walker's lone surviving heir and a convoy of mostly Achaean rejectionists have chosen to carve out a new empire in the Ferghanna region, far, far away from the reach of Islander naval power.
[edit] Comments
What do you think of the ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME SERIES?
Post your comments and join the discussion now!
Articles in category "ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME SERIES"
There are 5 articles in this category.
