Against the Tide of Years / S.M. Stirling

 

Against the Tide of Years by S.M. Stirling
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2 stars, it was an okay reading experience for me. This is part of my reading project which is why I ordered book two of this series via interlibrary loan. It's really not my cuppa tea, but it might be yours. Are you interested in sailing? If so, there is quite a bit of shipboard life, plenty of sails and rigging. Maybe you like martial arts? There are numerous descriptions of skirmishes. Maybe ancient warfare is your jam? Behold, many peoples of the ancient world, ready to kick butt. Are you a fan of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court? This book will let you speculate on the effect of 20th century humans on the ancient world. Are you a devotee of L.E. Modesitt's Saga of Recluce series? These books also go into detail regarding the mechanics of survival and the development of industry which may scratch the same itch.

For my tastes, Stirling is dumping way too much technical detail into the novel while skimping on what makes a great story, the personal relationships. It's like he's trying to prove how much research he did or how much knowledge he has or something. The relationships are sadly paint-by-number, very superficial and rather anemic. The exact opposite of what entertains me.

Surprisingly, there's remarkably little philosophy about time travel. A bit of speculation about creating an alternate timeline, but mostly cursing their luck that their 20th century history books are becoming less accurate as they go. Also, there are all kinds of assumptions made about the superiority of American culture and leadership. Manifest Destiny, moved to the Bronze Age. The Nantucket crew use the term “locals" which, as more than one indigenous inhabitant notes, essentially means “uncouth barbarians.” They attempt to treat everyone equally, but are relentless in their quest to turn ancient people into quasi-Americans, willing to thump modern values into the people around them.

There are other issues that I wonder about. For example, when William Walker goes rogue and establishes himself a kingdom in Ancient Greece, how likely is it that ancient peoples would be as amenable to his plans as Stirling portrays them? (The people in those areas are still pretty resistant to American hegemony to this day and not too proud to resort to guerilla warfare.) And how about all of the sailing all over the world that the Nantucketers do? The opening pages of the book show Moas being herded, obviously brought from New Zealand, and a later visit to Mauritius and concern for Dodos demonstrate just how far ranging the time travellers are. Both of these questions are predicated on the premise that a random selection of 20th century folks would be able to reverse engineer so many modern products and conveniences. I don’t know too many people who would be able to work with metal or wood well enough to reestablish a rather sophisticated society, complete with paper work, again so soon. (Mind you, I appreciate that Stirling didn't have his characters resort to desperate cannibalism as Niven did awfully early in Lucifer's Hammer.)

At this point, I'm unsure that I want to devote more of my valuable reading time to book 3. It would also require interlibrary loan and I'm debating whether the effort is desirable.

Book number 401 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.



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