random item

Troperville

Tools

Find recent edits by troper:

back to: Main / IslandInTheSeaOfTime

edit article | go to discussion page

26th Mar '13 1:35:07 PM Xtifr

Send Xtifr a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 1,69 (click to see context) from:

[[quoteright:298:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ISOTcover_780.jpg]]

A trilogy by Creator/SMStirling, in which the entire island of Nantucket is [[MassTeleportation sent back in time]] to the late Bronze Age by a mysterious dome of light. "The Event" also brings along the Eagle, a Coast Guard training vessel--a mixed blessing for Nantucket, for while the ship and its crew prove invaluable in saving the island from starvation, one of the officers, [[MeaningfulName William Walker]] gathers a band of followers and hijacks a ship for England, where he sets himself up as a warlord among the Indo-European tribes of the area. For obvious reasons, the people of Nantucket are not pleased with this, and the Town Meeting, under the leadership of former police chief Jared Cofflin and Marian Alston, captain of the Eagle, sends a force after him.

The first book, ''Island in the Sea of Time'', covers the first couple of years, from the Event up to the Battle of the Downs, where Walker and his local allies meet the expeditionary force from Nantucket and their local allies.

The second book, ''Against the Tide of Years'', sees Nantucket facing a threat from Tartessos, a kingdom in Spain that has been rapidly "modernizing" under the rule of one of Walker's friends. Contact is made with the kingdoms of Mycenae and Babylon, and an expedition prepares to follow in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark.

The third book, ''On the Oceans of Eternity'', brings with it the end of the war.

There is also a short story, "Blood Wolf", set in the same milieu, but about a generation later.

The series is tenuously connected to the {{Emberverse}}, which covers what happened in the world Nantucket left behind.

----
!!Tropes include:

* AlternateHistory
* AMillionIsAStatistic: Walker makes a remark along this line when discussing his conquest of Sicily.
* AntiVillain: Isketerol, merchant adventurer-turned-king of Tartessos. [[spoiler:When the Nantucketers invade Tartessos in the third book, they were undoubtedly expecting to find a totalitarian hellhole like the society Walker has established in Greece; what they find instead is a society which is a perfect example of FairForItsDay, as Isketerol has made literally revolutionary improvements in all areas of Tartessian society, not just the military, and has put huge outlays of time, effort and money into making life better for the ordinary people.]]
* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: Sun People language. Although words themselves are mostly fine, what little grammar we see is more like English than Lithuanian (or PIE reconstructions.) "Diasas," for example, is used to mean both male and female slaves, even though it most probably would've been two distinct words (to match grammatical gender) in an early Indo-European language. 
* BattleCouple: [[spoiler: Marian Alston and Swindapa.]]
* BilingualBonus: If you squint really, really hard, the names of Swindapa's tribe and her enemies look a little like "Fir Bolg" and "Aryan."
* BookEnds: The first book in the series begins and ends with Ian Arnstein arriving on Nantucket and musing about its history, his personal life and seafood dinners.
* BreakTheCutie: Swindapa
* ChekhovsSkill: Quite a few, but among the prominent ones, Doreen Rosenthal being an astronomer comes in very handy when [[spoiler: convincing the elders of Swindapa's tribe, who are basically the caretakers of [[LandmarkOfLore Stonehenge]], that the Nantucketers are friendly.]]
* DaddysLittleVillain: Walker's daughter Althea, with aspirations to become a [[spoiler:[[NinjaBrat Claw of Hekate]]]] as well.
* DepravedBisexual[=/=]BondageIsBad: Dr. Alice Hong, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the Lady of Pain]].
* {{Egopolis}}: Walker's Alban base is called "Walkerburg."
* EnemyMine: Despite the antagonisom between all sides, Nantucket, Walker's faction, and the Tartessians all exchange information and work together to contain a potential epidemic that could have wiped all of them out.
* EyepatchOfPower:[[spoiler: William Walker, after the Battle of the Downs.]]
* FightingIrish: Patrick O'Rourke of the Nantucket Marines.
* FollowTheLeader: various places swapping time with each other are known as [=ISOT=] scenarios. ''1632'' is the best known copycat.
* [[GranolaGirl Granola Guy]]: John Martins, oh so much.
* HeroicBSOD: While not precisely a hero, Isketerol undergoes one of these when he realizes that in the future where Nantucket came from, experts aren't sure his nation even ''existed.''
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: A few--the king of Babylon, the Pharaoh, and maybe some of the Achaean and Trojan characters, depending on what you think of Homer's accuracy...
* HotScientist: Doreen Rosenthal.
* HotSpringsEpisode: In the third book, oddly enough.
* HumanSacrifice: [[spoiler: The followers of the Jaguar God have this in mind for their captives.]]
* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: Some of the Lisketter group meet their ends this way at the hands of the Mesoamericans, one almost immediately after capture since the Jaguar God followers apparently have a thing for [[BloodLust freshly-drained blood]].]]
** And at one point Alice Hong mentions that she enjoys the taste of "long pig" [[spoiler: and "long veal steak" - the implication being that she has killed and eaten]] ''[[spoiler: children.]]''
* InstantAwesomeJustAddNinja: [[spoiler: Alice Hong's "Claws of Hekate" followers.]]
* KatanasAreJustBetter: [[spoiler: Marian Alston, and later Swindapa. Still later, these seem to become standard-issue for Nantucket officers.]]
* JewishAndNerdy: Played very straight with Doreen Rosenthal, but [[AmbiguouslyJewish averted]] in the case of her post-Event husband Ian Arnstein -- though she jokingly mention he's the only [[NiceJewishBoy eligible prospect]] around.
* LadyOfWar: Raupasha of the Mitanni.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters
* MassTeleportation: One of the Ur-Examples.
* MayDecemberRomance: Marian Alston is about twice Swindapa's age when they first meet, and then there is Professor Ian Arnstein and grad student Doreen Rosenthal.
* MightyWhitey: Gleefuly and consciously inverted by Marian Alston at every opportunity. [[KnightTemplar McAndrews]] tries to do this too, with far less success.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Students of history might want to keep an eye on any compatriots named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_%28filibuster%29 William Walker]] when dealing with less technologically advanced groups of people.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Pamela Lisketter's group aren't heroes except in their own minds, but [[spoiler: their attempt to prepare the Mesoamericans against Nantucket/European encroachment winds up infecting the Mesoamericans with mumps and wiping out their civilization.]]
* NoBisexuals: Averted by the Earth Folk in general and Swindapa in particular. Plus [[DepravedBisexual Alice Hong.]]
* PerfectPoison: Averted in the somewhat prolonged deaths of [[spoiler:Walker, Hong and their entourage at the end of the third book]]. Not that they didn't have it coming.
* PragmaticVillainy: Walker, very much
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Most of the Sun People fall into this category.
* PublicDomainCharacter: Odysseus ([[SpellMyNameWithAnS spelled Odikweos]] in the books) and a few other characters from the same source.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Several. William Walker is his own top general, and Kashtiliash and Raupasha take a direct hand in fighting for their respective countries.
* StarbucksSkinScale: A mixed race child is literally referred to as having "café-au-lait skin."
* SchizoTech: Bronze axes, ultralights with napalm, katanas, breech-loading rifles, wooden frigates, bicycles, an [[ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld airship]]... the list goes on.
* ShoutOut: Involving William Walker and Ian Arnstein in particular. Prior to [[spoiler:the Siege of Troy]] they exchange some lines from Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail.
* ShownTheirWork: Bronze Age archaeology has enough competing theories that it would be impossible to be accurate to all of them, but the series is nonetheless impressive in this regard.
* StrawmanPolitical: Pamela Lisketter and her group. Also TooDumbToLive--it turns out the Followers of the Jaguar God are not interested in your help.
* ThemeNaming: Walker's horses are named Bastard and Son of a Bitch. Nantucket's ships are mostly named after abolitionists or related personages.
* TortureTechnician: Alice Hong
* TwoferTokenMinority: Marian Alston is a Threefer Token Minority, although she might not take kindly to that description.
* TheWisePrince: Kashtiliash qualifies.
* WoodenShipsAndIronMen ''and'' Women. Part of the SchizoTech.
*** Though technically the USCGC ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Eagle_(WIX-327) Eagle]]'' ''is'' an iron-hulled barque, Nantucket goes back to its roots and revives the time-honored shipbuilding arts as a response to its relocation.
* ZergRush: The primary tactic of the Ringapi against O'Rourke's supply base.

to:

22nd Jan '13 9:41:52 AM ac220

Send ac220 a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 21 (click to see context) from:

to:

22nd Jan '13 9:36:59 AM ac220

Send ac220 a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 20 (click to see context) :

16th Jan '13 7:43:59 PM BuccoBabe

Send BuccoBabe a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Added line(s) 27 (click to see context) :

3rd Jan '13 1:28:15 PM Snarf