The main problem with this book is that it reminds me strongly of Eric Flint’s 1632, except not nearly so rollicking.
The premise is simple: an ovoid space containing the island of Nantucket, a fair amount of ocean, and the Coast Guard’s training ship, a three-masted windjammer called the Eagle, all vanish from our time and reappear in 1250 B.C. No explanation is given. Once there, of course, the islanders have to learn to adjust. The usual activities follow: growing food, rationing irreplaceable 20th century goods, recovering sustainable technologies (i.e., steam engines), instituting a government, and generally learning how to survive. A number of people go nuts, reasonably enough; a few simply fail to adjust and get themselves killed. Most buckle down, dig in, and survive.
The captain and crew of the Eagle figure largely in the story. To a ship like the Eagle the Atlantic isn’t much of a barrier, and Nantucket soon sends an expedition to Britain to try to trade for grain and other supplies. It arrives at the beginning of an invasion; the Sun Folk, a proto-Celtic tribe, is moving in from the continent and attacking the Earth People, the Fiernan Boholugi. (That is, the Fir Bolg. Neat.) The Sun Folk keep slaves and view women as property; the Earth People do not. Naturally, the Nantucketers decide to support the Earth People.
Meanwhile, one of the Coast Guard officers, a charming and ambitious sociopath named Walker, decides that with a few 20th-century weapons, some text books, and some skill at fighting (skill he possesses), he might carve himself out a pretty nice empire somewhere in the vicinity of the Mediterranean. He enlists several like-minded islanders, and steals a bunch of stuff and a couple of large sail boats, killing several people in the process. The good guys are going to have to get him…and hope he doesn’t recruit too strong an army first.
Thematically, the book is similar to Dies the Fire: decent, hardworking, honorable folks have to defend themselves against evil folks who downright enjoy exploiting folks weaker than they are.
All in all, not a bad tale, although as I say it is rather overshadowed by 1632–which, interestingly, was published three years later. I believe there are sequels, and I’ll be keeping an eye out for them.
Now, having given the book its due I have a few additional comments to make, particular in light of the foofaraw that was launched by my review of Stirling’s Dies the Fire. If all you’re interested in is whether the book’s an enjoyable read or not, feel free to stop reading here. If you’re interested in intersections between the book and the on-going “Culture Wars” in American society, read on.
First, regarding Wicca. There’s a scene in this book where a Wiccan, a woman who really believes that the Wiccan tradition dates back to antiquity, is brought face to face with some real pagan rituals…and loses her lunch, along with her illusions, if I recall correctly. It’s a bit part (the woman is “on stage” only the once), but it appears that I can’t really accuse Stirling of being soft on Wicca.
Second, Stirling really knows how to push my buttons. Captain Alston of the Coast Guard ship the Eagle is a closet lesbian. There are a number of romances in the book, but inarguably the most important one involves Alston and a young woman of the Earth People whom the captain rescues from slavery and frees. The young woman, Swindapa, is devoted to her savior, as who wouldn’t be (the Sun Folk who enslaved her had also gang-raped her). In her culture there are few beds to go around, so you usually are sharing one; and it’s considered impolite to share a bed with someone without offering them sex if they are so inclined. Male/female liaisons are the usual thing, but lesbian relationships are apparently not unheard of. So Swindapa is definitely off men, grateful to the captain, and happy to show it. Alston, on the other hand, is reluctant to out herself, and also reluctant to take advantage of Swindapa, for whom she feels responsible, but to whom she is strongly attracted.
I don’t want to go into the whole question of gay rights and gay marriage here; it’s a complex issue that generates quite a lot of heat and to which I’m unlikely to add very much light. If it’s a matter that concerns you, you’ve probably heard most of the arguments before now anyway. It’s enough to say that I think that gay sex is spiritually (and often physically) harmful to those involved, and that I am troubled (there’s that word again) at seeing it presented as (at worst) a morally neutral choice when I think the reality is far otherwise. There’s no reason why the characters in Stirling’s books need follow my rules, of course. But because it troubles me, the whole subplot mars an otherwise enjoyable book. I’ll hasten to add that it doesn’t read as though Stirling’s pushing any kind of agenda; he simply treats with dignity all his characters who exhibit decency and honor in areas he finds important.
I wouldn’t have brought this up at all, except that I’ve got another of Stirling’s books waiting in my queue; and I’m really wondering which of my buttons he’s going to be leaning on in that one.
The View from the Foothills 
“It’s enough to say that I think that gay sex is spiritually (and often physically) harmful to those involved”
— well, as to the physical harm, “gay sex” is too broad a term.
Gay _men_ often get into terrible trouble with STD’s and so forth.
Gay _women_ are an entirely different kettle of fish — they have lower STD infection ratings than the general heterosexual population, much less gay men. In fact, lesbians have the lowest ratio of physical problems associated with sexual activity of any sizeable group in the population.
There are two reasons for this; the physical mechanics (which I won’t go into, but you know what I mean) and the fact that gay men are much, much more flamboyantly promiscuous, on average, than gay women.
And promiscuity is bad for you in the long run, both physically and (IMHO) psychologically, particularly if continued past early adulthood. At best it’s evidence of failure to mature emotionally; at worst, it’s self-destructive individually and socially (because pair-bonding is essential to socializing children).
As to why this difference between gay men and lesbians exists… there’s a joke among gay women that goes: Question — what do lesbians drive on the second date? Answer — a moving van.
This an ‘average’ rather than an ‘either-or’ distinction; there are some committed, monogamous couples among gay men, and some lesbians who are bed-hopping sluts , but neither is the way to bet.
That’s because gay men are _men_, not because they’re gay.
Gay men act the way most straight men would if only they could get women to go along with it; and vice versa for women. Heterosexual relations are a sort of shifting compromise between the instinctual drives of the genders.
You could also sum it up by saying that men without women behave badly, much more so than women without men. Witness the way all-male institutions turn into rather nasty jungles unless constrained by the sort of powerful discipline found in, for example, well-run armies or monasteries.
(Certainly I personally have been much happier as a happily married and monogamous man than I was as a foot-loose -and-fancy-free teenager or young adult.)
As to the spiritual harm, I have no problem with Christian believers disapproving of homosexuality.
In fact, I’m surprised when they don’t — the Scriptures are fairly clear and explicit on the matter, as is the whole history of Christian ethical thought.
I disagree — that’s clear from my work, I think — but I don’t think believers are necessarily bad people for holding the position they do, or that they’re necessarily harmful bigots. Some are; but then, so are plenty of secularists. “Respectful disagreement” would summarize my position.
As for marriage, my opinion is that as an institution it exists primarily for bearing and rearing children, which is after all the most important of social functions; secondarily for civilizing men.
While I don’t personally believe gay people are necessarily excluded from this — I know a fair number who are good parents — the biology means that it’s primarily a heterosexual matter, and hence should be primarily concerned with male-female bonds.
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Like I said, it’s complicated, which is why I didn’t want to get into it.
I agree with what you say about the effects of promiscuity, as well as the rates of promiscuity in the gay and lesbian populations; which is to say, it tallies with what I’ve read elsewhere. With respect to physical harm, though, I’ve also read that the rate of physical abuse, i.e., battering, is fairly high among lesbian couples. (I offer this diffidently; I don’t have any sources to cite, but I’ve read it at least a couple of times over the last few years.)
With regard to parenting, I’d argue that more than “pair-bonding” is required. One thing that having four kids (two boys, two girls) has firmly impressed on me is that 1) boys and girls are different, and 2) men and women have very different parenting styles. Consequently, I think that kids who don’t have both a mother and father, both of whom are actively involved in raising them, are being seriously short-changed. As a concrete example, everything Jane and I have read suggests that if I prevent my daughters from growing up “father hungry” they will have significantly easier time relating to men when they grow up, and will be much less likely to get involved with losers.
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“Consequently, I think that kids who don’t have both a mother and father, both of whom are actively involved in raising them, are being seriously short-changed.”
— well, that’s certainly the ideal. OTOH, having two good mothers is certainly better than having a lousy mother/father or two.
I have serious doubts about men raising kids on their own — with the best will in the world, we’re really not all that well suited to it. My own father is a great guy and a model of responsibility, but in my experience it’s the mother who holds the family together.
(As an aside, mine ended up with four kids — one, myself, an infant — in a tiny trailer with no running water or toilet in France in the early 1950’s, when my father was stationed there with the RCAF and _extremely_ busy and traveling around a lot. I don’t know how the hell she did it, but we all remember it as a very happy home.)
My wife grew up in a foster home, and not a particularly good one — the husband drank and the wife was a mean, exploitative old dragon, IMHO — but turned out fine, as did her brother; and her brother is a superb father with two really exceptional kids.
Children are tough little beasts, and they often need to be.
I did a lot of family law in my brief stint in the legal profession, and there are a _lot_ of appallingly bad parents of all descriptions out there doing their best to ruin their kids. Really, it’s enough to make you wish for a licensing system, except that would be run by people even more brain-dead.
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All very true. I’m talking about the general case, but there’s enough variance and a large enough population that almost any arrangement is guaranteed to have worked out well at least once, somewhere. The question is, what’s most likely to happen?
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“The question is, what’s most likely to happen?”
— well, my family law time (and the research I did there) convinced me that the customary arrangements screw up fairly often.
As in “at least 1 family in 10 is severely dysfunctional” in some respect, with various forms of severe child abuse right up there. I don’t think this is any new thing, either; it just comes to light more now.
If you read Freud’s original cases (before he started pretending his patients were lying to him) you’ll see the same pattern.
“From the crooked timber of humanity nothing straight can be made”, as the saying goes. I don’t believe in God… but original sin? You betcha.
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G.K. Chesterton said that original sin is the only religious doctrine that’s experimentally verifiable; I’ve always felt that that was a sound observation.
OK, so 1 in 10 is severely dysfunctional (which implies that the glass is 90% full). So what’s the rate in “non-traditional” families? Any idea/
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“OK, so 1 in 10 is severely dysfunctional (which implies that the glass is 90% full).”
— oh, no, that’s _severely_ dysfunctional; incest, mainly, with severe beatings and such often involved too. And that’s a conservative estimate. Those are the “take the kids away” level dysfunctionals.
I’m not counting things like emotional abuse bad enough to screw up kids’ heads, or mere continuous misery, or cold indifference, or the wild mood swings which may be worse.
(If you want to drive a puppy nuts, try randomly and unpredictably alternating positive and negative reinforcement. Same-same with kids).
So I’d push it up to 20%-25% if you include all home environments “bad enough to take the kids away, if only there were somewhere better to send them, except there isn’t”. (The foster-care system is… ah… bad.)
“So what’s the rate in “non-traditional†families? Any idea?”
— too general a term. For example, if by “single mother” you mean women too stupid, careless or emotionally mangled to avoid breeding litters of bastards, the percentage would be sky-high.(*)
You’d have to focus more closely to get any precision; and of course to correct for economic factors.
Also the sample is small, because for example lesbians rearing children (or at least doing so openly) is a recent phenomenon.
Those I know _personally_ have done a good job, including one couple with two autistic children (talk about bad genetic luck).
But you know what “anecdotal evidence” is a synonym for and I’m only talking about… lessee… three cases, using “know” broadly.
Everyone tends to overestimate the typicality of their own experience.
(*) a strong argument for eugenic sterilization, if only there were someone who could be trusted to make that decision.
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I’d agree that the subplot mars the book, but not for the same reason – you must admit that to the characters involved it certainly was a morally neutral choice, to the extent that you describe.
I just thought it wasn’t particularly well written. Stirling’s strength is in plot rather than character – none of the romantic relationships did it for me.
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mapletree7 Says: Stirling’s strength is in plot rather than character – none of the romantic relationships did it for me.
— well, that’s a matter of taste; I’ve had a lot of positive feedback on the interpersonal stuff in those books. My gay female readers mainly found the Alston-Swindapa relationship intensely romantic, for example.
But you’re certainly entitled to your own view; if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you, and that’s my fault if it’s anybody’s. The author proposes but the reader disposes.
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