 You know the drill, pile, die, that is A5, so that'll be Island in the Sea of Time is what I'm reading next. This is the introduction song, it's not very good but it's not too long. Island in the Sea of Time was, you know, the title is a bit of a mouthful and it's kind of weird when you get down to it, but actually I really really liked it. It's a really good book. Most of the characters are pretty likable, the plot is not super twisty and turny or complicated, but it's just endlessly fascinating to me and there's some really cool action scenes in there as well. Now this book is actually really long, but I don't have a whole lot to say about it, so I think this review will actually be pretty short. So the plot to this book is that Nantucket Island up in Massachusetts, there's just some sort of event there one night and the whole island gets transported back in time to around the year 1250 BCE, so it goes back about 3,000 years and all the people are just stranded there. And they never actually explain what caused the event, or at least not in this book, I know there's sequels, but they never really explain it and honestly they don't even dwell on it that much, it just sort of happens and then the people are like well we're here now so let's survive and really that's the plot of the majority of the book. Like it gets a little more complex in the later half, but I don't want to give that away because of spoilers. Now a lot of you are probably thinking that that sounds like a weird idea for a plot and it kind of is, I'll admit that, but you're also probably thinking that the majority of it is just going to be focused on conflict with outside people, you know conflict with Native Americans and such and that's really not it. Like there's a lot of interaction with Native Americans and as well as groups of people on the other side of the Atlantic, but it's mostly diplomatic relations and trade relations and to be perfectly honest I think that's a lot more interesting than if it was just battle after battle because they make it clear in this that because of their more advanced technology as well as their more advanced knowledge of like battle tactics and how to train armies and such that the Nantucket people will just cut through any Native force like butter. Like unless they're massively outnumbered they will win all the time so there wouldn't be a whole lot of tension if that were the case whereas them actually just trying to get enough food to survive the winter and trying to get some of their old technology back online, not all of it but some of it and trying to get like some semblance of normal life going that's just a lot more interesting to me. Like I said this book does have some really big cool interesting battles mostly in the second half, but I could honestly just have read an entire book just about like them trading with other civilizations and their relationship with them like their nonviolent relationship with them I mean because that just like I said it's endlessly fascinating to me. Another thing I liked about this book is that at least in the beginning it has a really fast pace because like at the beginning of this book it introduces a couple of the main characters then the event happens and they're all like whoa what the fuck was that? And then an astronomer looks at the stars and realizes hey I think we went back in time and then they go to the mainland to check it out and then they come back and tell everybody and they're like okay so we're kind of in the shit right now in order to do this we got to work together to survive and that all happens in like 40 pages. Like a lot of books would spend a really long time trying to dive into the mystery of like ooh where are we what happened and this book is just kind of like yeah this is what happened let's see where things go from there. And also another thing that I liked is that there's not a whole lot of conflict between the people on Man Tuck It at least not at first because like again there's one major incident where like people think oh God sent us back here and they go kind of religious cults crazy for a little bit but it doesn't really take up that much time in the story and it's over fairly quickly for the most part it's just people working together and again that's just a lot more interesting to me than people constantly fighting and being at each other's throats. Now I mentioned before that majority of the characters in this are likable and they are they're just not particularly deep or interesting. Like the only one that I really liked was this ship captain named Mary in Alston and I liked her partially because you know she's a badass partially because you do see that even though she's pretty hard on the soldiers under her command she is you know she has this kindness to her she's a decent person and she's also pretty much the only character in this that has an actual backstory because I mean think about it the majority of the characters in this they either have just a vague description of where they came from before or they just sort of seem to have popped into existence one day whereas Alston actually yeah we do have information about where she came from what her childhood was like what her adult life was like before she came to Nantucket it's actually really good it's just that all the other characters even the villain especially because we spend a lot of time with the villain and he never really elevates himself beyond just being a greedy power hungry asshole. There are a couple of issues that I do have with this book though they're pretty small overall but they are there so the first thing I want to talk about is how there are some pretty dark elements to this book like rape and violence and I don't mind having that in there but in this book the first like hundred pages are pretty clean in that regard and then it just really comes out of nowhere and hits you like a train at the end at the end of the hundred pages it did take me by surprise admittedly but you know you have to kind of ease your audience into that or at the very least just put it right at the beginning so that we know it's going to be there because it is a little bit of an unpleasant surprise to have that just thrown in my face thrown in your face also the rape stuff in this it's not handled very tactfully like I don't want to say it's like offensive or anything like that I just want to say that there are one or two scenes that feel particularly gratuitous and even without the rape like there's some of the violence and stuff just feels gratuitous and like there's torture and stuff and it's just a little too unnecessary is all I'm saying there's also a lot of very convenient coincidences especially at the beginning like how they're just so happened to be a Coast Guard ship nearby which just so happened to also be able to sail so you wouldn't need to use its engines forever and like they're just so happens to be someone on the island that speaks Lithuanian which is more closely related to some of the native languages that they're using which allows them to learn to communicate with the natives more quickly and they're also just so happens to be a blacksmith on the island and they're just so happens to be some machine shop workers like you know I get that having all that there makes the story more interesting I get it and it didn't bother me too much it's just that again that's real convenient real convenient writing so that will probably bother a couple of people and then there's a couple of other really small things but it's really not worth mentioning this is a really solid really good book like it's kind of pulpy admittedly but you know it's fun you know I was constantly thinking about how are they going to deal with this problem or what are they going to do if this happens and I was also thinking like okay how would I react in this situation like what sort of government would I try and set up if I were there it's just it opens your imagination to the possibilities of what could happen and that's a great thing for a book to do I should mention though that this is actually part of a series I don't know about any of the rest of you but I thought that this was a standalone book at first and so once the climax started happening I was thinking wow they're going to wrap this story up really quickly I guess and then it ends and I was like oh okay I guess there's going to be more but I'm perfectly fine with that you know there's going to be more trade we're going to see more of the world and everything I'm perfectly okay with that it'll be a while before I read the next book but I'm going to do that so if the synopsis for this book sounds like too weird for you then maybe it probably wouldn't appeal to you that much but if it sounds cool to you or if it sounds just a little bit odd then you'll probably really like this book just be aware that there are a couple of dark elements to it and it's not made immediately obvious from the beginning quick update before I go I know you've noticed I have a pretty big deluge of non-review stuff coming out of my channel lately that's partially because this book took me a while to get through and partially because I just feel like I'm overdue for some experimentation in terms of content so if that bothers you don't worry I'm still going to be doing reviews and shit it's just going to take me a little bit longer and I'm not good at goodbyes