On the Oceans of Eternity

On the Oceans of Eternity, a science fiction novel from 2000, was written by Canadian-American author S. M. Stirling. It serves as the third and concluding volume in the Nantucket alternate history series. The story follows from the first book, where the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, was inexplicably sent back in time to the Bronze Age around the 1250s BC, an era corresponding to the late Heroic Age of the Trojan War.

In this installment, the Republic of Nantucket has formed alliances with Babylon, Hatti, and Mitanni, aiming to defeat the antagonist Walker, who now controls the Great Achaean kingdom. The Nantucketers are unable to prevent the fall of Troy, which is sacked brutally by Walker’s forces using modern weapons rather than the legendary Trojan Horse. However, Walker is ultimately killed not in open battle but through a cunning scheme. His regent, Odikweos—revealed to be the historical Odysseus, bitter that Walker’s alterations to history have denied him his destined fame—helps trick Walker’s security chief, a former East German Stasi operative, into poisoning Walker and his lover Dr. Alice Hong. Only Walker’s son by Alice Hong is killed; his other children survive.

Afterward, Odikweos takes control of Great Achaea and ends the war with Nantucket. The alliance with Babylon is strengthened when the Babylonian king marries an American woman who commands his modernized army, and an American doctor married to a local healer begins establishing the University of Babylon. Nantucket extends its influence into Egypt, subverting captured Egyptian generals, and in the Western Hemisphere, the republic prepares to colonize what would become Argentina.

New threats emerge. Walker’s surviving teenage daughter, intelligent and ruthless, escapes into Asia with loyal followers to plot revenge. In the region of modern Sudan, another American renegade, a Black Nationalist, builds his own power base. Meanwhile, Tartessos, under a resourceful ruler, seeks to rival Nantucket’s global maritime empire, having been defeated in both a direct invasion of Nantucket and a secret effort to gain influence among California’s Native Americans. Though temporarily at peace, Tartessos’s imperial ambitions remain alive.