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sloejoe's review against another edition
3.0
The first half is a bit run-of-the-mill alternate worlds stuff albeit with Moorcock's talent for express-pace plotting. The second half turns into a genuinely satisfying conclusion to the Nomad of the Time Streams cycle that I wasn't initially expecting. The introduction of the League of Temporal Adventurers is a good pointer that Moorcock would be able to get Doctor Who in his later novelisation.
drjonty's review against another edition
4.0
Bastable finds himself part of another war but his knowledge of time travel has increased and his understanding of time deepened.
rwguthrie's review against another edition
4.0
Written in the style of 19th-century adventure fantasy, this doesn't exactly hold up, but the worldbuilding is so neat that it's worth reading anyway.
colinandersbrodd's review against another edition
5.0
POTENTIAL SPOILERS BELOW: So, in this third installment of the Nomads of the Time Streams trilogy, our protagonist Oswald Bastable "washes up" in an alternate 1941 in which a world war is raging, particularly between a Japanese empire and a Russian one. Although it is said that the war was begun by the bombing of the Japanese air shipyards at Hiroshima, it is eventually revealed that this was accomplished using an atomic bomb, causing much musing from Bastable about the inevitability of apocalyptic war and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in any alternate timeline. Regardless, Bastable and his companions fall in with a Cossack leader among the Russians, a former Georgian priest called Djugashvili, now known as the Steel Tsar (astute observers will note that this was the given name in our world of the man who chose to call himself Stalin, the Man of Steel). The Steel Tsar is megalomaniacal and intends to, by show of force, make all of Russia submit to him. There is a fiddly bit about an actual steel robot, like a gigantic icon of Djugashvili, and plans to set these ACTUAL steel tsars in every village of Russia to reinforce his reign, but this seems a distraction from the real plan, which is to demonstrate the use of more atomic bombs! If the first book dealt with colonialism, racism, and the "Yellow Peril"; and he second book dealt with colonialism, racism, and Africa/Black Lives; this third volume deals with the "Red Menace," fear of socialism and the abuses to which it is put, and the long shadow of atomic Armageddon in the Cold War, as well as what it means when atrocities are carried out in our name, and social responsibility. There is a great bit here: "How can we both bear responsibility for the destruction of Hiroshima?" . . . "Because we are all, in a sense, responsible for such great evils," [Una Persson] said . . . "It is . . . a shared responsibility . . . Our own actions can lead to something like a Hiroshima , to the rise of Djugashvili" . . . Great stuff! Incidentally, there is also a lot of musing about the nature of fate, and free will, and across multiple alternate timelines in a potentially infinite multiverse, whether human nature condemns us to certain outcomes. Heavy stuff!
princeofhastio's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
arthurbdd's review against another edition
2.0
By this point the series is clearly running out of ideas. (Also, come on Mike... "Tsar Wars" is right there and you don't go for it? Coward.) Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/the-warrior-of-the-timestreams/
jayshay's review against another edition
3.0
I read the 1981 Granada Paperback Original which probably means that my review is of the unrevised edition of The Steel Tsar.
My enjoyment dropped for the third and final installment of The Oswald Bastable Trilogy. First, it is a BAD sign that Moorcock feels the necessity to write in that Bastable has selective amenisia. Is it there to reset Bastable, like some sort of sitcom character?
The book has some interesting things to say about history:
"It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called 'History'. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination."
Which I enjoyed the first time it was said in the book, but less the second time, and by the third time I was rolling my eyes with impatience. Yes, yes, you've said this already. It seemed clumsily didactic from a writer as talented as Moorcock.
There was also a scene while bombing the Cossacks where the characters have one of those 'only happens in books' conversations where they discuss the various reasons why the Russians want to give away there freedom. It is one of those bald thematic conversations that I felt Moorcock was able to steer away from in the other books by having Bastable actively oppose the anarchism and anti-racism initially.
Finally, for me the titular Steel Tsar, Joesph Stalin isn't very interesting, not complicated like the Black Atilla and T.A. Shaw were in the other two books. Yes, I would be horrified by a sympathetic Stalin, but structurally having a black hat evil villain in this book weakens it in comparison to the two books that precede it.
But this is, no doubt, a cunning plot to make me track down what I hope is the revised novel.
My enjoyment dropped for the third and final installment of The Oswald Bastable Trilogy. First, it is a BAD sign that Moorcock feels the necessity to write in that Bastable has selective amenisia. Is it there to reset Bastable, like some sort of sitcom character?
The book has some interesting things to say about history:
"It was human idealism and human impatience and human despair which continued to produce terrible wars. Human virtues and vices, mixed and confused in individuals, created what we called 'History'. Yet I could see no way in which the vicious circle of aspiration and desperation might ever be broken. We were all victims of our own imagination."
Which I enjoyed the first time it was said in the book, but less the second time, and by the third time I was rolling my eyes with impatience. Yes, yes, you've said this already. It seemed clumsily didactic from a writer as talented as Moorcock.
There was also a scene while bombing the Cossacks where the characters have one of those 'only happens in books' conversations where they discuss the various reasons why the Russians want to give away there freedom. It is one of those bald thematic conversations that I felt Moorcock was able to steer away from in the other books by having Bastable actively oppose the anarchism and anti-racism initially.
Finally, for me the titular Steel Tsar, Joesph Stalin isn't very interesting, not complicated like the Black Atilla and T.A. Shaw were in the other two books. Yes, I would be horrified by a sympathetic Stalin, but structurally having a black hat evil villain in this book weakens it in comparison to the two books that precede it.
But this is, no doubt, a cunning plot to make me track down what I hope is the revised novel.
therealbluestocking's review against another edition
https://www.spdhpod.com/spdhepisodes/2017/6/21/episode-1-islands-in-the-time-streams-1
smcleish's review against another edition
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in March 2000.
The final Oswald Bastable novel is, unfortunately, the most disappointing of the three. In it, the hero once more finds himself involved in a cataclysmic war in an alternate universe. This time, the First World War hadn't happened, as Britain and Germany became allies while France declined as a power. Then Japanese imperialism, symbolised by the destruction of the modern showpiece of enlightened colonialism at Singapore, leads to war, and Bastable joins the Russian airship navy. (The success of airships is common to all the Bastable alternate histories.) There, he is imprisoned by the rebel leader Dugashvili, known as 'The Steel Tsar' (and of course, Stalin means steel and Stalin's real name was Dugashvili).
Neither the background nor the secondary characters are as
interesting or as convincing as in the previous novels. Dugashvili is a convenient evil megalomaniac, followed by others for their own ends or because they too are on the brink of insanity. He makes the plot rather two dimensional, unlike the far better (fictional) 'Black Atilla' character of [b:The Land Leviathan|1062549|The Land Leviathan A New Scientific Romance (Oswald Bastable, #2)|Michael Moorcock|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282007946s/1062549.jpg|787207].
The final Oswald Bastable novel is, unfortunately, the most disappointing of the three. In it, the hero once more finds himself involved in a cataclysmic war in an alternate universe. This time, the First World War hadn't happened, as Britain and Germany became allies while France declined as a power. Then Japanese imperialism, symbolised by the destruction of the modern showpiece of enlightened colonialism at Singapore, leads to war, and Bastable joins the Russian airship navy. (The success of airships is common to all the Bastable alternate histories.) There, he is imprisoned by the rebel leader Dugashvili, known as 'The Steel Tsar' (and of course, Stalin means steel and Stalin's real name was Dugashvili).
Neither the background nor the secondary characters are as
interesting or as convincing as in the previous novels. Dugashvili is a convenient evil megalomaniac, followed by others for their own ends or because they too are on the brink of insanity. He makes the plot rather two dimensional, unlike the far better (fictional) 'Black Atilla' character of [b:The Land Leviathan|1062549|The Land Leviathan A New Scientific Romance (Oswald Bastable, #2)|Michael Moorcock|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282007946s/1062549.jpg|787207].