This collection of sixteen tales uses the seas as its basic setting, but not always Earth's waterways as the locale. The stories are divided into three major categories. "Legend of the High Seas and Spaceways" takes the readers through four adventures in the cosmos or on the edge of future science. "Proto-Pirates of the Galaxy and Beyond" provides the audience with six "pirates in space" stories. "Commodores and Commanders of the Cosmos" includes six tales about crews sailing the seas of the galaxies.

All sixteen tales are well written with contributions by some of science fiction's best authors. Each tale is unique and different as the metaphor that space is a vast ocean is met with vigor and imagination. Readers will want to take this sea cruise.

Harriet Klausner

Here I'll consider the stories organized by author rather than order within the book.

Edghill, Rosemary: At six, when Mykene first showed awareness of the dolphin songs in the water, the Pilot's Guild took her as an apprentice "Child of Ocean". The story's in braided format, the past-thread showing her selection and learning the significance of the pilot's voyage-token drawn secretly by lot, and the present when her "luck" has run out. [Good as far as it goes, but the ending isn't a complete resolution.]

Grubb, James: "Catch of the Day" In a world - the future? - where some catastrophe drowned much of the world under perpetual cloud cover, humanity lives on scattered mountaintops, and ships sail the clouds. The scholar August Gold wishes to test ancient legends speaking of dragons, "fishing" for them by trailing a bait to tempt their territorial hearts.

Huff, Tanya: "Oh, Glorious Sight" Zoane Cabatto - now John Cabot - is obsessed with leading an expedition to the New World. He's almost unaware of the wild-animal kid he casually rescued from a beating on an English dock, and gave a place on board. Everyone but he can see young Tam's devotion and hear his music, wasted on this man looking ever over the horizon and never at wonders nearer home.

Kupfer, Allen C.: "The Sir Walter Raleigh Conspiracy" - from the diary of Robert Defoe, writing in fear for his life: an impoverished attorney ordered by James I to 'defend' Sir Walter in a secret trial in the Tower - giving a veneer of legality to the necessary death of one who chose to go native in Guiana rather than remain loyal to the established order. But everyone connected with Raleigh's imprisonment seems to be dying horribly, although he's in solitary confinement and appears insane.

Kupperberg, Paul: Since Atlantis' founding, Thalis has been her highest-ranking mage-priest - and since her people have spurned their gods for science, seems doomed to be last as well as first. Thalis, however, ventures forth to "Walk Upon the Waters" one last time - 'I do not presume to speak for the gods. I must go and ask them.' Most of the remaining story is spent in memory. [An anti-science slant (particularly with *no* attempt at rationale) is guaranteed to irritate me, and Kupperberg's world-building is too thin for the short-story format.]

Murray, Frieda A.: "The Winds They Did Blow High" Setting: an alternate early-19th-century England, where the narrator listens to Captain Northcott's tale of his magical confrontation with a French fleet. (Even without magic, the history's a little different, but magic has been mostly kept out of naval warfare up to the narrative present because it erodes discipline: superior officers and subordinates both mistrust wind-whistling and wave-singing, and tend to blame all problems on any nearby practitioner.)

Odom, Mel: "The Colossus of Mahrass" occupies a full quarter of the book. As in 'Smoker' (_Vengeance Fantastic_), the protagonist - the privateer Captain Jaelik - opens the story with a character-revealing barroom brawl, although in this case the revelation is that he's spoiling for a fight, any fight, despite the fact that he's looking for a good exorcist to deal with a ghost only he can see. (His sidekick figures 1) maybe the captain got one too many blows to the head or bad batches of rum, 2) that Jaelik, not he, is spoiling for a fight with the 7-foot-tall Deathwatch guard, so 3) he, Alff, is going to have a drink.)

Ordover, John J: "The Devil and Captain Briggs" - the captain of the _Mary Celeste_, mysteriously left drifting with no explanation. But if Father Dominicus hadn't destroyed a certain manuscript left behind by a survivor unknown to the world, the mystery would be only a footnote in an even more famous story.

Patton, Fiona: "The Sacred Waters of Kane" Makani's friend Kai is gifted at reading signs written in wind and wave, but his teacher openly doubts whether he has the discipline to be kahuna kilo - and Kai sets out to prove how spectacularly correct old Alaula is. As Makani says, "You're going to risk your life to harvest a night-growing plant in haunted waters for [mythical] kahuna...because you haven't the patience to listen to Alaula instead of fighting with him?" (The specific setting is near Peahi on Maui.)

Reichert, Mickey Zucker: As the price of passage aboard _Salty Rainbow_, priest-mage Alzon swore to use no magic while aboard - a vow binding him no matter *what* happens, on pain of losing his magic. So when sacrificed to become "The Sea God's Servant", Alzon is trapped, his freedom in pawn to his magic.

Resnick, Mike and Gerencer, Tom: "Ocean's Eleven" The North Atlantic recently vanished from its bed, but it was voluntary; after trying 10 other jobs, it has sought out Bob Zellinski at Intellitemp Employment Services. "I was an ocean 200000000 years ago. I was an ocean 5000 years ago. I was an ocean last Tuesday. There's no advancement."

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn: The narrator, serving as intelligence officer aboard a battleship in the Pacific fleet, was in a better position than any to answer a pirate ghost's demand for a crewman as "Tribute": as censor, he'd literally read the hearts of every man aboard.

Ward, James M.: "Midshipwizard" Blithe is green as grass, on his first ship, a half-living dragonship of the Royal Navy in this Hornblower-like setting. But someone aboard tried to sabotage the ship by poisoning its heart soon after he came aboard - and the magic he used to save it violated one of this navy's equivalent of the 39 articles: a court-martial, capital offense.

This book definitely makes my top ten list. Some of these stories really made me stop to think. Once I started "Oceans of Magic" I just couldn't put it down. To quote the critic of Stephen King, "This book will make you stay up past your bedtime". I hope that you all pick up this book and once you do I dare you to try and put it down. It will be a spellbinding experience, promise.

After reading through this collection of "What-If?" stories, I can tell that I will not be holding on to this too much. Although the stories themselves are pretty good for the pulp novel status. Overall, a majority of the stories in this book are too defeatist in nature. The actual event though horrible and a loss for the US probably would not of lead to some of the time-lines that some of these authors pose. A number of them list the West Coast of the US being over run or captured. Finally, as others have stated the appendices listed are the good parts of this book. They explain the realities behind the attack, a time line of the attack, and finally an explanation of possible alternitives and the chances of them affecting the outcome of the attack. Possible better alternative histories of the attack on Pearl Harbor could be found in the book "Rising Sun Victorious" or in the books "What-IF and What-If 2"

An anthology of allohistories, that is, "what-if" stories based on the attack on Pearl Harbor. Like all anthologies, some stories are superb, some are weak, but overall the level is quite high. The only flaw, and it isn't a serious one, lies at the hands of the editors in their selection and organization of the stories. I'll leave the weakest part of the collection, Part 1, for last.
Part 2, 'Alternate Actions', are the stories by Pineiro, Reasoner, Dietz, and Hallanhan. These are the most traditionally "what-if" stories, hinging on a minor event causing a major change in result. Three are very good, and one, Reasoner's 'The East Wind Caper' is outstanding. A hard-boiled private eye (see Bogart in the role) stumbles onto the Japanese plot and saves the day. Well told, tightly paced and humorous.
Part 3, 'Alternate Aftermaths', contains stories by DuBois, Tillman, Allyn, and Keith. Of these, Keith's 'A Terrible Resolve' is the best, a tale of Japanese victories which lead the Empire up to the beaches of California before the success of the Manhatten Project and the actions of American kamikazi bombers, turn the Imperial Navy back.
A Postscript by Kupfer, which posits a Nazi victory over both America and Japan, is the most chilling story in the book.
The Appendices give an excellent historical background of the real world event, of the military and diplomatic realities which the allohistorians in the anthology had to manipulate for our entertainment.
Now, the worst for last, and as I previously said, it isn't too bad. Part 1, 'Alternate Architects', has the four stories by Hawke, Geraghty, DeFelice, Gorman. Very little allohistorical content in any of these, and what little there is, is only background color. Mostly these four just rehash old conspiracy theories about Roosevelt and/or Churchill knowing that the attack was going to happen and allowed it to go on in the hopes American would enter the war against Germany. I've got no problem with this belief, though I think, like most conspiracies, the proponents are assuming malice where simple incompetence is enough of an explanation. My problem with these stories is that so much of the tale is given over to rehashing the arguements, lecturing the reader on why the plot really did happen, that the stories are just plain boring. The editors could have had a much stronger anthology by leaving this part out and putting more of the rest in.
One observation, something that gave me a small grin. When reading the stories, watch for similarities between them. Variations on the phrase "cigarette, cigar, and pipe smoke" pops up in an awful lot of stories. I suspect the editors handed our a very detailed background guide to the authors, and some of them lifted material out of it verbatim.

This is one of the very best collections of alternate world histories that I have read and one I would use in the classroom were I still teaching. However, the stories as good as they are take second place to two very thoughtful essays by experts at the end of the book. Paul Thomsen gives an excellent diplomatic perspective of what went right and what went wrong in events leading to the attack. The greatest praise must go to historian William Forstchen who sums up the "The Realities of an Alternate Pearl Harbor". He brings out things that most of us either did not know or did not fully understand. It is his premise that even in the worst case scenarios all going against us, a third wave of attack destroying the oil tanks stored at Pearl which would keep us out of the Pacific for a year, the sinking of the three carriers that were away at the time of the attack which would mean no victories at Midway or the Coral Sea, the taking over of the base with veteran Japanese soldiers which would lose us Hawaii, and even the bombing of the Panama Canel which would take a year to rebuild, we would still have prevailed. Maybe the war would have been a year or two longer, but American moral resolve and production would have won out in the end. We were heavily devalued by most of the Japanese command and they would not foresee that in the American gestalt there is a sense of morality that makes us fight for what we see as not just territorial goals, but for freedom. In doing so we believe in complete victory. If anything, the Japanese would have been worse off to have gone beyond their success at Pearl. A year longer to get started would have meant more production of weapons on our part and by 1946 we would have had more than three atomic bombs. We likely would have laid waste to Japan to pay back for the conquest of Hawaii, the bombing of Panama, and raids on California. As it was, the Japanese were surprised at the resolve we did show. They thought we would be forced to compromise and negotiate a peace. They were as surpised as Muslim fanatics must be today in seeing our reaction to the attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and related actions. We prevailed then, we will now.