The Island in the Sea of Time series is a trilogy that relates to but is separate from the Dies the Fire (aka Emberverse) trilogy. In the Island series, the same Event that causes higher technology to stop working in Dies the Fire sweeps the island of Natucket several millennia back in time. The Nantucketers must survive in a pre-technological past while the rest of the world has to deal with the fact that technology has stopped working. (Small clues toward the end of Meeting at Corvalis make me think this supposedly all happens in a parallel world, not our own timeline's Earth.) For the Nantucketers, however, advanced technologies such as gunpowder and electronics still work, and they are able to use this to their advantage when dealing with ancient Greeks, Mesopotamians, and Celts.
Stirling has a few hobby-horses that sort of lessen the quality of his work, if you ask me. For one thing, practically every main character in the books seems to have memorized every word of J.R.R. Tolkien and Rob't. E. Howard--which is fun but seems more'n a bit unlikely. Hot lesbian martial arts specialists are a lot more common in his worlds than I have noticed to be the case in mine--but maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd. Things like that aside, though, the stories are just flat out fun to read, and Stirling's style and descriptive powers are first-rate.
RS: http://bibliograph.blogspot.com/
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