"There's something to be said for any novel where an American sea captain runs another captain through with his sword in a duel off the coast of Chile in the first few pages. That's the sort of book Erik T. Hirschmann, a professor of history at the University of Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna campus, has penned. It is both action-packed and filled with cromulent historical detail....Historical novels do something that even the very best nonfiction history writing can't--they put the reader inside the hearts and desires of people from the past. They show us the visceral lived experience of their time on Earth, and present events not as history with a capital "H" but as just stuff that happened to folks who were living back then. Voyage of the Eclipse accomplishes this very well. It is a fast-paced swashbuckling action story in a similar vein to the seagoing novels of Patrick O'Brian, only set on ground much more familiar to students of Alaska's history. The historical detail is exacting, rich, and ineffably human...Voyage of the Eclipse is a worthy read that carries the reader away across the sea..." --Alaska History

"Erik T. Hirschmann's book Voyage of the Eclipse put me in an exploring, swashbuckling mood right from the start....It is evident that the author did his homework with this well-researched and accurate depiction of life in 1800s sea exploration." --Reader Views

Hirschmann succeeds in communicating the harshness of the era through the youth of the sailors, their distance from home, the general lawlessness of the time, and the ruthless exploitation of local populations. Stopovers in remote places like the Juan Fernandez Islands drive home the far-flung

geography of the Age of Sail. Kirkus