One day the world is normal, the next the very laws of nature change. Electricity and gunpowder no longer work, leaving humanity without their CDs, guns, or computers along with cars and agricultural machinery. The world then regresses to the state of the middle ages, power measured in organization, leaders, metal armor, and archaic weapons. The two most prominent characters are Mike Havel, leader of a band that comes to be known as the "Bearkillers", and Juniper, leader of Clan MacKenzie. The two, strong and honest leaders in a land where honesty is being forgotten, manage to throw together a life for their respective groups. Even so, their neighbor, The Protector, has less peaceful plans in mind...

Without fail, apocalypse and world-wide destruction and the degeneration/rebuilding of society presses an interest button for me. And I was very intrigued by the idea of a world without electricity or gunpowder. What a drastic shift! What opportunity for imagination...

Dies the Fire has both good and bad elements--and it's very difficult for me to say which of those wins out at the end. At any given point in the novel, either Juniper's group or Havel's group is interesting, but rarely will both groups be interesting at the same time. Also, every character pales in comparison with these two characters, the rest being underdeveloped and often ignored. This is, perhaps, the most disappointing quality about the book: the characters are so very predictable and flat. The Protector fills the role of Undeserving Bad Guy, doing dastardly deeds; Havel is the ex-Marine hero with women falling at his feet; Juniper the mystical, kind witch. And it's a bad sign when a few words sum up the entire main characters--everyone else needs even less explanation. Especially, the portrayal of the women characters irritates me: Signe or Astrid are given little attention and often reduced to plot devices or damsels in distress. And then there's the fact every woman character is getting pregnant because no one can be bothered to find new birth control devices after the condoms and pills run out. I worry that by the second book, the women will be nothing but baby-making devices while the men become warriors. (As for the argument that Stirling was going for the Middle Age feel--what's the point of alternative history if you're going to minimize one entire gender without reason? And as for the argument of Juniper's strength--well, yes, she is, but what other woman is at all?) To an extent, Stirling has marginalized all characters that are not Juniper or Mike. It's irritating that every event with a minor character leads to the development of those two...

Another disappointing aspect of Dies the Fire was how very random the plot can be. Though Stirling attempts to write it as a "luck" plot device, the abnormal luck of the two main protagonists just doesn't jive for me. Add on to that random acts of violence and random happenings and Dies the Fire comes off laughable.

Additionally, the end of the novel makes an uncomfortable switch from attempting realistic fantasy into the mystical. I don't mind religion in my novels, but when I feel as if I'm reading a handbook for initiates...

That isn't to say Dies the Fire is dull. Rather, the story is quite readable, if one ignores those hiccups. I plan on continuing the series to see how everything develops, although it's not high on my list of priorities. ( )

I liked it enough to buy the sequel, but it's no pantheon of apocalyptic fantasy. ( )

Great story line had a blast reading it. Went out the next day and got the next 3 books. ( )

I read this after the Nantucket series and frankly he seems to be a formula writer. The book has potential but again too many characters, little character developement and you often get confused as to which group a character belongs to. The book just marches on from one battle to the next and I for one get tired of the battles. I was hoping for more detail on the survival of an aftermath to an apocalypse. The villians are almost cartoonish in nature. A quick unsatisfying read...I probably won't continue the series. ( )

A post-apocalyptic TV series called "Jericho", as well as the unstable state of the world got me interested in this genre. This is the first of a 3-part trilogy; I felt it was worthwhile to complete the trilogy though I was ready to be done with it by the end. certainly this 1st book was the best. ( )

This is an absolutely fascinating adventure through a post-apocalptical distopia. This is the series I have been looking for for a long time, and it just felt good to finally find it.
The author takes an implausable premise and makes it believeable through his descriptions and characters. The end of technology and firepower brings a lot of changes to the world and forces people to re-invent society and they turn to different historical models that work to different degrees of success in the new post technological world.
In a fascinating way the reader is taken forward into the past... and it is just a fun trip! ( )

http://allbookedup-elena.blogspot.com... ( )

Post apocalyptic of sorts. No one knows how all the electrical power was taken away as well as the laws of burn-rates (explosions, batteries, etc) changed. This book primarily follows to 'clans' of people in their survival paths. One is a coven of wiccans/pagans and how that influences their choices differently than the other clan of 'warriors' (out of necessity, then skill). For me, the writing includes pagan thought an action well into those characters. Could be inspirational if it wasn't the post apocalyptic world that I'm sure I would not likely survive the first 1week. ( )

An unspecified catastrophe conveniently disables modern technology, forcing the world back to feudalism. One of the dumbest premises I've seen in post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Prose has the cranked-out feel you expect from a Turtledove series. I'm giving this three stars because, despite my contempt for this book, I'd read the sequels if I found them cheap.

Cast: eco-feminist neo-pagans, Tolkein-reading Marines, inner-city gansters, evil history grad-students
Timeframe: pre-catastrophe-recovery era
Mary Sue: Live-action role-players, Ren-fairies ( )

Loaned to me today. It's a novel, but I'll give it the "100-page" test.

What a great idea! Setting a story in the Pacific Northwest is nothing new, but then add in a mysterious diasaster that strips humanity of electricity, steam power, working gun powder, and combustion energy. Add some wiccans, some U.S. marines, a couple hundred CSA nerds, OSU, some gangstas, and Tolkien die hards. Shake it all up, what do you get, a plot that satisfies the geek within. Oh how I love Portland. Its such great city, but in Dies the Fire, it becomes the center of evil oppression run by brutal thugs who in turn are controlled by Nobles from the Society for Creative Anachronisms. Oregon State University, my Alma Mater, becomes a free city-state, run by the Engineering and Agricultural Faculty. You get the idea. All of this is caused by some mysterious "change" connected to the island of Nantucket (which is the source of another trilogy by Stirling) and Dies the Fire becomes the first in a series of 6 books, 5 of which are currently written. If you love alternative history, and have a touch of the eccentric in you, you will love this series. ( )

I read less than 60 pages into the novel and promptly put it back on the shelf. I never throw out books no matter how bad they are, but this one will definitely stay on the shelf forever. The sword wielding, history professor, "Lord Protector" that can defeat 4 enemies at once (2 policemen and 2 soldiers) was quite enough for me. Two weeks after the "event" and both the Government and Provisional Governments have fallen and already a minor fiefdom has formed. Not to mention that the only survivors from the after effects of the event seem to be people that participate in historical societies and renaissance fairs. Apparently all the other people that don't fit this mold laid down and died. Stirling needs to look up the definition of "deus ex machina" because every few pages he seems to find the need to introduce a new one. Rubbish. ( )

so far it has been a GREAT BOOK!!!! ( )

Warning: when you start reading this book, also start putting aside the cash to buy the sequels. You will be hooked!

Alternate.... history? Future? Hard to say. Machines, engines, gunpowder, batteries - all no longer work after a mysterious light appears over Nantucket. So how would you survive if, technologically, you were thrown back to Medieval times?

I don't want to say more because part of the joy in reading this series is discovering how people survive, as well as what's helpful and what's not. ( )

Summary: What would you do if tomorrow morning your cell phone stopped working? What if it weren’t just your phone, but also your computer, car, and refrigerator? And what if it weren’t just your electronics, but everyone’s? What would you do? Could you find enough food to survive? Could you defend it against other people who want to take it from you?

That’s the world S. M. Stirling asks us to contemplate in his novel Dies the Fire. At 6:15 on a March evening, The Change occurs – a blinding white flash, followed by the laws of physics going haywire… no more electricity, combustion engines, or gunpowder. The novel follows the stories of two survivors following The Change. Juniper Mackenzie, a Gaelic folk singer and the head of a Wiccan coven, is mid-set in a Corvallis bar when The Change strikes. When she realizes that it’s not just a momentary blip, she heads for her family’s cabin in the rural Willamette Valley, accompanied by her daughter, the owner of the bar, and some farming equipment they “liberate” from a local museum.

The Change is a little more drastic for pilot and ex-marine Mike Havel. He’s high in the air over the Idaho wilderness, ferrying the wealthy Larsen family to their remote second home when the engine and electronics on his small plane simultaneously die. They survive the crash, but are left stranded in the middle of the late-winter woods with minimal food and gear, and no chance of a rescue helicopter to help.

As Juniper and Mike begin to gather friends, refugees, and other survivors around them, they each unwillingly become the de facto leader of a small community – Juniper as leader and high priestess of a makeshift coven and clan, and Mike as the commander of a band of mercenary fighters. While both groups have to struggle for short-term survival and long-term security, they also have to deal with bandits, raiders, and cannibals, as well as the fighting bands of the Protector, a crazed but powerful man who has decided that The Change means the time for feudalism has come again… with him as the reigning warlord.

Review: Although this book, like most post-apocalyptic literature, gets lumped in as science fiction, there’s very little about it that actually qualifies it for the term. It’s more properly labeled as speculative fiction – both in the sense of its premise (“What would happen if all of our technology stopped working?”), and in the sense that both characters and readers are left to speculate on the nature of The Change. Stirling’s story has a strong bias towards practicality – whatever the cause of The Change, the characters are too busy dealing with its effects to spend much time pondering the deeper metaphysical questions. This favoring of practicality over metaphysics means this novel has more thematically in common with survivalist novels and some historical fiction than with more typical sci-fi.

Dies the Fire works very well as a thought experiment – I spent the entire novel asking myself “What would I do in that situation? Could I survive?” (The answer, I suspect, is “no”, although I now have a strong desire to take up archery.) It’s clear that Stirling has thought through his world very thoroughly, catching details that most people wouldn’t even consider. Giving your brain the chance to play with hypotheticals of the post-Change world is the best part of the novel, and I applaud Stirling for creating a world so rich with potential.

Unfortunately, while I thought the post-Change world was fascinating, I was less enthused by the stories within that world that Stirling chose to tell. Part of this stems from the fact that I didn’t emotionally connect to any of his characters… and the fact that they didn’t seem to emotionally connect to each other. It felt as if this novel was so intent on describing what the characters were doing that it ignored what they were feeling, and thus lacked an emotional core. Preexisting relationships that one would expect to be affected by The Change are discussed glancingly at best (for much of the novel, it seemed as though Juniper forgot she had a daughter), while newly established relationships felt largely hollow and ultimately false.

The other main factor that kept me from really getting involved in this novel was the high level of seemingly extraneous scenes, characters, themes, and details. The most obvious example is the religion; Juniper and her coven are “conspicuously” Wiccan, which is not a problem in and of itself. However, when a novel focuses so heavily on a character’s religion, I expect that religion to have some major bearing on the plot, and when it doesn’t, it winds up feeling like proselytizing. Similarly, short “interludes” from the perspectives of the bad guys did very little for me. They didn’t provide additional depth of character, they simply seemed to be an opportunity for the author to describe some truly despicable people and their horrific actions in overly gruesome detail. In general, there were large swaths of this novel whose inclusion I didn’t fully understand, and which could have been cut without sacrificing much of the story.

For the most part, I though Todd McLaren did a good job narrating the story. Initially, I was very put off by how every character seemed to have an accent. As I listened, however, I realized that all of the accents had a textual basis; Stirling is strangely fixated on linguistic variations, and very few people in his post-Change world speak bland, unaccented American English. But by far largest fault of the audiobook production was that mid-chapter scene shifts were not demarcated by even a long-ish pause, instead plunging from paragraph to paragraph in a manner that frequently left me checking if I’d accidentally skipped a track.

Recommendation: Overall, I found Dies the Fire to be a passably enjoyable but over-long and oddly focused story, set in a fascinating speculative world. Fans of novels focused on action, wilderness survival, fighting, and warfare, would be the most likely to enjoy this book, but anyone looking for something deeper is likely to come away disappointed. 3 out of 5 stars.

This review is also posted at www.sfsite.com. ( )

Has a lot in common with the rest of this author's work. Fairly weak characterization (he seems to be improving on this) but highly interesting scenarios if you can suspend disbelief. In this case, the laws of physics suddenly change and there is no more combustion greater than a normal campfire, nor is there any electricity. The author is obviously interested in the Wiccans, and as others have said these guys are tiresome, but the other groups are pretty interesting.

I thought an awful lot about this book, what I would do if this happened, etc. And in the end you can't give a much higher compliment than that. This particular book has more of a post holocaust element that is missing from the later books. ( )

While reading The Road a coworker recommended Dies the Fire to me as another book about a post-apocalyptic world, but one that was not nearly as bleak and depressing. It didn't take much to convince me to give the book a try, and after the first couple of chapters I was hooked. Everything from the premise of a world in which guns, cars and all other modern conveniences are rendered useless, to the well developed characters, Dies the Fire is a fantastic book to read. Another great thing is that Dies the Fire is only the beginning. To date, four other books have been released that take place within the same universe, with others planned. ( )

Page-turner in the genre of dystopian fiction. A disturbance in space (apparently intentional), disables all primary sources of electric, mechanical, and explosive power. Two leaders help their respective groups of survivors to persist among the chaos of disease, famine, and new gangs of power. ( )

I’m about half way through Dies the Fire now, and I am feeling divided as to whether or not this is a good book. There’s some serious negatives, and one serious positive. I am enjoying this book, but the negatives may just ruin the whole experience for me yet.

So, the negatives. First, you have to accept the premise of the story. In the world of this book, several fundamental laws of nature are altered. Electricity is gone. Explosives don’t work. And combustion engines are out, too. I could have accepted the electricity thing (EMP or something), but the rest just doesn’t make sense. What could make gunpowder stop exploding or stop gasoline from burning? Second, there are serious time issues here. There aren’t any dates in the book for the most part, so it’s hard to keep track of how long things are taking to do. But it seems to me that things (like starvation rates, animal and plant life recovery, collapse of civilization, food running out) are happening way faster than I would have expected. It could be that I think things are moving faster than Stirling intended them to. Or it could be that Stirling is ignoring the element of time in order to make his plot race along. Third, the Wiccans are bugging the crap out of me. They’re like Ueber-Wiccans. And, honestly, it’s just the language that’s driving me up the wall. The religion itself (the ceremonies and such) haven’t made much of an appearance. But if I read the words “Blessed be” much more, I may just have to wing this book across the room and then skip to the sections without witches.

But, there is a huge positive. The premise is interesting enough, and the plot is interesting enough, that I find myself thinking about this book when my neurons have a spare moment. I think about what my family and I might do if something like this happened to our world. I even dreamed about that senario last night. This only happens when I read books that just fascinate me.

There are a lot of negatives in the minus column. But the postives may outweigh them for now.

But if Juniper says “Blessed be” one more time….Gah!

(This review originally appeared on my blog, the Textual Frigate)

This is the first book in a series that takes place after an apocalypse of sorts. Electricity no longer works and anything with any kind of combustion has been severely suppressed. The survivors don't know what caused it, theories range from an angry deity or deities to Alien Space Bats. In the end, the how and why don't really matter, what matters is survival.

The book follows two different groups of people, one a pilot and his passengers and the other the leader of a Wiccan coven. The Wicca stuff was a bit grating (I'm not religious and I'm not particularly interested in religion and there was a lot of religion in this book) but I eventually got used to it.

In some ways I think this book is an author's fantasy about what would happen if SCAdians ruled the world. From a relatively small population there are a lot of people with archaic skills (some of them actually are SCAdians or Ren-Faire folk). I buy it in parts of Oregon (there is the Oregon Fair, after all) but I'm less inclined to buy it in Idaho. But the author also does a good job of pointing out the ways in which it is not the SCA come to life. For one thing, there are bicycles, which radically change things tactically from the medieval era.

The premise is interesting as are most of the characters and I'm happy to have a post-apocalyptic series rather than a single book. ( )

Alternate History at its best...

S. M. Stirling delivers an engrossing story of post-apocalyptic America, New Age witches and desperate cannibals. “Dies the Fire” recounts the back-to-the-earth hand-to-mouth conflict of civilization to survive "The Change," a global incident that alters the physical laws of the world to make all modern technology worthless.

The novel follows the civilization building actions of Mike Havel, a former Marine pilot, and Juniper Mackenzie, a New Age Wiccan priestess and Celtic songwriter as they build separate but cooperative communities in the American Northwest.

4 and ½ of 5 stars

Other Books of the Change

Island in the Sea of Time
1. Island in the Sea of Time (1997)
2. Against the Tide of Years (1998)
3. On the Oceans of Eternity (2000)

Dies the Fire
1. Dies the Fire (2004)
2. The Protector's War (2005)
3. A Meeting at Corvallis (2006)

Change
1. The Sunrise Lands (2007)
2. The Scourge of God (2008) ( )

This may be my favorite SM Stirling book, and I love Stirling! The Island in the Sea of Time series was awesome, but I find that the Emberverse really fulfills my need for post-apocalyptic fiction.

This book is totally fun. It covers some pretty dark subject matter, but somehow stays fun and not so dark that's it's depressing. I think it's because Stirling focuses so much on building. Everything collapses, and then it's built back up. There's a feeling of hope throughout the book and the whole Emberverse series.

I currently convinced my boyfriend to read Island in the Sea of Time, and he's currently on the second in the Nantucket series. His only complaint about Stirling is the amount of detail Stirling gives. But I figure that you just have to learn how to read him. You read the details that interest you, and skip the rest. His long discourses on myriad subjects (metal working, neo-paganism, beer makings, etc.) are easy to spot in advance and simply skip if you aren't interested. And if you are interested in the subject, so much the better!

I totally love this book and this series. I recommend it to everyone who might have the slightest interest, and many of them have agreed with me that it's awesome! ( )

Mike Havel, is a pilot who has been hired to fly a family of five to their holiday retreat. While flying the engines cut out completely and they crash into a creek at the bottom of a valley. Shortly before the crash there is a bright flash. This same flash is experienced by Juniper, a small town singer - and a witch. The flash results in the loss of electrical power - and batteries, and petrol is suddenly useless. Gunpowder lost it explosive power, so guns don't work, machinery stops - cars stop, planes drop out of the sky. It is carnage and millions die very quickly.

However, the survivors start to slowly band together, and struggle to survive in this new world. They must learn how to farm, ride horses, make hand weapons and learn to use them. Each of the two main groups are followed in turn - battling to survive and deal with those who want to rule by force. There are the religious zealots, the idealists, the bully boys, the cannibals and just plain evil people out to be as violent as they can.

Dies the Fire is the first of a series - the third of which is coming out soon - and then there is another one with a completely different set of characters set in England at the same time. I personally don't think I'll be tempted to read any more in the series. The book had the recipe to be a wonderful story - I started by hanging off every word. However, it did not sustain my interest and I found myself to be left a little bored by the whole thing, and if I heard one more "blessed be" or obscure, meaningless, Gaelic phrase, I would have thrown the book metaphorically against the wall. I am not a scientific person - but did not find the explanations as to why various things stopped working very convincing and some things were never explained. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a... ( )

An electrical storm over Nantucket causes all electronic devices to cease to function-computers, radio, even firearms-and plunges the world into a darkness humanity is unprepared to face. But as some people band together to help, others are building armies for conquest...

This was my second DNF in a row, and that fact was even more of a disappointment than in the case of Outlander. This was a read for a book group and I'm the one who nominated it. I thought the concept was fascinating - electricity and even firearms stop working for no apparent reason and everyone is left to cope. I got about of a third of the way through and just found myself stopping reading. I don't even know why. It wasn't specifically the characters or the plot or even anything I can pinpoint about the writing style. I just didn't want to go on.

This is the second time I've tried to read Stirling and I had the same reaction then. I started Island in the Sea of Time, where the island of Nantucket gets thrown 3000 years back in time and again, the people have to find a way to survive. (And yes, it does seem the two events are connected and apparently Stirling is starting to show that in his latest book in the series.)

I find this incredibly frustrating, especially since the discussion on my book group suggests the story stayed interesting and thought-provoking. These are books I want to have read, but don't actually want to read. The idea works for me brilliantly, the books themselves don't. So, again I guess I'm just going to have to accept that this author doesn't work for me and move on to something else. A pity, as I still think I'm missing a good story.

Dies the Fire
S. M. Stirling
Did Not Finish