Dies the Fire: A Novel of the Change (Hardcover)

by S. M. Stirling (Author) "Michael Havel pulled his battered four-by-four into the employees' parking lot, locked up and swung his just-in-case gear out of the back, the strap of..." (more)
Key Phrases: cloven air, rabbit stick, ranger cabin, Iron Rod, Ken Larsson, Devil Dogs (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
What is the foundation of our civilization? asks Stirling (Conquistador) in this rousing tale of the aftermath of an uncanny event, "the Change," that renders electronics and explosives (including firearms) inoperative. As American society disintegrates, without either a government able to maintain order or an economy capable of sustaining a large population, most of the world dies off from a combination of famine, plague, brigandage and just plain bad luck. The survivors are those who adapt most quickly, either by making it to the country and growing their own crops—or by taking those crops from others by force. Chief among the latter is a former professor of medieval history with visions of empire, who sends bicycling hordes of street thugs into the countryside. Those opposing him include an ex-Marine bush pilot, who teams up with a Texas horse wrangler and a teenage Tolkien fanatic to create something very much like the Riders of Rohan. Ultimately, Stirling shows that while our technology influences the means by which we live, it is the myths we believe in that determine how we live. The novel's dual themes—myth and technology—should appeal to both fantasy and hard SF readers as well as to techno-thriller fans.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
For survivors of a mysterious event that caused electricity, internal combustion engines, and gunpowder to fail, the Pacific Northwest furnishes enough land to support subsistence existence in a future that belongs not to today's rifle-toting survivalists but to people who know older ways. Musician Juniper takes refuge on her family's land with a growing group of friends that becomes "Clan MacKenzie." Reenactors know useful things (see Jenny Thompson's War Games [BKL Je 1&15 04]), such as how to build log houses and craft bows for hunting. Meanwhile, Mike Havel, a pilot who was flying when the Change happened, and his passengers, having survived crashing in a frigid lake, gather followers, too. Thanks to a former Society for Creative Anachronism (a real organization of eclectic reenactors) fencer, and after hard work and the accident that gives their group the name "Bearkillers," they have the knowledge to sell their protective services. There are villains, too, such as a medieval history professor who starts a feudal revival, in Stirling's intriguing what-if about modern humans denied their treasured conveniences. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Roc Hardcover; First Printing edition (August 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451459792
• ISBN-13: 978-0451459794
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (200 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #276,151 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dies the fire a fun EOW (End of World) novel, November 7, 2006

By	Eddie Lancekick "A Regulator" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Dies the Fire: A Novel of the Change (Mass Market Paperback)

Stirling's "Dies the Fire" has some good parts and some questionable ones. In this story, the year is 1998 and a happening occurs to the Earth called "The Change". All electronics and electricity is suddenly not working. Gunpowder as well, making the use of firearms useless to protect oneself from the sudden barbaric state that people are encountering.

Mike Havel, a former Marine, is flying a family out of Boise, Idaho to a remote cabin when his plane's engine suddenly quits and he is forced to crash land in the rugged Idaho Mountains. Determined to get help, he does what he can for the family while making his way to a road where he can find help. Suddenly he encounters "road people" and realizes the world will never be the same again.

Another main character is Juniper Mackenzie. She and her band of merry Wicca's are in Corvallis, Oregon when what is now known as "The Change" occurs. Juniper is suddenly thrust into a leadership role as she and her friends scramble to leave the city, which is now burning in many areas because of falling aircraft. Stirling's novel needs better editing, as there are times when the story seems to jump around a bit too much. There are times when it seems things are left out; most of the time it's a little bit of setup. A lot of this happens with a scene involving a Hot Air balloon and hang gliders. This particular flaw if anything seems to show that the novel may have been rushed towards the end, but hey, it is just my opinion.

As Havel's crew and Juniper's friends start to forge, and eventually fight their way toward living and creating a new life in this treacherous land full of eaters (cannibals) and other bad happenings, more villains start to take shape. The protector is a man who runs Portland somewhat like a Dictator, and is bent on seizing the valuable farm ground Oregon has to offer. Meanwhile in Seattle, a man named Duke Iron Rod is on a similar quest. Word gets to both camps about a man leading a group of Warriors called the "Bear Killers" clan from Idaho into the farming territory they want to have so badly. Juniper and her people not only triumph over tragedy, but rise to the occasion in a time and place that is virtually thrown back into a stone age era. At times the fantasy and Arthurian feel that Stirling thrusts his characters into is unrealistic for if anything, the pace of the time span of things happening after the change. Ipod listening teenyboppers turn to sword killing warriors in a matter of days. Office workers from the city suddenly learn trades and are able to apply them efficiently and correctly. I cannot knock it too much however; as we've seen people rise to the occasion before when faced with extraordinary odds. It is times like this that brings out the best in people, and the worst, and Stirling melds it together fairly nicely for an entertaining read. Grisly fight scenes marked with some great detail in learning "old" technology come together to give the novel a unique aspect in a genre that is often ripe with clichés'. I look forward to reading the second book of this trilogy called "The protector's war".

I took special interest in this book because I was born and raised in some of the very locations mentioned in the book. I did find it odd, however, that after using a plethora of actual towns, mountain ranges, cities, and highway and road systems, that he mentions Craigswood, Idaho. The town does not exist. From what I can tell he must mean Craigmont, but perhaps he used Craigswood because it gives the story even more of a folksy feel to it. Wicca Warriors, Archers, bicycle gangs, and more old school farming than you can shake a stick at.

86 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, August 6, 2004

By	Matt McDougall (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm a big fan of novels that take humanity and mix things up by altering the familiar scenario. Say by sending a community back in time with all their technology in tact, but with no access to the resources necessary to sustain that technology.

Well, Stirling has taken that premise and twisted it here. What if our modern day society was suddenly bereft of its technology? Anything powered by electricity, batteries, or gasoline suddenly useless? Gunpowder chemically altered to loose its highly explosive tendencies?

What would society do, without irrigation and machinery to run the massive farms, without refineries, and trucks, and refrigeration?

With six billion people on the planet, the resulting chaos is not at all cheerful. We never actually see the savage toll in a city larger than Portland (and even there not directly), but allusions to what it must be like in New York or Tokyo, and to what happened in St. Louis say plenty.

The story unfolds brilliantly, as people slowly begin to band together, and struggle to survive in this new world. They must learn how to farm, ride horses, make weapons, and then use them. And Stirling does an excellent job portraying the difficulty of each, with a particularly inspired source of metal for swords.

This book is one part nightmare, one part medievalist's fantasy, which makes its villain all the more fitting.

If you're wavering, pick up a copy, it's well worth the read.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Fire's Not the Only Thing Dying, August 9, 2005

By	hittingthebooks.com (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

I'm a big fan of alternative history-Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South got me interested in the genre. I'd read S.M. Stirling before (Conquistador, The Peshawar Lancers) and really enjoyed him. So when I started his Nantucket series, I was expecting a good read. Which they are, and aren't. The premise of the Nantucket series is that the island of Nantucket is inexplicably hurtled back in time to the Bronze Age. The Islanders must figure out how to survive and interact with this strange new world.

Dies the Fire is a companion novel to the Nantucket series. You needn't have read the trilogy to understand what's going on-it just lets you in on a few characters mentioned in the other books. Dies starts the night of The Event, when Nantucket disappears (tho' these characters don't know that) and suddenly anything remotely electrical stops working. Batteries die, cars won't run, even gunpowder won't explode any more.

The hero, Mike Havel, is a bush pilot flying a rich family to their place in Idaho when their plane just quits mid-air. He manages to bring the plane down in one piece, but the mother is injured pretty badly. After discovering that nothing works, the party sets off in search of help/civilization. They've got two things going for them-Mike is a combat veteran and knows how to survive in the woods, and the youngest daughter, Astrid, is a fantasy-loving Tolkien freak who has her own extremely well-made bow and arrows, and knows how to use them.

Meanwhile, in Corvallis, Oregon, Juniper MacKenzie, a folk-singer/Wiccan priestess is performing in a tavern when there is a blinding light, and then all is dark. Except for the fires flaming out of control from a 747 that crashed in the middle of town. Juniper, her deaf daughter Eilir, and their friend Dennis realize something very wrong has happened, and head for the hills, literally.

The rest of the book is how the two groups grow in size, try to avoid plague, cannibals, and mad warlords, and eventually come together. A pretty good tale of survival.

But while the plot is sound, the whole book felt strained. One of an author's goals should be for the reader to connect with his or her characters. And I just couldn't. I cared very little for what happened to Mike, Juniper, or any of the numerous supporting cast. I think the only one I really felt anything for was Astrid, and that's mainly because I'm a Tolkien freak too.

Also, I understand that, in a post-apocalyptic world such as this, life is going to be mean, nasty, brutish, and short. But I don't need explicit descriptions of this every other chapter (sometimes every chapter). Most of the people who die (and trust me, a lot of people die), do so in extremely horrific ways, which the author seems to spend entirely too much time describing to the reader. Between the cannibals and sadistic biker (bicycles, not motorcycles) gangs, there's a lot of raping, blood, and body parts. And chalk it up to me being a new mother, but I got awfully tired of hearing about children being killed or dying in other ways. Maybe once, ok. Too often, and I started just skipping whole sections of chapters. I don't read horror novels for a reason.

Finally, there's the whole Wiccan storyline, which after a while started to sound more like proselytizing than part of the story. All the good guys are either agnostic/atheistic or pagan, the Christians are all bigots, or lapsed. Even the sole Buddhist ends up joining Juniper's coven. As for the epilogue, that just got a little too out-there, causing me to ask myself, "Is this book about an alternative history, or swords-and-sorcery fantasy?"

In the end, I'm not sure I can recommend this book. It left a rather sour taste in my mouth and mind. The Peshawar Lancers, sure (at least, I don't remember it being this gruesome), even Conquistador.

But let Dies the Fire die out on the bookshelf.