# Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling



## Dagny (Feb 16, 2009)

I remember a few months ago being involved in a short conversation online regarding how much time it would take after a planet wide apocalypse before we lost the knowledge of how maintain modern technologies (computers, medical, chemistry, etc), and collapse into a new dark ages. I think the consenses was that knowledge would last a generation or two, and then fall by the wayside as people died or stopped seeing a reason to pass seemingly useless knowledge on. 

S. M. Stirling's *Dies the Fire* answers the questions in that conversation in a brutal fashion. Right off the bat, some kind of EMP has gone off in the upper atmosphere, affecting electronics, vehicles, steam engines, guns, and anything else that requires any kind of chemical reaction to work. The focus of the novel isn't the cause of the EMP (if that's what it was), but on the survivors and how they expect to live their lives after what becomes known as The Change. 

The story follows two main groups in Northern Idaho and outside Covallis, Oregon. Readers who are familiar with these areas will surely recognize cities, roads, and other landmarks. When airplanes start crashing to the ground, and cars stopped working in Corvallis, Juniper MacKenzie, hippie-ish musician and practicing Wiccan priestess, knows something is very, very wrong. She collects as much of her coven as she can, and after “liberating” a covered wagon from a local museum and whatever other supplies they can find, they decide to head out to her family's farm in the Willamette Valley. In Northern Oregon, Mike Havel, contract pilot, is flying the Larssen family to their vacation spot in northern Montana, when after a flash of light in the sky, everything in the plane goes done. One good crash landing later, and Mike earns himself the task of getting this affluent family to safety. The main plot of the novel follows Mike Havel and Juniper MacKenzie's groups as they learn how to survive and cope in this frightening new world. 

The first concern for the two groups is food, and rightly so. What can they forage, what can they steal, what can they grow, what can they hunt? Believing that the cities are soon to be cesspools full of starvation, disease, and death, both groups stay to the country. Minimal safety can be found in rural areas, where abandoned farms can be taken over, roaming farm animals can be captured for meat or milk, and game can be hunted. In one scene, Mike and his group come across a large group of city folk who have left a city on foot, and are aimlessly walking the abandoned interstates. He agrees to accept people into his group who can prove they have usable skills, such as medical, farming, or old fashioned weaponry. As I read this I got to thinking, if I was in that situation, how would I convince a clan leader to accept me? Being able to keep a tomato plant alive does not count as a farming skill, knowing how to apply neosporin and a bandaid does not count as a medical skill, and having watched some choreographed sword fights at the Renaissance Festival does not count as weapons skills. Everything on my resume would make me beyond useless in Stirling's post apocalyptic world. It's not the horror of a changed world that is was frightening to me, it was the horror of knowing I'd be useless in that world that kept me up at night biting my nails. 

Time goes by, and our two “clans” grow and evolve, and meet other groups of survivors, some militant, others so desperate for food that they resort to cannibalism and attacking other groups to use as food. Stirling keeps the action tense and suspenseful. The scenes involving the cannibal groups were reminiscent of horror movies and a few other apocalypse books where prisoners are kept alive and slowly amputated as the tribe needs to feed. If the fear of being useless in this new world doesn't keep you awake at night, these pyschologically horrific scenes will. 

On a positive (yet plot devicy) note, each clan luckily has members who are Renaissance Festival alumni, members of the SCA, or have experience working with and making non-modern weaponry, such as swords and crossbows. Since guns are no longer working, the quickest way to get dinner is via bow and arrow. It was easy to laugh while reading about characters who are wearing blue jeans and t-shirts under their chainmail, carrying crossbows and long swords. Good thing the characters laugh at themselves too. They know they look rediculous, but that this is what enables them to live. 

Along with a weapons expert, each clan has someone with some kind of engineering experience, and someone with some kind of medical experience, be them nurse or veterenarian. This where the conversation gets interesting regarding the loss of knowledge of modern technology. The engineer and the doctor aren't about to forget anything they've learned, and purposely share the knowledge with anyone who will listen. But without CAD, or pnuematic tools, or electricity, or refridgeration, or digital thermometers, or even a nailgun, how much use is technical engineering knowledge or medical knowledge going to be? The danger here isn't loss of knowledge, it's loss of a paradigm to use the knowledge in. Some of the most interesting parts of the book are where people who used to be engineers and carpenters try to get together to build something with only the tools at hand: water they can haul from the river, 50 pound bags of dry cement, hand saws, and any rope they can make themselves. 

Juniper MacKenzie struck me as a maternal, wisened woman in her late 40's or early 50's, willing to take on life's challenges as they came, but not above complaining about the annoyances such as an unplanned late in life pregnancy, so it shocked me to find that she is supposed to be only 30 years old. I'll be turning 30 later this year, and she just struck me as such an old thirty. The base of Juniper's clan is her wiccan co-religionists, and a large percentage of new clan members ask to be initiated into the Wiccan faith. It is truly unfortunate that many of her prayers and rituals come off as hokey, as I'm sure Stirling did a lot of research and meant for them to be respectful and reverent. I don't want to sound disrespectful to a religion that I am completely ignorant of, but many of the later scenes involving Wiccan rituals came off as a cheap and easy opening for anything rediculous and magical to happen, quite the opportunity for Deus ex Machina. The last thing I'm interested in is for The Change to have been caused by anything mystical or magical. There are more books in this series, so we shall see what happens. 

*Dies the Fire* has an epic feeling to it, parts had the feel of a modern day George R. R. Martin epic series or space opera feel. Characters are heavily fleshed out and have fairly typical reactions. No one enjoys this dangerous adventure, but everyone knows they've got to adapt to survive. As you may have already guessed, this novel hit me in a very personal way. Sure, there were parts that greatly annoyed me, but overall it was an enthralling page turner. Originally a library book, the day I took it back to the library, I purchased a copy for myself. This is the first book in a very long time to hit me in such a personal way.


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## Stalker (Jun 8, 2011)

I am just puzzled why hasn't anyone posted here yet. Because what S.M. Stirling did with his _Embeverse series_ is just astounding.
I've recently read _The High King of Montival _and am looking forward to _The Tears of the Sun. _Montival is what became Oregon, Washington and Western Idaho in 20 years after the Change_. _And Junipe_r's _and _M_ichael havel's son, Rudy (Artos) is the one who is by fate to save the world from the Darkness. My guess that the pure sci-fi of the opening nover _Dies the Fire_ has somewhat transformed from book to book into a kind of sci-fantasy with distinct elements os symbolism and mystics.
The series is also joins referentially with the other series by S.M. Stirling, which is opened with the novel _Island in the Sea of Time_ (or Nantucket series) the very acronim of the novel, ISOT, becoming verbalised by the fans of Alternate History in the meaning of transferal in space ans time. In that series the Nantucket Islans being transferred to the Year 1350 BC.
The term ASBs (Alien Space Bats - the  explanation of the mechanism of the above transferral) if not attributed to Stirling but surely is being popularised by him.


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## Null_Zone (Jun 8, 2011)

Dies the Fire is the series where Wicans actually gain magical powers (other religions don't despite Wican being a modern ripoff of hippy pagan beliefs 101 where we take the pleasant bits of religions and ignore what we don't like), re-enactors gain the ability to beat soldiers in had to hand combat because apparently modern soldiers so rely on technology they can't win a bar fight.

It's funny but after the second use of Blessed Be in a non ironic way the book becomes dire.


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## Stalker (Jun 9, 2011)

Null_Zone said:


> Dies the Fire is the series where Wicans actually gain magical powers (other religions don't despite Wican being a modern ripoff of hippy pagan beliefs 101 where we take the pleasant bits of religions and ignore what we don't like), re-enactors gain the ability to beat soldiers in had to hand combat because apparently modern soldiers so rely on technology they can't win a bar fight.
> It's funny but after the second use of Blessed Be in a non ironic way the book becomes dire.



Actually, all religions come to gain Magical Powers, even the pious Christians of Mt Angel, some of whom do see visions. And don't forget those of the Cutter Cult of Montana whose leaders are _posessed_.
What concerns the phrase 'Blessed Be', well, my opinion is that if you accept the author's vision of the sequence of events leading to the 'Brave New World' without electricity and ingnition, then the very phrase becomes quite natural in the circumstances given. Add to this that the Viccan pseudodruidic synthetic religion is a little bit older than the hippies.


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## Timba (Aug 29, 2011)

I was tickled to see that Tears of the Sun will be out in September. I really have enjoyed this series. In real life I am a cynical non-believer of all superstitious beliefs but the books are not real life, they are an entertaining story with great characters, interesting twists and turns and the mysticism is simply a part of that. In my mind no different than when enjoying a space opera and we have faster than light travel being integral to that story line. 

I am far more interested in Stirling's take on how people would behave when suddenly the world as they know it and the physics as we understand it is modified in a way that really makes them reliant on old skills and knowledge and I think he does a good job of doing that. It is the humanity of the characters, or in some cases the lack of humanity, that makes the stories compelling.


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## Timba (Sep 19, 2011)

Just finished Tears of the Sun and liked it but it is really more of a background fill in and long lead to the final battle.  Who will win, Artos or Sethaz, really looking forward to it.


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