Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling

I was introduced to S. M. Stirling by Smash of Great Books and Fresh Coffee -- or more accurately, my husband was introduced to S. M. Stirling by Smash's husband while Smash and I were having our meet-up in Dallas and I was loading up on other books.

That meant I had to wait to read Dies the Fire until my husband finished it -- and then until my father-in-law finished it (b/c my husband loved it enough that he had to pass it on).


Plot Summary: The book takes place in the American Northwest -- Oregon, Washington, Idaho. Everything is business as usual until March 17, 1998, when a bright flash signals a world-wide event. No one knows what caused it, but suddenly electronics and combustion engines have stopped working. That means no cars, no lights, no guns.

We follow two groups of people as they try to deal with The Change:

The first is a former marine-turned-tourguide, Mike Havel, who is taking millionaire Ken Larsson and his family from Idaho toward the Montana wilderness so that they can vacation on a ranch. The family is made up of Ken, his wife, twin 18-year-olds Eric and Signe, and 14-year-old Astrid. They are in the plane when The Change hits -- not a good place to be. Fortunately, it's a small bush-plane that has more glide to it than a huge aircraft. Mike's able to land the plane on some water and get the family -- even the cat -- out safely. From his military past, Mike figures the plane was knocked out by an EMP, but that doesn't explain why the rifle doesn't work. Fortunately, Astrid is a Lord of the Rings fan & has brought her archery equipment.

The second group is a group of friends who were gathered at the Hopping Toad Tavern in Corvallis, Oregon (a small city near Portland) for an evening of music and fun. Juniper Mackinzie was scheduled to play guitar for the pub that evening and several of her family and friends were there -- although her husband was on a plane headed out of town. Juniper and her friends help out when the power goes out in town, including helping with victims of a huge planecrash in downtown Corvallis. After doing what they can to help out, Juniper and her friends, many of whom are part of her Wiccan community, decide they need to get out of town until things get back to normal. Juniper has a family farm a few hours drive out of the city, but now the group needs to take the horse and cart they've used for Renaissance Festivals to get there. They still figure it will be a better option than staying in the city where fresh water and food will get scarce quickly.

We don't get any answers as to what caused The Change, although the characters speculate about it. What we do get is a description of how people survive when technology steps back 200 years in an instant. This is the first book in the Emberverse series, which also includes The Protector's War, A Meeting at Corvallis (the other two books in the original trilogy), The Sunrise Lands, The Scourge of God, The Sword of the Lady, and The High King of Montival (due out in 2010).


My Reaction: It surprised me how quickly civilization in this book evaporated after The Change, although (as my husband pointed out), it wasn't any quicker than things went to hell in a handbasket after Hurricane Katrina or other natural disasters. It also took a little suspension of disbelief to accept that these groups either had or ran across people with the perfect skills needed to survive the change (archery, sword and armor making, fencing instructor, veterinarian/doctor, etc.) The groups did run across plenty of others who did not have such skills -- usually dead on the side of the road -- so I guess part of it was that there was no point following the development of a group unless it acquired the skills it needed to survive.

To me this is part of the best tradition of science fiction because it asks "what if" we took our regular society but with one specific change. It made me think about all the technology we take for granted here -- not just the ability to communicate over long distances via the internet and phones. Specifically, it tied into some of the other books I've been reading talking about our food supply and how industrialized and dependent on national supply lines we've become. Definitely an incentive to keep working on our garden!

It was also interesting to think about the loss of skills that are no longer relevant to society and how some, like the songs and skills practiced for Renaissance Festivals, are being preserved in part as part of our leisure time activities. At least if the world collapses, I'll have my hand quilting, right? And my husband? He's working on this:


Bottom Line: No way I'm letting my father-in-law get to the sequel before I do.