Stirling, S.M. Books

The Scourge of God: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Get on with it already! 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I enjoy The Sunrise Lands Series. The series is novel and the characters are deep. Having said that this book could have been done in three chapters. I kept waiting for the plot to move. It never did, skip this book you won't notice.

Joe

Editorial Review:

“A stunning continuation”(Diana L. Paxson, author of Ravens of Avalon) of the New York Times bestselling author’s “splendid saga” chronicling an alternate world without technology.

Rudi MacKenzie continues his trek across the land that was once the United States of America. His destination: Nantucket, where he hopes to learn the truth behind The Change that rendered technology across the globe inoperable.

During his travels, Rudi forges ties with new allies in the continuing war against The Prophet, who teaches his followers that God has punished humanity by destroying technological civilization. And one fanatical officer in the Sword of The Prophet has been dispatched on a mission—to stop Rudi from reaching his destination by any means necessary.

Dies the Fire: A Novel of the Change

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 189 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Next time a little less Wiccan 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I read a lot of apocalyptic books, and this one had a lot of promise, however whenever it shifted over to Juniper and the Wiccan characters, I was about to scream, "ENOUGH!" As characters, they weren't bad, but the constant references to Wiccan, Lord, Lady, making signs, blah, blah, blah. It became as irritating as The Lord of the Rings' constant references to the languages of the Elves, and their songs. Just not necessary. On the other hand, the Bearkillers were very interesting. Not a bad read, but I won't check out the rest of the trilogy.

Great read on it's own. Beware of the sequels.... 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Dies the fire was an enjoyable take on the disaster genre. The added twist of guns and other similar devices rendered inoperable created a welcome urgency and "what if" factor to what could have been a typical end of the word story. That being said the story begins to bog down in the following books. Sterling does have the knack for building tension and has some stellar action sequences. However, he too often uses a literary device of cutting away from action sequences at their peak to other plot lines to hopefully keep you reading. The first novel actually flows very well but it is in the following two that it gets repetitive and boring. The sequels also get bogged down in the day to day details of life in the world after the change. If I had to read one more detailed description of what the protagonists had for dinner I might have cried. The reality is that the 2nd and 3rd books really should have been edited to one volume. In conclusion read Dies the Fire but if choosing to finish the series be prepared for a drawn out meandering read.

Editorial Review:

The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable. What follows is the most terrible global catastrophe in the history of the human race-and a Dark Age more universal and complete than could possibly be imagined.

The Protector's War: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 113 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

A Set-Up for the Third Book in the Trilogy - and Some Frustration 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was somewhat enjoyable in parts, but was disappointing in several ways. Stirling used most of the first chapters in this book to introduce additional supporting characters. Unfortunately, the introduction of these characters, beginning at about the same point in time as half-way through the prequel, "Dies the Fire", created difficulties with the narrative time-line in "The Protector's War".

Stirling cut between these new characters and the main characters established in "Dies the Fire" with a rather confusing gait. Each set of characters was engaging in trials and tribulations that were separated by years in addition to distance. Later in the book, after the new supporting cast has been integrated into the previously established narrative line, Stirling fills in some unmentioned time in a flashback narrative.

The combination of repeated forward and back time-line jumps, the flash-back explanations, and a great deal of seemingly pointless argument and domestic disputes, greatly interfered with my personal enjoyment of this book. This is unfortunate as his imagined re-applications of technology under the unnatural laws included in his premise were fascinating and even humorous.

There is little challenge in this book, and I cannot recommend it unless the reader is willing to read the entire "Change" trilogy (Dies the Fire, The Protector's War, and A Meeting at Corvallis").

Editorial Review:

The national bestselling alternate history epic continues...

Ten years after The Change rendered technology inoperable throughout the world, two brave leaders built two thriving communities in Oregon's Willamette Valley. But now the armies of the totalitarian Protectorate are preparing to wage war over the priceless farmland.

A Meeting at Corvallis

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Likeable characters and reasonably strong writing, but losing its edge 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The first book in this trilogy, Dies the Fire, was wonderfully written and chock full of inventive approaches to social organization and technology. Unfortunately the author seems to have run out of the novel ideas that drove the initial entry into the series by this point, and the characters, though still compelling, developed little. That said, though, the plot does move along at a decent pace, and I chewed through the book quite quickly - The action and the ending were reasonably satisfying.

If you read The Protector's War (which featured no war), then The Meeting at Corvallis (which features no meeting at Corvallis, but does feature a war) is certainly worth the read. If you're considering whether or not to finish the series after reading the stellar Dies the Fire, you might be better off investing your money in the other side of this story as well. The entire Island in the Sea of Time trilogy is very well written, and the characters and technologies in the series develop at a much more even and compelling pace.

This was a decent book. Given the ability, I'd have given it another half-star, but it doesn't warrant a full four-star rating.

Editorial Review:

In the tenth year of The Change, the survivors in western Oregon have learned how to live in a world without technology-but there are those who would exploit the new world order. On one side stands Michael Havel's Bearkillers and their allies, Clan MacKenzie under the leadership of Juniper MacKenzie. On the other is the Lord Protector, Norman Arminger-the Warlord of Portland, whose neo-feudal empire rules over much of the Pacific Northwest.

The tensions between factions have been building for some time, and the only reason they haven't met on the battlefield is because Arminger's daughter has fallen into Clan MacKenzie's hands. But a plan to retrieve her threatens to plunge the entire region into open warfare.

On the Oceans of Eternity

S. M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 72 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the bestselling Island in the Sea of Time, 20th-century Nantucket was inexplicably hurled back to the Bronze Age. In the sequel, Against the Tide of Years, the villainous renegade William Walker introduced muskets, cannon, and other deadly anachronisms to Odysseus's Greece, making himself king and positioning himself to overthrow the democratic Republic of Nantucket and destroy his archenemy, Commodore Marian Alston. Now, in the trilogy's rousing conclusion, On the Oceans of Eternity, Walker's powerful army conquers Troy and invades Babylon, Nantucket's last great ally, as Walker's blood brother, the king of Tartessos, blocks Commodore Alston's Nantucket navy at the straits of Gibraltar. If Nantucket's tiny forces cannot defeat Walker's army and allies, the world will be plunged into a Dark Age bleaker and more devastating than any known in our history.

On the Oceans of Eternity ends cleanly, yet leaves the door open for a number of interesting sequels--and how often can you say that? Like its prequels, On the Oceans of Eternity is big, bloody, and ambitious, but always fast-paced and fascinating. This fun, intelligent series is perfect not only for action-adventure, alternate history, time travel, and military-SF fans but also for epic fantasy readers, for Burroughs and Haggard fans craving a modern update of the lost-civilization novel, and for anyone who loves Patrick O'Brian's sensational sea battles. --Cynthia Ward

Island in the Sea of Time

S. M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 119 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

island in the sea of time 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Just enough science fiction to set up a very interesting situation---modern man meets ancient man (from 3000 years ago) in both settings. I am halfway through now, and look forward to the adventures in each chapter. If you like this type of thing, this is a good one.

Excellent Idea and Execution, Subpar Conclusion 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The first part was great, I loved the idea of Nantucket being tossed back to the Bronze Age. The contacting new cultures abroad aboard the /Eagle/ and dealing with problems back on the Island were the highlights of the whole book for me. Some parts I would've preferred not to have read; the Olmec jaguar scene for one.

Another thing that bothered me was Alice Hong. Pretty much every scene with her freaked me out. Remember: you have been warned.

When the book switched to dealing with Walker, I just got bored with it--I finished it, but it was forced, and I think that the book would've been far better if the author had stuck primarily with the exploration and contacting of the Bronze Age cultures, or at least make Walker a little more than a cruel ambitious empire builder.

All in all _Island in the Sea of Time_ is a wonderful piece of fiction and certainly much better than _1632_, which takes a much too similar premise. I would recommend this book to anyone who could handle the violence.

Editorial Review:

It's spring on Nantucket and everything is perfectly normal, until a sudden storm blankets the entire island. When the weather clears, the island's inhabitants find that they are no longer in the late 20th century, but have been transported instead to the Bronze Age. Now they must learn to survive with suspicious, warlike peoples they can barely understand and deal with impending disaster, in the shape of a would-be conqueror from their own time. Ads in "Locus". .

Jimmy the Hand: Legends of the Riftwar, Book III (Legends of the Riftwar)

Raymond E. Feist, S.m. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jimmy the Hand, boy thief of Krondor, lived in the shadows of the city. The sewers were his byways and a flea-ridden, rat-infested cellar his home. Although gifted beyond his peers, he was still but a nimble street urchin, a pickpocket with potential. Until the day he met Prince Arutha.

Aiding the Prince in his rescue of Princess Anita from imprisonment by Duke Guy du Bas-Tyra, Jimmy runs afoul of Black Guy's secret police. Given the choice of disappearing on his own or in a weighted barrel at the bottom of Krondor's harbor, Jimmy flees the only home he's ever known, venturing south to the relatively safe haven of Land's End. Suspecting that the rural villagers have never encountered a lad with his talent and nose for finding wealth—other people's wealth—he's fairly optimistic about his broadening horizons. But Jimmy is completely unprepared for what greets him.

For Land's End is home to others who tread the crooked path, and more, to a much darker secret: a dangerous presence unknown even to the local thieves and smugglers. And Jimmy's youthful bravado and courage will plunge him deep into the maw of chaos and even—if he isn't careful—death.

The Sky People

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Marc Vitrac was born in Louisiana in the early 1960’s, about the time the first interplanetary probes delivered the news that Mars and Venus were teeming with life—even human life. At that point, the “Space Race” became the central preoccupation of the great powers of the world.

Now, in 1988, Marc has been assigned to Jamestown, the US-Commonwealth base on Venus, near the great Venusian city of Kartahown. Set in a countryside swarming with sabertooths and dinosaurs, Jamestown is home to a small band of American and allied scientist-adventurers.

But there are flies in this ointment – and not only the Venusian dragonflies, with their yard-wide wings. The biologists studying Venus’s life are puzzled by the way it not only resembles that on Earth, but is virtually identical to it. The EastBloc has its own base at Cosmograd, in the highlands to the south, and relations are frosty. And attractive young geologist Cynthia Whitlock seems impervious to Marc’s Cajun charm.

Meanwhile, at the western end of the continent, Teesa of the Cloud Mountain People leads her tribe in a conflict with the Neanderthal-like beastmen who have seized her folk’s sacred caves. Then an EastBloc shuttle crashes nearby, and the beastmen acquire new knowledge… and AK47’s.

Jamestown sends its long-range blimp to rescue the downed EastBloc cosmonauts, little suspecting that the answer to the jungle planet’s mysteries may lie there, among tribal conflicts and traces of a power that made Earth’s vaunted science seem as primitive as the tribesfolk’s blowguns. As if that weren’t enough, there’s an enemy agent on board the airship…

Extravagant and effervescent, The Sky People is alternate-history SF adventure at its best.

In the Courts of the Crimson Kings

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the parallel world first introduced in S. M. Stirling’s The Sky People, aliens terraformed Mars (and Venus) two hundred million years ago, seeding them with life-forms from Earth. Humans didn’t suspect this until the twentieth century, but when the first probes landed on our sister worlds, and found life—intelligent life, at that—things changed with a vengeance. By the year 2000, America, Russia, and the other great powers of Earth are all contending for influence and power amid the newly-discovered inhabitants of our sister planets.

Venus is a primitive world. But on Mars, early hominids evolved civilization earlier than their earthly cousins, driven by the needs of a harsh world growing still harsher as the initial terraforming runs down. Without coal, oil, or uranium, their technology was forced into different paths, and the genetic wizardry of the Crimson Dynasty united a world for more than twenty thousand years.

Now, in a new stand-alone adventure set in this world’s 2000 AD, Jeremy Wainman is an archaeologist who has achieved a lifelong dream; to travel to Mars and explore the dead cities of the Deep Beyond, searching for the secrets of the Kings Beneath the Mountain and the fallen empire they ruled.

Teyud Zha-Zhalt is the Martian mercenary the Terrans hire as guide and captain of the landship Intrepid Traveller. A secret links her to the deadly intrigues of Dvor il-Adazar, the City That Is A Mountain, where the last aging descendant of the Tollamune Emperors clings to the remnants of his power…and secrets that may trace their origin to the enigmatic Ancients, the Lords of Creation who reshaped the Solar System in the time of the dinosaurs.

When these three meet, the foundations of reality will be shaken—from the lost city of Rema-Dza to the courts of the Crimson Kings.

Ice, Iron And Gold

S.M. Stirling

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A must for Stirling fans 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

This is a collection of thirteen stories only one, a detective procedural set the "Dies the Fire" universe is new. Three are Bolo stories that form connected narrative. All are enjoyable showcasing Stirling's depth of research and background. Two are outstanding: "The Apotheosis of Martin Padway" which percisely that and contiues the story of deCamp's "Lest Darkness Fall" trumphally and "The Charge of Lee's Brigade" a rewrite of the Charge of the Light Brigade with Robert E. Lee improving the result.

Editorial Review:

New York Times best-selling Author S. M. Stirling's first collection gathers his most interesting and evocative short stories, drawn from the length of his professional career. More than 100,000 words of fiction, including an original story, make this book a must for fans of Stirling's work. Whether Stirling is exploring alternate histories, chronicling military sf exploits, or off-kilter contemporary settings, his insightful characterizations and compelling plots are distinct and memorable.