Imagine if you will, in an instant technology fails - the internal combustion engine ceases to combust, electronics stop transferring 1s and 0s and gunpowder burns too slowly to produce an explosive discharge. What would you do if in that instant the world ground to a halt, speeding cars careened out of control and airplanes fell from the sky?
This is the question that S.M. Stirling takes on in his book Dies the Fire. Following the mysterious event defined as “The Change”, he follows the people in the Pacific Northwest as he fleshes out an epic tale of the Apocalypse.
Dies the Fire evolves along three plot lines as the contemporary world withers and dies. Lacking modern conveniences famine quickly sets in, pestilence runs rampant and bandits reign unchecked as people struggle for survival. As government fail, the quickest of the major characters to react to “The Change” is the antagonist. Setting up court in Portland, Oregon, this history professor becomes the self-styled “Protector” and establishes himself by recruiting an army from street thugs, motorcycle gangs and the like. Drawing on members of the Society for Created Anachronism he strives to establish a new age of feudalism with his kingdom encompassing the fertile Willamette Valley and beyond.
Opposite this, the protagonists have far less ambitious goals. The first of the two heroes is Mike Havel, a former Force Recon Marine turned air taxi pilot. We first meet Havel as he leads the last passengers he would ever fly from the crash site of his light plane through the mountainous wilds of northern Idaho. Their goal is to reach the passengers’ farm in Oregon, hoping to find the means to subsist once they arrive. Along the way, under Mike’s leadership, the small group recruits others that have skills that would be useful in a world bereft modern technology. The second of the heroes is Juniper MacKenzie. A Celtic folk musician and Wiccan, she takes her Coven and assorted friends to the secluded homestead willed to her by an uncle. Refugees swell their numbers while they re-establish a separate vaguely-historical culture and learn to protect themselves from those who would take what little they have.
For me, the truly enjoyable aspect of this book is the “what if” factor. At a macro level Stirling asks a number of prodding questions. What would happen if conventional machinery failed? How long would it take for society to unravel and for man to loose its humanity? What sort of people would be able to survive? These seem to be typical problems for apocalyptic fiction, but he then adds the twist of taking guns away from his characters, leading to other even more compelling questions. By removing firearms and modern explosives from the story, Stirling forces the characters to draw upon their experiences, heritage, knowledge of history, ingenuity and even literature for the means to survive. This provides an environment where the “what ifs” take on new a dimension. For example: What would happen if, in this technologically-constrained world, a former Marine was forced to survive by partnering with a veteran horse wrangler and a teenage Tolkien fanatic? Stirling changes up the variables by including a Wiccan leader, an agrarian setting and Celtic influences. Finally he adds the villain, a moderately megalomaniac history teacher with a penchant for the Norman brand of feudalism and his loyal following of immoral bullies. Then, Stirling takes these three disparate groups, puts them in the same valley and stirs the pot.
For detractors, I find very little in this book to point to. Although, for some, the fact “The Change” knocked out electronics, internal combustion engines and gunpowder might hinder the suspension of disbelief. On the whole, I feel that Stirling handled this nebulous issue quite well. His characters question how an event that seemed to belay the laws of physics could have come to pass. The author manages to make a bit of a running joke about it, spinning plausibility that some higher power inflicted this upon them, all without ruling out a purely scientific cause. Either way, if you just accept that it did happen you can get into the story. The only aspect of the story that seemed overly serendipitous was the way the various groups managed to run across others who had skills they needed. While this could lend credence to a higher power’s intervention, I attributed this to the fact that to become a survivor one must possess some skill or attribute that enabled their continued existence.
In all, I found the book to offer a wholly satisfying tale with many memorable characters, action and thought provoking motifs. Perhaps most striking aspect of this story, from a readers point of view, is the story offers something new and different to read. Mr. Stirling has created a story that is not the result of some oft seen cookie-cutter plot generation formula. The book should appeal to both fantasy and sci-fi fans alike. Coming in at just under 500 pages it is a respectable length and with satisfying pacing. While it is a stand-alone story, it is also the first in the “Book of Change” series.
I highly recommend you spending time with a copy. Personally, upon reaching the end of the book I immediately headed out for the book that follows it, The Proctors War. But that is another story and another review.
- Pages: 496
- Publisher: Roc Hardcover (August 3, 2004)
