Dies the Fire (Dramatized Adaptation)

Emberverse, Book 1

By: S.M. Stirling

Narrated by: Andrew Quilpa, Dani Stoller, James Lewis, Laura C. Harris, Marty Lodge, Nora Achrati, Patrick Bussink, Scott Bruffey, Scott McCormick, Terence Aselford, Tuyet Thi Pham

Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

S. M. Stirling presents his first novel of the Change, the start of the New York Times best-selling post-apocalyptic saga set in a world where all technology has been rendered useless.

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 - and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face....

Michael Havel was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane’s engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. And as Michael leads his charges to safety, he begins to realize that the engine failure was not an isolated incident.

Juniper Mackenzie was singing and playing guitar in a pub when her small Oregon town was thrust into darkness. Now, taking refuge in her family’s cabin with her daughter and a growing circle of friends, Juniper is determined to create a farming community to benefit the survivors of this crisis.

But even as people band together to help one another, others are building armies for conquest....

©2004 Stephen M. Stirling (P)2021 Recorded Books

excellent story

YES! this is so much better than a standard reading. Almost as good as reading it myself!

WONDERFUL 👏 👏

Beautifully crafted, riveting and compelling to the very end. The audio brought the story and characters to life in a fantastic way.. it truly was a "movie in my mind"... well done!!!

Overall excellent - mispronunciations irritating

I've read the book multiple times, and still love it. Excellent plot, character development - the whole shebang. I find the dramatization to be an interesting new twist that definitely livens up a story I've enjoyed so many times.

My only complaint are the mispronunciations. You see, I live in Corvallis, Oregon. Corvallis is in the Willamette Valley, next to Albany - all of which are mispronounced. I know, I know- small stuff! But, it's distracting! 😂

I'm currently only a few chapters in & am praying that I either get used to it, or the actors shift their pronunciation...

Very good.

I have read this book series before up until book 7 I think and they’re all quite good for the genre.

This is a well acted version with a full cast as well as a narrator in the vein of the We’re Alive series. The story is fine without the cast and added audio but having a cast of characters as well as the sounds of battle, cars, animals, foley art, etc brings it all together fantastically. I recommend all three of the first novels highly, and if you enjoy them you’ll likely enjoy the rest as the stories follow the younger characters as they grow up and have adventures of their own.

Overly convenient and poor audio mixing

The graphic audio presentation was phenomenal for most of the book; however, during certain fight scenes it became difficult to understand the narration. This could have been an artistic choice, but it was poorly executed in a few areas.

The story is quite intriguing and the premise of the book is quite unique; especially by neutralizing the use of advanced weaponry. The companions each of the main characters gain are overly convenient which takes away from the prestige of the characters. Essentially, the main characters are just boosted by the narrative rather than overcoming challenges and gaining relevant/necessary experience.

Much better than the original audio

I am a lover of post apocalyptic fiction and this is my favorite book so far

Infuriating example of why they say show don’t tell to writers

First off: apparently there are mispronunciations. I don’t know what they are as I don’t live in the places mentioned so this didn’t bother me. The sound design for some of the fights could make things a little difficult to hear but that was tolerable. One extremely minor characters name changes from “Terry” to “Tommy” but that might have been an error in the text itself.

Now for the story. I have never been so frustrated with a book in my life! Sterling does this thing where he sets up conflict and interesting settings and challenges for the character — then skips ahead to the challenge or conflict already being solved! For example on chapter one a character needs to dive into frigid water to rescue some gear. It jumps from him saying that to the party having the gear after he successfully retrieved it. Another party is leaving a city.it skips most of their exodus to a point where they’re nearly at their goal!

This would be fine if it only happened on occasion but it happens all. The. Time. Constantly. To the point where one character loses a hand completely off screen! In his last scene his was fine, then suddenly he has a hook!

Additionally I barely cared for any character. We barely get to know any of them (and barely know our two main narrators) so there’s no emotional through line or attachment to anyone! Most of the people we meet are likable enough so this wasn’t painful in that regard — we just barely scratch the surface with any of them. And have random perspectives sprinkled in or taken out at, well, random.

Infuriated to own this book. Only mildly mitigated by virtue of using a credit on it. I won’t be reading the other in the series or anything by this author ever again.

Confusing

Pretty confusing trying to keep track of which group was doing what. During some of the battles it’s was hard to know who was battling who at times as well. Agree with the other person as well, about leaving out details, ie guy losing his hand. Also the way the two main characters interaction was handled was really weird, almost as if it was barely acknowledged.

Excellent concept poor execution

I like the idea and I love the story, however; the execution is frustrating. There are several points in the story where the sound effects and music drown out the narration.