Dies the Fire: A Novel of the Change

This story falls between the cracks for me, I did enjoy it, but I'm not sure it's believable. Some of the main characters came to the correct decisions very, very fast, I'm sure there would have been much more confusion surrounding the circumstances that the story builds on. Second the breakdown of civil behavior was much too rapid to be believed, even if we use Katrina, and New Orleans as our example it was not so total and complete barbaric dark ages murder, rape, and pillage on day one! I think many will like the story, but others certainly will not. This is one you might just have to take a chance on. Good Luck and If you buy it I hope you enjoy it, I did.

A fantastic book, well written, well read and a brilliant concept. All charactors and storylines are believeable with a hint of imagination and fantasy. Well researched . Please more of the same. S.M Sterling is one of the best Si-Fi writers around. This series as as good as the Terminator2 series. Sterling is what Ipods were made for!!

This a well written and well read story about a change in the way we would live if the toys were taken away. This a captivating read and made the family trip from Missouri to Utah fly by. It is a bit of the Renfest or D&D adventure but if the lights go out that is the path that you would travel down. Good strory and I hope Audible picks up the series.

Warning: Once you start this series you will want to read on. Action packed and intelligently well written, this book (and the rest in the series) moves along at a good clip and left this reader satisfied with both the pace and the rich detail. And bravo to Todd McLaren, one of my favorite readers (only the man who read Altered Carbon so brilliantly could bring this violent saga to life so beautifully). Well worth your time and credits. Not for the overly squeamish or the too young however as there is a great deal of violent detail--which was completely appropriate for the premise of the story. Enjoy.

The story is not realistic within its framework.

No. I could not get emotionally involved with these characters.

Yes, he used different voices and some accents.

It was not quite what I was looking for.

If you are looking for a fantasy novel set in a middle-ages type setting, it is the book for you. If you are looking for post-apocalyptic, you would be well advised to look elsewhere.

I bought this book because I thought, from the description, that it would be an interesting exploration of a fascinating concept. By the 3rd chapter, it was clear that the premise of the story was nothing more than a vehicle for the author to pen a "Ren Fare" fantasy of how the earth would devolve into a huge live action D&D game after the event. From the celtic mythology, the mother earth stuff and the Lord of the Rings references; the author is clearly in love with the world of knights, dark lords, swordcraft, witches and wizardry. I don't mind that stuff--and the book seems passable in that regard--but to describe it as less than a forum contrived for the purpose of telling such a tale is less than honest. I became so disappointed at being "tricked" into buying it by a much broader description of its subject that I'm now too annoyed to finish it. Even the D&D world jargon is too much. I wich the author had woven a few of these elemnts into a broader and more interesting story rather than making this fanatsy element the focus of the book. At the very least, the publisher and Audible should have said more about what it was really about. Do the reviewers even read these things beyond chapter 2...?

When I read about the premise of the story, I was excited to buy and listen to this book. I have enjoyed a few of the other post-apocalyptic, breakdown of society, survival type stories. But I am sorry to say that in this particular story the characters and the dialogue all but ruined the whole thing. I somehow forced myself to finish the whole book, but I will definitely not be moving on to the next installment from the series. While listening, I kept thinking, where does the author get the idea that people in 1998 America would actually speak this way? The speaking style is closer to that from generations past, like that of our great grandparents maybe, but it certainly did not sound to me like modern American banter to me. I almost quit listening a number of times after one of the main characters, Mike Havel, started off yet another sentence with "Christ Jesus, but..." (he says this about 50 times throughout the book). Also, how are readers supposed to buy that people in this situation could realistically pick up so many lost arts so quickly?? One minute, it's the modern age. Then a few months later, everyone who has managed to survive is busy farming, preparing for harvest, hunting and fighting with crossbows and swords, and riding horses like they were plucked straight out of the middle ages without more time than the blink of an eye. I'm sorry, but there is no way these things could possibly happen so quickly. All this combined with the constant barrage of Wiccan preachings and Gaelic proverbs was just too much annoying garbage to make any of the good stuff worth my time.

Several reviewers have complained about the pagan aspects of this novel, I'm not a pagan myself and found it a little boring at times, but in my opinion it fits the storyline well. The kind of people who are likely to prosper in a world where guns, electricity, and combustion engines suddenly stop working are the people who spent a lot of time doing things like horse riding, gardening, and mock fighting with medieval weapons. The pagan community is full of those kinds of people, so having a major story arc in the novel following a pagan group of people makes sense.

What the people complaining about the pagans fail to mention is the other major story arc following a group of people who are lead by an ex-military type who spends a lot of time doing things like hunting & hiking in the wilderness.

So, if your afraid that your Higher Being of choice is going to punish you for reading a book with such words as pagan, wiccan, goddess and witch in it, then you should stay away from this book. Otherwise, you just have to remember that you spend as much time listening to the thoughts of the jarhead which are as full of militaristic thoughts as the witches' mind is full of pagan thoughts. The author is not trying to convince you to become a pagan any more than he is trying to convince you to join the army. He's just doing a pretty good job of getting inside the head of a pagan and an ex-jarhead.

For me the story being told is critical, but with audiobooks, the narration is just as important. With S.M. Stirling enthralling series about what happens when the world is thrown into 'The Change,' complimented by the topnotch narration of Todd McLaren, you get the best of both worlds. I've listened to the first 2 books of this series and I can't wait to download the third next month!

I downloaded this title in spite of the numerous reviews claiming that it is like Dungeons & Dragons and Renaissance Fairs. Some of the characters are involved with "ren-fairs" (which is a phrase from the author/characters). As far as "D&D lingo" or any other similarity to the game I'm lost. Unless you consider calling weapons by their actual names rather than a dumbed down description to be like D&D. I would say to ignore those reviews citing either of those as a description of this story.

Others have complained about decisions being made too quickly or society breaking down too rapidly as being unrealistic. It is FICTION!! Although the author could have dragged out things and then it would have been called "too slow and not enough happening."

It is a good story and serves the purpose of being entetaining. Although I do get annoyed at the author's repeated use of some words or phrases it doesn't hurt the story. The reader is good but not exceptional.