Dies the Fire

A Novel of the Change

By: S. M. Stirling

Narrated by: Todd McLaren

Length: 22 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

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. Cars refused to start. Phones were silent. And when an airliner crashed, no sirens sounded and no fire trucks arrived. 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 Stirling (P)2008 Tantor

Critic Reviews

"The novel's dual themes - myth and technology -should appeal to both fantasy and hard SF readers as well as to techno-thriller fans." ( Publishers Weekly)

Why? Why does Juniper have an Irish accent?

What did you love best about Dies the Fire?

I've been a long time fan of these books, so I was looking forward to listening to them. Unfortunately, every scene with Juniper in makes me cringe to hear :-(

Who was your favorite character and why?

Too many to name - I love competence and there's a vast amount of it in this set.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Todd McLaren?

I'd have loved to hear what James Marsters did with the book.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes - every time the narrator voiced Juniper, I wanted to cringe. It's a plot point that she's an American who occasionally puts on an Irish accent for the effect it has - voicing her thoughts with one just shows the narrator hasn't read the book before recording.

Any additional comments?

It's amazing how something so small can totally ruin what should be an awesome listening experience

Sillier than I remember

I remember reading this years ago and loving the post apocalyptic world Sterling created. I'm not sure what's different now, though. Maybe it's listening to the book this time, maybe I'm older, or maybe it's just because I already know the story, but this book is utterly ridiculous most of the time.

To start, Juniper talking in Gaelic all the time is annoying beyond belief. Secondly, the fact that all the Larson kids are basically weapons experts from the start. Most of all, though... All the ludicrous cultures and ceremonies that people start weeks after the world ends. It's just all too much. It's the post apocalyptic world that a lonely teenager addicted to anime would create. Yeah, there are some decent parts to the book. Overall, it's a good concept ruined by an author being too nerdy for his own good.

An SCAer's dream

Dies the Fire goes through the usual paces in an end-of-the-world novel: civilization collapses, there is much confusion and rioting, a few lucky/prepared ones are situated such that they don't starve while all the city-dwellers run out of food, there's a massive die-off, and then the most organized, ambitious, and/or ruthless are setting up fiefdoms.

The gimmick here is that "the Change" that causes the end of civilization literally changes the laws of physics. Gunpowder, internal combustion, and electricity simply stops working. The world is literally knocked back into the middle ages technologically. This device is an excuse to write an SCAer's fantasy: those folks in the Society for Creative Anachronism who spent time dressing up in plate armor and whacking each other with rattan swords are suddenly among the only ones with actual useful combat skills, now that guns no longer work. Sterling takes that ball and runs with it: the chief villain, who takes over Portland, Oregon, "the Protector," is a former history professor and an SCA member who uses his combat skills and knowledge of medieval history to immediately begin recreating his favorite period of history with himself in charge.

Michael Havel, military veteran and former pilot, becomes a warlord of sorts, quickly leveling up as the mercenary commander of the "Bear-Killers," with assistance from a teenage girl Tolkien-nerd who conveniently enough also practiced archery as a hobby.

As a gimmick, it's interesting and fun to see the survivors literally rediscovering medieval tactics out of necessity. "The Change" is never explained, though the characters speculate that aliens did it. It does become a bit much when witches (the wiccan kind, not the actual magic-using kind) form the basis for a large survival community, apparently because they're better able to organize and survive in a pre-industrial world. Juniper, the leader of the coven, who becomes High Priestess and "Lady Juniper," is constantly spouting "Blessed Be" and "Lord and Lady!"

Dies the Fire is not much of an actual survivalist story; there is discussion of how the survivors have to reimplement medieval technology and spend a lot of time getting agriculture going again the hard way, but most of the action is the battles against various bandit gangs and warlords.

Will be interesting to see if the author actually makes aliens responsible in the next book.

Interesting Premise, Irritating Execution

I purchased this book because I found the premise to be quite intriguing: survival in a post-technological age. However, I soon became so irritated with Stirling’s chosen vehicle for telling the story I wanted to through my iPod out the car window!

How is it possible to have a native Oregonian (from Portland no less) be fluent in Gaelic and have a fully developed Scots-Irish twang? Doubtful, but OK, the whole story’s a stretch. But to make things worse, she and her followers soon have a fully developed (within three to five months) pagan culture complete with “Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again!” and “Goddess of the harvest, field, wood and/or toad” sprinkled through every conversation. Agh! If I ever have to hear that “Merry meet” phrase again I think I’ll through up.

There is a male protagonist whose story is more interesting. But he too makes suspending disbelief impossible when he organizes a successful assault on a fort by landing hang gliders on a tower at night with people who’ve never flown gliders before. That lost it for me. Use your credits on something else.

Great Story and fantastic Narrator

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!

Good but not Great

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.

Interesting story

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.

Maybe!

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.

Could not finish. Irritating. Hackneyed.

I gave up on this. An American with a thick Irish accent...silly. A Marine and pilot with Secret Squirrel Puukko knife obscure martial art expertise. Why not?

Did I mention they're snake handlers? I mean witches (thank the Goddess).

And the characters just fall into what they need. Plow horses? Check. Pioneer farm gear? Check. Seed potatoes? Check. Seed Barley? Check. Ren Faire/ Medieval Times weapons and training? Check. Little girl waif with Legolas skills? Check. Horse Whispering skills? Check. Macgyver skills? Check.

It's like they Mary Sued the whole first few hours of the book, and I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. No, change that, I was wishing for multiple characters to die. It's like an Emo prepper wrote this in their root cellar with a quill pen while muttering, "Someday people will need my cider press and I will look at them and laugh while I deny them my apple's essence!"

I'd give it a hard pass.

Middle of the Road

‘Dies the Fires’ is a post-apocalyptic book, with a bit of magic and medieval history combined. Not only do electronics not work, but many of the things people would use post apocalypse to survive (Guns) do not work, which pushes everyone into a middle ages lifestyle. The story is slow in the middle but had a good beginning and end. The characters were likable, but overall people in general seemed to change drastically a bit too quick after the change occurred. Also there was just way to much wiccan talk for me, which I normally wouldn’t mind but since it really didn’t add to the story I could have done without it.

Performance was pretty good but sometimes everyone sounded like they were either from Scottland or Ireland.

Narration....

Narration is ok but the accents are terrible. I'm Irish. That Irish accent and turn of phrase is shocking, even though it is supposed to be an exaggerated one. It is also the same accent as the Vietnamese character's😂. The narrator reads the bizarre version of Irish/ gealic penned by the author but never researched how to say any of the words. Not such a big deal as it was non-sensical to me as a native speaker.

Good but jumpy

I enjoyed the story and the narrator is very good however there are quiet a few times that it suddenly jumps forward or to another part of the story line with no particular pause or change of chapter. I'm not sure if it is the way it is written or the way it has been edited but for a few moments you are left wondering what has happened. Apart for that it was very good and if it hadn't been for that I would have given it 5 stars.

Feeble

Drivel, written by somebody far more obsessed with his survivalist knowledge than by the quality of his writing. Terrible dialogue, ridiculous two-dimensional characters and far too much description (excessive use of adjectives is the ultimate crime against good writing). A perfect example of all the worst tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction and definitely one for people who hate literature. The narration is suitably bad as well.. asides delivered in a daft breathy voice and a general lack of gravitas. Even taking into account the differences of American and British pronunciation, this man really struggles with some words. By the way, the Audible text differs considerably from the Penguin edition I bought, so if you are planning to listen and read a hard copy, you might find it not worth the effort.

Great alternative to Zombies

A ripping yarn of new gone old. Enjoying it immensely and looking for more.

Excellent story, terrible narration

Would you listen to Dies the Fire again? Why?

The concept of the story is a good one. It merges together the concepts of fantasy and sci-fi in an interesting way

What other book might you compare Dies the Fire to, and why?

Not sure

Would you be willing to try another one of Todd McLaren’s performances?

The narration is what lets this book down. The narrator is awful. Every 20 or so words is mispronounced. I expect someone who reads for a living to have a decent vocabulary. Words mispronounced that I can remember off the top of my head include : celtic, seconded, viscount, precise, endinburgh, surmise etc. This by no means an exhaustive list as there are too many to remember.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book could be very emotional. But the bad reading distracts from otherwise would be an excellent and emotional story.

Pleasant entertainment!

Very well written and well read good, exiting story. It also made you think. Definitely worth to listen to also for the reader's voice.

Dreadful

Self-indulgent fantasy for middle-aged male Renaissance Faire enthusiasts who enjoy dabbling in racism and misogyny. None of the characters were believable--not one. There is too much luck bestowed upon the protagonists for it to be even marginally believable. Need to make some bows? Oh, how convenient. Here's a random person who knows how to do so, and he wants to join up with you!

Sometimes, a bad book can be made less painful for me with a good narrator. This one was horrible. Not only did he butcher every accent he attempted, he didn't even pronounce several place names in Oregon correctly. "Corvallis" was repeated again and again, and every time he said it wrong. Not content with butchering place names on one continent, he also made me cringe with his attempt at saying "Edinburgh."

How to spoil a story

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No. The narrator obviously doesn't know when to pause for paragraphs etc. Book was spoilt by having to second guess which part of the story he was reading.

What other book might you compare Dies the Fire to, and why?

Similar theme to many post-apocalyptic novels

What didn’t you like about Todd McLaren’s performance?

There was no pause for paragraphs, changes of scene etc which spoilt the novel for me. His voice was fine but it became annoying to second guess where in the story we were at. I am not talking even slight pauses, but straight from one sentence into another which bore no resemblance to the thread of that particular part of the story. In a novel that is following 2 or 3 different threads that is not good enough.

Could you see Dies the Fire being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

No

Any additional comments?

Novel spoilt by lack of basic punctuation rules.

Luke warm

I don't know whether it was the book, the narrator or me, but I just didn't engage with it. I found myself going through the motions of putting the earphones in and turning it on without really listening or taking anything in . After a while I just decided to get another book. The characters didn't stick with me and the book seems to jump around quite a lot. Nothing particularly wrong with the narrator - just not the gripping stuff I want to listen to! love the genre and I tell myself I will come back to the book in a few weeks/months, but I know I wont.

Can you suspend disbelief?

A great series of books if you can get over the initial premis. The world suddenly changes and engines, guns and electricity no longer works. How will people adapt? What price civilisation and law?

Cleverly written with a closely observed and diverse population, the first three books in this series are well worth a read (or rather listen). Personally later volumes got a bit too "new age" for my taste - but the initial trilogy were a great adventure.