Dies The Fire

by S. M. Stirling

ROC, 483 pages, $23.99HB, $7.99 pb

From the back cover: “The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and firearms 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...”

Anyone who knows me knows I love end of the world scenarios and this book delivers all that I like about the genre. After reading this book S.M. Stirling goes on my “must read” authors list along with Eric Flint and Harry Turtledove.

The characters, both good guys and bad guys, are well defined, the action is totally believable and the plot is a page turner.

Dies the Fire does a very good job of showing how difficult simple survival can be during a widespread social collapse. People who normally wouldn’t even say hello to each other are forced to come together and work towards the common goal of survival. The two major characters, Michael Havel and Juniper Mackinzie, are first followed separately with each of them approaching survival with a philosophy rooted in their individual lifestyles: Juniper is Wiccan, Michael is ex-military. Even “bad guy” Norman Arminger’s choices are shaped by his past as a history professor, urban anthropologist and medieval recreationist. Over the course of about a year we follow these three groups until the climactic confrontation at the end.

I ended up reading this cover to cover in one sitting and as I reached the end I found myself wanting to know more about both the survivor groups and how they faced the future. Luckily for me The Protector’s War was next in my “to read” pile. Highly recommended. - Stephanie L Bannon