S.M. Stirling, Dies the Fire

S.M. Stirling, Dies the Fire - Mike Havel is piloting a small plane with a five person family of passengers over Idaho mountain wilderness and listening to a news report about a mysterious ball of light blanketing Nantucket Island.

Juniper McKenzie is playing a folk music gig in a small bar in Corvallis Oregon run by a friend.

Suddenly both are blinded by an intensely painful light and just as suddenly the light and pain go away, but so does all the electrical power.

Mike's struggle to land the plane and keep his passengers alive is vivid, gripping and real.

Juniper's decision to go to help people to who are fighting and fleeing the fire that results when a large, heavily fueled plane crashes in the downtown area with the help of her bar manager friend and deaf fourteen-year-old daughter and some of the customers of the bars is what we all hope we would do in an emergency.

The sequence of decisions and actions each makes over the course of the next year as each becomes the core leader of a group of survivors and eventually communities follow logically from the traits each reveals in the defining beginning chapters of the novel.

I'll spare spoiling surprises by going into details, but I will say that though I frequently skip over large portions of battles in novels because I can't visualize all the who-hit-who when sequences I don't skip Stirling's.

Dies the Fire

S.M. Stirling

Roc, August 2004, $23.95, 496 pp.

ISBN 045459792

A multi-colored electrical storm that contains a beam of light is over Cape Cod. Soon a white light blinds everyone and the pain in their heads is intense. Nothing electrical works when their vision returns in the United States and probably worldwide. As time passes people call the event the Change even though they don't know who or what was responsible for the new Dark Age.

Survivors moved to the outlying countryside to learn to grow crops so they can eat. Folksinger Juniper Mackenzie heads for her country hideaway joined by coven members and the people that can contribute to the well being of the group. These are hard times so she is forced to turn away people for the good of the group.

Surviving a plane crash Mike Havel and the Larson family make their way from Idaho to Oregon where they can settle on land the Larsons' own. It is not an easy journey because they have to fight gangs and cannibals but they thrive by gathering up members to become part of their future community. Both Juniper and Mike's groups are threatened by an organized army headed by the Lord Protector who sees them as serfs and slaves. To keep their freedom, they must fight him and win.

Fans of apocalyptical thrillers like Stephen King's THE STAND will find DIES THE FIRE absolutely riveting. The tale centers on two natural leaders who provide hope in this strange new world. As Mike and his followers travel the country side, readers see how different groups cope with the Change. The predators come out of the woodwork hoping to become the rulers of their very own fiefdoms. This is a fantastic epic work that will probably lead to a sequel because there are many questions that need answering.

Harriet Klausner