Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Dies the Fire
Dies the Fire
Dies the Fire
Audiobook21 hours

Dies the Fire

Written by S. M. Stirling

Narrated by Todd McLaren

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

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...
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 19, 2008
ISBN9781400176762
Dies the Fire
Author

S. M. Stirling

Steven “S.M.” Stirling is a writer by trade, born in France but Canadian by origin and American by naturalization, living in New Mexico. His hobbies are mostly related to the craft of writing. He loves history, anthropology, and archaeology, as well as interest in the sciences. Steven has published over 40 novels, at least 5 of which are New York Times bestsellers and he has won awards including the Dragon Award for his novel, Black Chamber. Steven has been a Writers of the Future Judge since 2021.

More audiobooks from S. M. Stirling

Related to Dies the Fire

Titles in the series (23)

View More

Related audiobooks

Sagas For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for Dies the Fire

Rating: 3.79471547100271 out of 5 stars
4/5

738 ratings62 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very well done, despite a few mispronunciations and a tendency to make most non-native English speakers sound vaguely Irish …
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Randomly skipping ahead, either a faulty recording or odd story flow.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the first book in a series that takes place after an apocalypse of sorts. Electricity no longer works and anything with any kind of combustion has been severely suppressed. The survivors don't know what caused it, theories range from an angry deity or deities to Alien Space Bats. In the end, the how and why don't really matter, what matters is survival.The book follows two different groups of people, one a pilot and his passengers and the other the leader of a Wiccan coven. The Wicca stuff was a bit grating (I'm not religious and I'm not particularly interested in religion and there was a lot of religion in this book) but I eventually got used to it.In some ways I think this book is an author's fantasy about what would happen if SCAdians ruled the world. From a relatively small population there are a lot of people with archaic skills (some of them actually are SCAdians or Ren-Faire folk). I buy it in parts of Oregon (there is the Oregon Fair, after all) but I'm less inclined to buy it in Idaho. But the author also does a good job of pointing out the ways in which it is not the SCA come to life. For one thing, there are bicycles, which radically change things tactically from the medieval era.The premise is interesting as are most of the characters and I'm happy to have a post-apocalyptic series rather than a single book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    i recently finished reading S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire. i don't want to come right out and state that it was a bad book because it was not. i actually enjoyed it to a large degree. to be honest though, i am glad someone loaned it to me instead of being an out right buy.in Dies the Fire, a flash of light crosses the globe, killing all electronics. its similar to an electromagnetic pulse, but unlike an EMP, more is affected than just electronics. in a standard EMP (assume non-nuclear), the fluctuations in a magnetic field cause a wave reaction. interactions with that wave actually induce/generate electricity which shorts things out, often permanently. in the "books of the change", this pulse seems to have actually changed the laws of physical properties. as an example, gunpowder is useless, it still burns, but at a far lower temperature and speed. as a result, pressure does not build and a bullet will not fire.lets get to the reason i didn't fully care for the book, the issue of masturbation. its not that characters are hyper-sexual, nor it is filled with graphic scenes, more that the author was wanking his "i am smart" cock while he wrote. the story wanders back and forth between two diverse groups of survivors. each group is slathered in Stirling's self love as he over describes every aspect of their world. we understand within the first 50 pages that the people in the story are going to have to learn to do everything with out technology. we get that they are going to starve to death if they do not manage to store food and learn to grow crops. this does not mean that we need to read about every aspect of medieval farming. nor do we need to read a full conversation determining which crops should go into which field. this kind of self gratifying, masturbatory knowledge flaunting was annoying as hell.luckily, by the time you reach the last 5th of the book, Stirling seems to advance the plot much faster as he starts cutting off chapters early, leaving you to infer how it turns out based on future events. basically, he stops spoon feeding us his spunk, and instead gives us the benefit of an assumed intelligence, and with it, the ability to understand simple concepts.it was a good book, and i plan to read the others in the series, but.... they are low on my priority list.i think the saving grace for the book was that it all takes place in the pacific northwest where i live. reading about things i know, on fire, destroyed, or filled with cannibals.. its is kinda fun from that perspective.~~anyone planning to read this should note that: 1. "witches" are not evil (you will be told this in snarky conversation no less than 3 times) 2. the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) will rule the world when everything turns to shit. in case you are unaware who the SCA are, they are the people who study and recreate old timey stuff like knights and jousting. they are also the folks who (yeah yeah) like witches, allow themselves to be poorly represented by 10-12 fools playing sword fight in public parks and yelling "thou art a mother-fucker" when you clothesline them WWF style as you run past (oh to dream dreams).--xpost RawBlurb.com
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5

    I started reading Dies the Fire to pass the time on a five-hour flight. I'm a nervous flier, and it helps to lose myself in a book.


    Unfortunately for me, Dies the Fire begins with a plane dropping, powerless, from the sky. Oops!


    This was a pretty decent read. Stirling begins with the premise that, one ordinary day, electricity, internal-combustion engines, and explosives suddenly stop working. Stirling explores this what-if scenario, centering his tale on two individuals: Juniper, a Wiccan folk musician, and Mike, an ex-Air Force pilot who has been running civilian charter flights out of Idaho.


    Stirling's vision bears much resemblance to what we've seen in Alas, Babylon and other post-apocalyptic tales. Society breaks down, many, many people die, and a new social order begins to emerge.


    The world Stirling shows us is brutal, and we're treated to some very nasty scenes of violence and combat. Indeed, those who survive in this world learn to fight with swords and bows, and to protect themselves with armor and shields. They survive through ingenuity, traditional crafts and skills, and pure hard work.


    Leaders begin to emerge out of the chaos, some power-hungry and coercive, others noble and brilliant.


    I have a hard time coming to any conclusions about Dies the Fire. I did enjoy it, but I found it slow going, with many descriptive passages about the design and construction of weapons and buildings. I rooted for the protagonists, but they rose to the occasion a bit too thoroughly to be believed. I also found it unintentionally hilarious that Stirling seriously depicts an Urban Studies professor whose background somehow qualifies him to become an evil overlord -- something about his understanding of street gangs? Okay.


    Toward the end of the book, I felt a loss of momentum as I realized that it was paving the way for a sequel, and not all the big questions would be answered. But mostly, I'm just not the sort of person who takes enough of an interest in the kind of detail that Stirling supplies. (A sure sign that I would not survive in the world he depicts!) So, while I appreciate Dies the Fire, and while I recognize the qualities that will lead people to read the sequels (The Protector's War follows), I don't think that I'll read on.

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While reading The Road a coworker recommended Dies the Fire to me as another book about a post-apocalyptic world, but one that was not nearly as bleak and depressing. It didn't take much to convince me to give the book a try, and after the first couple of chapters I was hooked. Everything from the premise of a world in which guns, cars and all other modern conveniences are rendered useless, to the well developed characters, Dies the Fire is a fantastic book to read. Another great thing is that Dies the Fire is only the beginning. To date, four other books have been released that take place within the same universe, with others planned.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I listened to exactly 11 and a half minutes of this. Besides the entirely excessive and lane descriptions, the main character can’t seem to resist ogling the teenage daughter- disturbing. Calls the administrative assistant a secretary, refers to himself as an ex-marine (which a Marine never does- they are ‘former’ Marines). After about the 8th eye roll, I abandoned ship.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Initially felt like DeLint, who I feel has a tendency to tell interesting stories in a sometimes annoyingly and sometimes endearingly bad way. But mid-book, he lost me with silliness - the black plague begins to spread. The charm of the book was that it posed a 'what if' medieval scenario in modern times. Giving moderners the plague is carrying the conceit a bit too far. Also, I get the feeling that Stirling has spent a lot of time hanging out with Wiccans and SCA-types, and is working out his feelings about that - he seems alternatively attracted to, and repelled by, aspects of those lifestyles, and describes them with an anthropologist's tendency to view each character's every quirk as being somehow related to these lifestyles. But what eventually turned me off of this book for good was his sorry approach to man-woman relationships. People who, throughout the book, seemed to be innately decent, were inexplicably utterly without a conscience when it came to romantic entanglements. People can behave strangely, in life, or in out of the ordinary situations. But Stirling's characters at heart all seemed to care about nothing but themselves. They were too busy amusing their author to become real people. Too bad. Stephen King has done this post-apocalyptic thing better. And DeLint does the modern fantasy angle better. Skippable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved this when I read it as a kid. It’s not quite as good as I remembered it but it felt like I was visiting friends.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Honey introduced me to Steve Stirling. Quite a clever premise and some interesting characters. Will be interesting to see where the series goes
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Summary: Dies The Fire is the first in a series of books set after an unexplained event at the tail end of the 20th Century causes all modern technology to stop working, with catastrophic consequences. This first book mostly centres on two characters in the north-west United States, Mike Havel, an ex-Marine, and Juniper McKenzie, a witch (that is, a practitioner of the Wiccan faith). I found it interesting and enjoyable, and I'll probably read the next book in the series, The Protector's War.Good points: S. M. Stirling has obviously done his research. Dies the Fire is full of interesting information and speculation about all sorts of things. Many people might find this sort of didactic style of writing boring, but I love learning new things, and thinking about "what-if" scenarios, so I just lapped it up! I even found the battle scenes held my attention - normally descriptions of battles and combat in fiction make my eyes glaze over. Of course, a situation where "alien space bats" stop electricity, gunpowder and steam engines from working is never going to happen in the real world, but if you think about it, our modern society is resting on some very complex social and technological foundations. Just how robust are those foundations? As a D&D player, I found the story of modern people forced to cope without modern technology particularly interesting - I think Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson would have liked this book!Bad points: The story was so contrived that I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief and immerse myself in the book. It wasn't the fact that the laws of physics had changed that annoyed me so much as the fact that the main characters are without flaws or faults, and are supernaturally lucky. So, I would say that as a piece of literature, this is badly written. Nevertheless, it is full of so much interesting stuff that I enjoyed reading it anyway. Oh, and I should mention the cover. With so many interesting scenes and characters in the book, why such a generic and forgettable cover?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The characters are well written and mostly sympathetic, although the level of Wiccan background information jammed in there was annoying and tended to throw me out of the story and also make me initially dislike one of the main characters. I'm not anti-witch, just anti bad writing and whiny characters who call on their deity/deities every 5 lines. To be fair, though, Juniper does improve over the novel and while there's just as much Wicca thrown in your face the whole way through it gets easier to tune it out and focus on events.

    As an avid D&D player who probably knows too much about various historical weapons, I liked the practicality of the weapons and tactics used. I liked the realism of people getting hurt and dying when they did stupid things. I liked the various societies that formed up around lucky, charismatic leaders, and the ways people tried to resolve the inevitable problems. I liked the focus on farming, planting and harvesting food, and that the people who survived were the ones who realised that they needed to get crops planted so that they'd be able to eat over the winter.

    My main problem with the story was suspension of disbelief. It's just too convenient for electricity, engines, gunpowder, internal combustion of all sorts, and even high tech steam engines to all stop working, and yet leave everything else as is. It reads like an SCA or Renfair recreationist's dream scenario: no guns or engines, but we can still have fire and napalm; no electricity, not even batteries, but magnets still work. Steam works, and gases work exactly as they do now, but you simply can't get the pressure up to run a steam engine (that was the last straw for me; I was prepared to accept the no gunpowder rule as a narrative necessity, but that just doesn't make sense at all). I'd have liked the story very much more if it had just flat out said it's magic, or else gone with the global EMP option. The scenario as stated just didn't work for me, and the half-hearted "but I'm no scientist" explanations also didn't work for me. After all, they found people who had the skills & experience to make yew longbows, train horses, and make siege engines, but no one with any idea of how physics works who would talk about it for the reader. Lazy writing.

    That said, I enjoyed reading the novel. I've read better examples of the genre, and I'm including the 'onoes, I've fallen into a low tech world with a bit of high tech knowledge' type of story in this same genre, but this wasn't bad. I just wish the premise had been stronger, or at least internally consistent.

    If you want a better look at a similar idea, try Fey by Paul Kidd.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great novel about a world without power or guns. Some interesting characters, one involved with Wicca, and an ex-Marine. Good story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Post apocalypse, in the vein of Alas Babylon/One Second After/The Postman.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Alternate history. If you can believe in the situation, it carries it forward in an inexorable and logical way. Good characters and a plausible plot.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read all the other reviews before me at this time and I can’t really argue against any of them…we’re talking individual tastes and predilections here. Yes, Stirling makes Wiccans out to be a far more mainstream religion than it will ever become; and it attracts way more converts than anyone can realistically expect…but! “Thus are legends born.” If not for the main female character being a Wiccan we wouldn’t have the joy of seeing someone possessed by a “higher power” explode onto the battle field and awe the bad guys. No Christian, Moslem, Buddhist or Hindi is believably capable of channeling forces of nature as this woman does—it’s one of the most moving scenes of the story and well worth the suspension of disbelief to experience.Let’s face it, the willing suspension of disbelief has to be a major factor in any story that is a) built on the sudden disappearance of a major facet of modern civilization; b) the confluence of some incredibly useful people and skills to fight the forces of chaos; c) the incredible self-centeredness of the bad guys who are either are extremely-stupid-and-yet-competent-enough (the low level bad guys) or extremely-competent-and-yet-too-stupid-to-see-the-flaws-they're-propagating (the major bad guy).The first part of the story deals with the immediate necessity of accepting the new status quo and getting to somewhere relatively safe ASAP. The second part is a bit hokey—as has been said—in that the right people emerge at the right time to help establish a grouping that stands a chance of surviving long-term. But, let’s face it, that’s why I read books like this: if you read Science Fiction and complain about this book, then you’re just quibbling about which group of beliefs/disbeliefs you personally which to question/accept.Meanwhile, the third part of the tale deals with all of the characters and groups converging in a major battle with the good-guys winning. As I said…a lot of the action is hokey…but it’s heart-warming hokey, for me. I quite enjoyed the plot and sub-plots.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Action-filled postapocalyptic adventure where the protagonists are ruthlessly competent and pro-social attitudes are rewarded. I'm eager to get my hands on the next book in the series.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An apocolyptic view of Western America where everything important doesn't work any more due to a strange occurrence in Eastern USA. A good read to open your mind to the ease in which todays machines make our lives so much easier.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Spoiler! You will not find out what cause the Change in this book. It is about what happened after the Change. It's good post-apocalyptic fiction. I expect I'll continue the series.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I really liked this book, so why did it get a 3? Because I argued with my husband over the inconsistency of the universe, and as much as I don't want to admit it, he's right. It's well written in my opinion, and the idea IS neat, but the thing that turns off the technology is inconsistent and too unexplained or even dealt with. I'm cool with that in that it only moderately bothers me, but it was too much for my husband. I'll be honest, if I was trying to read this in physical book format, I'd probably not read this series further, but since it's in audio format I'm going to try a few more before I judge more harshly. There really was a lot to enjoy, such as how excellent a job the author did writing about a Wiccan coven, or how hard it would be for people to go back to plowing to get their food on such short notice. The pitfalls are the inconsistent universal changes in the Change, the fact that everyone you follow in the story accepts that the Change is wide-scale so quickly, and the heavy concentration of people with primitive technology hobbies in the book. I know that I would probably move on quickly because that's just how I work, but I doubt very many people would, and I'd really have liked to see that struggle more in this book. It needed some changes to really live up to its potential as a story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This post-apocalyptic novel set mostly in Oregon includes good characterizations and lots of action, but the reader will have to accept some fine coincidences and some unexplained hocus-pocus about the cause of The Change.A never-explained phenomenon (Aliens? Angry deities? Overlapping realities) suddenly causes all electrical systems all over the world to simply ... die. Not even dry-cell batteries will work. Nor -- and this is important to the story, so either suck it up or find something else to read -- will explosives of any kind. No guns, no bombs, not even steam power (but homemade napalm is okay -- go figure). Civilization promptly crumbles, and starvation and disease are rampant as the remaining population struggles to stay alive.The story centers on two groups, who ultimately meet and combine forces to survive both the suddenly-Dark-Ages technology and to defend themselves against the rise of the eternal bully-boys who see the chance to take up cudgel and sword against less organized and more peacefully-inclined neighbors.There are lots of characters here, but most are drawn clearly enough to be memorable. As noted above, the reader either accepts the notion that the survivors who find each other are all uniquely qualified by arcane skills or knowledge to survive in this world with its new set of rules. Stirling excuses himself by having characters say, on more than one occasion, "Well, we had to be damned lucky and skillful just to survive long enough to meet each other." We'll give him that because this is a ripping good yarn.It's also the start of a multi-book saga "Novels of the Change". With 15 entries in the series to date, anyone who wants to explore further in Stirling's world, will have plenty of reading to do.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Engaging... different communities/societies form after armageddon... read 2nd in series as well, fizzled for me after that.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I started this series with book #4, so reading book #1 explained a lot of things. On its own I thought it was just ok, but the books later in the series are better. I liked the authors take on who and how people survive when modern systems shut down and fail.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I give the story/concept a 3 but overall the book is lucky to get a 2; I mean Oh MY GOD can you have anymore of a platform to try and push witches on us!!!!!!!!!; I mean to use so much space on one of the largest minority groups in the world is such a waste of time, i have never skipped so much fluff in any book that I actually finished; will be really really hard for me to read another one of these.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I just couldn't begin to care about the people in this story. And unfortunately, it is a looong story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I would rate this book higher but for the religious bent of the book. I don't mind that the author wanted to include pagans but the total exclusion of other faiths or other faiths sustaining anyone looks a bit fake. Other than that loved the idea and the story was fairly well written. :)
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    i don't have anything to add that the other one-star reviewers haven't already said: horribly unbelievable, overly convenient coincidences, conceited portrait of various groups, uber-geek descriptions of cool gadgetry, like a pagan version of bad christian literature... i didn't make it very far into the first book before i had to quit reading. just like Twilight except that Stirling's book starts out with an interesting premise and contains actual grammar.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    First in the Emberverse series, 4th if you include the Nantucket books.One of the best writers of dystopia novels, in my opinion. Stirling concentrates on how people will adapt, change, adjust, survive when a real disaster strikes.In the Nantucket series, the island is hit by some sort of brilliant light and sent back in time to the Iron Age. In the Emberverse series, he moves westward to Idaho and we learn the same event did not move the rest of the world into the past, but instead just turns out the lights as well as stops every other machine beyond the very basic sort. We follow two people primarily: Juniper, an old fashioned witch as she calls herself, a believer in the goddess and the coven leader of a small group, and Mike, who, when the change comes is piloting a small plane across Idaho taking a wealthy family to their ranch for a vacation.Mike first has to fight his suddenly non-functional plane to the ground and keep himself and his passengers alive, then he has to trek them out of the wilderness to find some sort of help. It takes them a bit longer to realize what has happened, although Mike is aware that his emergency equipment is non-functional, like the plane.Juniper, meanwhile, is caught in a small town, and experiences the first evidences of lawlessness and violence. She’s a smart cookie though, and works to get herself, her daughter and a few friends out of town toward the small cabin she inherited from her grandfather.Highly recommended, but bluntly violent given the situations the good guys find themselves in. Still, good to see how people can learn to rise above disaster and fight to do what is right.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    On what is an otherwise normal day in March 1998, all technology fails. In Montana, a plane flown by a former military man, carrying a family to their ranch, falls from the sky. In Oregon, larger planes falls from the sky and crash into major cities. In the coming days people would do whatever they could to survive. The family who survives the plane crash turn into a wandering band of mercenaries, and one woman in Oregon takes her coven and some survivors and provides safety on her family's land. While their lives manage to come to a place where they can all survive and potentially thrive, not all people are thinking in altruistic ways. Portland, OR has been taken over by a former academic specializing in Norman history and does his best to recreate that.A story that will suck you in hard and make you wish for hours uninterrupted just to find out how these real and engaging people will manage to survive each day. No more electricity, no more mass transit, no more GUNPOWDER. Pre-industrial life comes roaring back, how would you handle it?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an awesome post apocalyptic book. Good character development, and a realistic portrayal of what society would look like if the power went out. The Wicca references became annoying after a while, but the Gaelic saying were clever. This book is a keeper