Dies the Fire cover art

Dies the Fire

A Novel of the Change

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Dies the Fire

By: S. M. Stirling
Narrated by: Todd McLaren
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About this listen

 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 Science Fiction Fiction

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)
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So here’s the gist – A cataclysm / event which is seen as a blinding light (assumed to be an electrical storm) occurs, after which no electrical devices, no guns and no steam-power equipment works. Ok, so this premise isn’t new and I wasn’t sure this book would grab me, but it did, even when I knew where it was headed. An astonishing amount of research has gone into the story, which shines through in the world building in terms of how people manage to survive. It was entertaining, interesting and very well executed. The narrator does a brilliant job with a range of accents and does the women’s voices well too. I’ll definitely be listening to the rest of the books.

Excellent!

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Im hooked and i cant wait to start the next one. Where has these series been

Get ready

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Well written story the only let down is the poor and weird pronunciations of the narrator. The most obvious example is rations. r-at-ions are not ray-tions, there is no y in ration. It's not like it's hard to look up the correct pronunciation of almost any word online these days. Most online dictionaries offer the option to listen to how the word is correctly pronounced.

Once you get over that the story is great, can't wait to start listening to the second in the series.

Great plot, great characters.

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i love the genre, this book strikes a nice balance of survival action and soceity building, its pitched at gamers and sca types. the wicca stuff is a bit ever present but that aside its enjoyable and not too dark.

if you're a non zombie post apoc fan check it out

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Sci fi elements create the entire premise of the book, but are only explored briefly without determining causality, instead the book descends in to a medieval fare live action role playing game like world with a conviently over represented english / pagan medieval rose tinted rendition of a post apocalyptic world. I was occasionly intriuged, but never immersed the storey. progression stalled and jumped around more than once. By the end I was listening to finish the book, not to find out what happened next...

longer than it needed to be

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What could have been a great opening for an engrossing storyline failed from the beginning with unbelievable science and an unbelievable changeover in technology that was mastered in a few short weeks, things like forging swords from leaf springs on the road and in no time at all fletching arrows and making bows, all utter bullshit, anyone that believes that is possible in that timeframe should go on listening..

Annoying..

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