I'm an Audible subscriber and, on top of the books I'm reading, usually fill my commuting time by listening to audiobooks. Having read S. M. Stirling's superb Nantucket trilogy (check out Island In The Sea Of Time as a starting point) it was only natural that last year I listened to the first in his connected "Emberverse" saga; "Dies The Fire".
Unfortunately I approached as if it was just another alternative history or post-apocalyptic story and thus didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. It took me a few months to try and get into the very popular saga once more but this time I approached it with more of an open mind.
The Protector's War is the follow-up and I enjoyed it far more than Dies The Fire (but that again is more to do with how I approached it rather than a reflection on Dies The Fire). Let us set the scene... 9 years ago something messed up the physics around our planet and gunpowder, electrics and a whole host of useful things simply stopped working. Chaos ensued and most of the world died as food ran out. By the end of Dies The Fire things had begun to reorganise but the world was a very different place. The Protector's War picks up where it left off 9 years ago revisiting our characters in the Willamette Valley in Oregon as they attempt to prepare themselves for a possible war with a warlord to their north. Battling bandits, setting up future dynastic clashes and introducing some unexpected visitors from afar it is a very entertaining read.
I won't pretend that S. M. Stirling's style of writing takes a bit of getting used to. He will go into intricate detail about EVERYTHING. Some people paint with words, S. M. Stirling takes a 10 megapixel digital picture. And the way his characters think can be somewhat jarring. The protagonists are all far too clever, far too brave and far too well-prepared to be truly believable. But that is where I went wrong before. This isn't a post-apocalyptic fiction book... it is fantasy. And if you approach it as you would Lord of the Rings, you'll enjoy it a great deal.
S. M. Stirling is a worldbuilder and I want to know more about this world he is building. This is definitely a 5 star book.
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