It's amazing how far science and technology have brought the human race. Understanding the basic principles that guide how the universe works, then manipulating those fundamental laws of physics, has allowed us to perform all sorts of amazing feats. Electricity surges through our homes, becoming the life blood that powers a diverse array of mechanical devices that preserve and cook our food, wash our clothes, heat and cool the air, and keep us entertained. Fossil fuels, packed with hydrocarbons, propel aircraft through the skies, automobiles and trucks across an intricate global network of highways, and power farm vehicles that allow us to squeeze enough food out of the land to feed our teeming masses.
But what if, one day, all that was taken away from us? How would the human race survive? Would our social and cultural norms remain intact, or would we revert to the primitive savages we have so painstakingly evolved from over the millennia? Such is the premise of S.M. Sterling's apocalyptic science fiction novel, Dies the Fire.
Somebody up there (or out there) doesn't like us very much. At least, that's how it seems to Iraq war veteran turned bush pilot Mike Havel. In the midst of transporting a wealthy industry magnate and his family to their ranch vacation home in Idaho, a strange story flashes over the news radio. Off the coast of Nantucket, an electromagnetic cloud akin to the aurora borealis is coming in from the sea. Suddenly, the on the scene report abruptly ends. There's no time to wonder at what's going on, however; seconds later, the cloud passes over Mike's plane, and instantaneously all power goes out. Mike manages to make a controlled crash landing on a river, far from help and civilization.
Meanwhile, in rural Oregon, Wicca coven leader Juniper McKenzie is playing at a bar when all the power goes out. Not an unusual occurrence, or so it seems at first, until Juniper and her friends realize that this is far more than a local power outage. Planes are falling out of the skies, electrical watches no longer tick, and even guns no longer work. It isn't long, then, before it becomes apparent that some "change" has been affected upon the entire planet, rendering most of human technology useless.
And so both Mike and Juniper lead intrepid bands of survivors through the isolated regions of the Pacific Northwest. Realizing that they've just been plunged back into the dark ages, both must rely on long-replaced technologies to grow food and make weapons. There are, after all, some who have taken advantage of the Change to set themselves up as warlords who will kill, steal, plunder, and rape to survive. And as the food runs out in the hellish nightmares that the cities have become, they're moving out into the country to find more...
On the surface, Dies the Fire has a rather interesting premise that, if built upon properly, could yield a truly fascinating yarn. And truth be told, this almost 600 page novel does have its moments, and manages to keep the reader's interest almost to the end. The problem, however, is execution, and that becomes something that brings the book down a few pegs.
At first, we're enthralled watching our protagonists fight to survive. Most of civilization has perished around them for simple want of food and medicine. Governments have disintegrated, and civilized society has ceased to exist. Sirling takes great pains going into detail about how those who survive have done so, and that's great-to a point. But there's so much focus on how crops are grown and implements produced that we start to lose interest and hunger for a bit of action.
That comes in spurts, of course, and the author even builds up a warlord in Portland called The Protector to be the foil for our heroes. Problem is, we see The Protector in a whopping two scenes, and he's hardly built up enough to make an interesting villain. That makes the novels' final battle scene extremely anticlimactic, and even a little dull.
Then too, Sirling bases his entire work (and since this is the first installment of a series, future books as well) on a mysterious "Change" that he then quickly discards as a plot device. Who or what was behind the Change? God? Aliens? Some natural phenomenon? We never find out, and the main characters only wonder at it a few times and then in passing. A few obscure references, hints, and clues might have gone a long way to make Dies the Fire a bit more interesting.
Fortunately, there's a saving grace here, and that's the characters. They're well thought out, realistic, and we sympathize with them. The relationships they build with each other are believable, too, and that helps us to identify with them. We ant to know how they're going to survive an attack by cannibals, or whether they'll manage to harvest enough crops to survive the winter.
All in all, I enjoyed Dies the Fire, and will likely get around to picking up the next chapter in the series. But as I read, I couldn't help but dwell upon the squandered opportunities that might have made the story so much better. Three and a half stars overall, I think, and I should add I really wasn't inspired to pick up other installments in this saga.
