By S.M. Stirling.
Volume four, seven, or perhaps ten of a series, so for God's sake don't start here.
Do you remember The Changes? A series of books by the terribly underrated Peter Dickenson, better known at the time as a BBC children's drama series. The world wakes up with a loathing for any technology beyond the 15th century. There is a degree of chasing about, and in the books at least, Merlin is eventually persuaded to return things to normal. Some people died at the hands of mobs who found them trying to use their cars, but no-one starved. It was a series aimed at kids.
This isn't. At about the turn of the millennium the world changed. Electricity stopped working. Combustion worked differently - fires still keep people warm, but no cars, no steam trains even, no guns. No articulated lorries bringing tonnes of food into the heart of the cities every day. Ships carrying food from the antipodes still float, but drift at the mercy of the waves.
The civil society tries to cope, but fails. Seven billion cannot survive on a world were medieval agriculture is all that's possible. The densely populated parts of the world suffer almost complete collapse, where the people are spread more thinly, and where farmers are not overrun by the starving hordes coming out of the cities, societies can be reconstructed.
In much of America the survivors are ranchers, farm managers and the like. The people who remember real farming, not just how to sit on a combine and mow a flat field larger than some European countries. In Oregon it's the reenactment crowd. Who take it all too seriously. There's a bunch of SCA derived nutters who style themselves knights, and by the time of this book have built castles all over their lands and are honestly quite good at it. They started out as the main villains, but the primary robber baron died a few books back. Their main opposition is a pseudo-celtic clan who practice Wicca and Agincort style massed archery. Oh, and some genuine headcases who claim the Lord of the Rings is a work of history, and develop as ninja dunedain.
After three books of conflict between these groups and others the west settles down to an uneasy peace, and the series leaps forwards fifteen years.
By the time of the next books the protagonists are the children who have only known the changed world, who have been off on what is quite definitely a Quest, involving visions and a magic sword. Or at least a sword of some kind, its only really in this book that the magic becomes unavoidable. So yes, when the tech went away, magic seems to have appeared, much of it not especially nice.
So off they trot, a mixed party of Wiccan hero, knightly heroine, cleric, supporting ninja and rogues, picking up allies and enemies along the was in good D&D fashion. The enemies are largely from a Wyoming new age church who's upper echelons seem to be possessed by demons, plus assorted bandits, pirates and so on.
Come the end of the last book the hero had laid his hands on the Sword, which was proving decidedly magical, on the island of Nantucket. In this one he gets to trek back to the Pacific Northwest, but fortunately manages to do so in just the one book, and only two significant battles along the way, settings up for the big showdown with the evil wizards in the next two, or perhaps three books. Which will probably be fun, the whole thing isn't dragging like some series of this kind of length.
The great question I do keep coming back to though: is Stirling a gamer? There are increasing FRPG staples coming out in these books, but the previous ones, which started off as a time travel story, did seem to be rather optimised for gaming opportunities, and at least one of his stand alone settings resonated strongly with a GURPS alternate world concept I've been playing with for some time. George Martin would probably know, but I forgot to ask the one time I met him at a signing.
Though if he was a gamer, then it's a little surprising not to have any licences out there yet.
Still. Not especially demanding, decent romp. Looking forwards to the next.
Volume four, seven, or perhaps ten of a series, so for God's sake don't start here.
Do you remember The Changes? A series of books by the terribly underrated Peter Dickenson, better known at the time as a BBC children's drama series. The world wakes up with a loathing for any technology beyond the 15th century. There is a degree of chasing about, and in the books at least, Merlin is eventually persuaded to return things to normal. Some people died at the hands of mobs who found them trying to use their cars, but no-one starved. It was a series aimed at kids.
This isn't. At about the turn of the millennium the world changed. Electricity stopped working. Combustion worked differently - fires still keep people warm, but no cars, no steam trains even, no guns. No articulated lorries bringing tonnes of food into the heart of the cities every day. Ships carrying food from the antipodes still float, but drift at the mercy of the waves.
The civil society tries to cope, but fails. Seven billion cannot survive on a world were medieval agriculture is all that's possible. The densely populated parts of the world suffer almost complete collapse, where the people are spread more thinly, and where farmers are not overrun by the starving hordes coming out of the cities, societies can be reconstructed.
In much of America the survivors are ranchers, farm managers and the like. The people who remember real farming, not just how to sit on a combine and mow a flat field larger than some European countries. In Oregon it's the reenactment crowd. Who take it all too seriously. There's a bunch of SCA derived nutters who style themselves knights, and by the time of this book have built castles all over their lands and are honestly quite good at it. They started out as the main villains, but the primary robber baron died a few books back. Their main opposition is a pseudo-celtic clan who practice Wicca and Agincort style massed archery. Oh, and some genuine headcases who claim the Lord of the Rings is a work of history, and develop as ninja dunedain.
After three books of conflict between these groups and others the west settles down to an uneasy peace, and the series leaps forwards fifteen years.
By the time of the next books the protagonists are the children who have only known the changed world, who have been off on what is quite definitely a Quest, involving visions and a magic sword. Or at least a sword of some kind, its only really in this book that the magic becomes unavoidable. So yes, when the tech went away, magic seems to have appeared, much of it not especially nice.
So off they trot, a mixed party of Wiccan hero, knightly heroine, cleric, supporting ninja and rogues, picking up allies and enemies along the was in good D&D fashion. The enemies are largely from a Wyoming new age church who's upper echelons seem to be possessed by demons, plus assorted bandits, pirates and so on.
Come the end of the last book the hero had laid his hands on the Sword, which was proving decidedly magical, on the island of Nantucket. In this one he gets to trek back to the Pacific Northwest, but fortunately manages to do so in just the one book, and only two significant battles along the way, settings up for the big showdown with the evil wizards in the next two, or perhaps three books. Which will probably be fun, the whole thing isn't dragging like some series of this kind of length.
The great question I do keep coming back to though: is Stirling a gamer? There are increasing FRPG staples coming out in these books, but the previous ones, which started off as a time travel story, did seem to be rather optimised for gaming opportunities, and at least one of his stand alone settings resonated strongly with a GURPS alternate world concept I've been playing with for some time. George Martin would probably know, but I forgot to ask the one time I met him at a signing.
Though if he was a gamer, then it's a little surprising not to have any licences out there yet.
Still. Not especially demanding, decent romp. Looking forwards to the next.
1 comment:
gorialluI remember enjoying the Changes as a kid. It sounds like this is the same setting, from a rather different PoV?
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