I spent some of my holiday catching up on S.M. Stirling's really fun Change Series, his latest being The Given Sacrifice.
Stirling has grown a massive story told across two planes of existence. I've been reading along since Island in the Sea of Time hit the shelves in 1998. A massive 'event' occurs in the late 90s, ripping reality as we know it into two planes. In one plane, the residents of Nantucket Island are seemingly thrown back in time to the Bronze age, with knowledge of current technology and science but little way of employing. A second plane of existence (known to fans as the Emberverse,) was revealed in 2004's Dies the Fire, where the rest of the world-as-we-know-it loses the ability to use 'modern' technology and the SCA gets ready to take over the world. Over the course of many novels, we learn that the SCA weren't the only people to remember that swords are dangerous as small bands of humanity attempt to rebuild.
The Given Sacrifice finds us at the end of of major war fought between alliances of surviving groups. The interesting reintroductions of near forgotten technology and the struggles of survivors to acclimatize to a world without MTv are hundreds of pages back. We're now starting to see a world born out of all the wreckage and scenes where 'pre-Change' survivors get melancholy are just worn out. With the major bad guy, the Prophet Sethaz, killed in an anti-climactic way, Stirling sets up his next set of novels; a younger generation of survivors appears ready to take on the old evil reborn.
I really like these books. The first three, set in Nantucket, were favorites and I wish that story hadn't disappeared. This novel has a hard time moving from the transitionary generation of folks, born right after the change, to the newer generation in a meaningful way. I didn't really connect with or like many of the newer characters, but I am sure they'll grow on me. Not a good place to start in the series, but certainly a tying up of loose ends and kick-off for the next generation of heroes.
Let me know what you think.
