S M Stirling, "Dies the Fire"

It's been a while since I had a chance to review a book, and the important thing about "Dies the fire" is that I have since read two more novels by the same author, so you can tell I liked it. This book is the first in a series that follows various groups of people on the west coast when electronics and explosives inexplicably stop working and stay like that. Planes crash to the ground mid flight, refrigerators stop working and the internet disappears. There is a mass die off of people and the whole world population is essentially thrust into a new mediaeval age.

Many other writers have done an apocalyptic novel, and movies that follow the theme abound, both good and bad. Stirling's approach is a bit different though, he does not really focus on the cause and looks more at the outcomes. He uses this vehicle to postulate how he thinks new societies might form, and how they might be influenced by charismatic and capable leaders to reshape things. What he is really doing is using a science fiction vehicle to create a fantasy. In fact the novel is a gritty realistic sword fighting fantasy novel. There are heroes and villains and monsters(men and women driven insane and cannibalistic by the change). It is just contemporary.

I could not put this novel down, and as much as I do not necessarily agree with some of his speculations pretty much everything is plausible. The characters he builds are likable and interesting and he series of events that unfolds is thoroughly gripping. I would recommend this novel quite happily and am going to add him to my list, though I am hard pressed to pigeon hole him as sci-fi or fantasy.

He follows up the story in the sequel, which I also read in good order by telling us a little of what happens in England, where the population is reduced to 600,000 and King Charles III rules with an iron fist, and an icelandic bride at his side.