Am I the only one offended by S.M. Stirlings Emberverse series?
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Agricola64
Banned
-- which means exactly nothing except that they dress the way people did in the 1870's in both countries. The only other information provided in the scene is that Dai-Nippon includes China, and that it's an advanced and powerful state that has clashed militarily with the Angrezi Raj in the past and that there's continuing military and political tension between the empires. And that's it. Oh, well, a later scene also makes clear that they have ninjas; but then everything's better with ninjas.
You can make assumptions, but projecting the assumptions onto the text and then treating them as if they were part of the text is sorta... problematic.
Agricola64
Banned
-- oh, you mean the ones in the books fighting the PPA? Or the ones rebelling against the PPA?
One area has neo-pagan "Celts". Who aren't anyone's lords, since the area in question is elaborately described in the texts as a rather egalitarian town-meeting democracy with religious toleration.
There are other areas with much more cultural continuity with the pre-Change US. People who feel uncomfortable in one area tend to drift off to another, aka "sorting".
This seems fairly credible.
Yeah, but how did that turn out? Status quo is back in place by the next trilogy, excepting some reforms and the ability to 'vote with your feet'. The silly reconstructed feudalism is still in place as the official societal structure within living memory of a republican U.S. and remains credible, despite it being explicitly shown that the people under the PPA are living in North Korea style peonage. How does the PPA not immediately become massively underpopulated if the wretched peasants under it's misrule are now allowed to leave freely? It beggars the question if they are actually allowed to leave freely, and it being stated so in the books is just aristocrats making excuses to perpetuate their 'peculiar institution'.
Except for Rudi, who is everybody's Lord. And Savior.
B-29_Bomber
Banned
Not what I meant. I'm the Goddamned Sempai!
And I refuse to notice or acknowledge his trash.
Yup. Fun fact, didn't know at the time it was SM Sterling arguing with me, which makes it funny to me in hindsight. He trolled my website for a time too. Having met other authors in person since then, they say this is all pretty standard behavior for SM Sterling (the greater speculative fiction community seems to have a rather poor opinion of the man on a personal level).
For those of you reading his books still, do let me know if some Mick Crowley-esque expy of me shows up at some point.
@thekingsguard
Is it really necessary to cast aspersions on the guys character? You can have critiques about his work without getting personal.
Is it really necessary to cast aspersions on the guys character? You can have critiques about his work without getting personal.
The man advocated genocide on this very forum, and attacked me personally on several other websites.
No need to claim I'm attacking his character when he has made clear he has so little to begin with.
@thekingsguard
I'd just ask you keep your personal opinions about the man himself private or in another thread.
I'd just ask you keep your personal opinions about the man himself private or in another thread.
Faeelin
Banned
I vaguely recall some character lamenting how many people will be lured by the siren call of America's legacy, which is totally silly, and America will be a quixotic quest of madmen like Rome. In like 20 years post-change.
Dude, your parents remember a golden age when there was food for everyone and they weren't raped by feudal lords. And Roman culture still influences us.
Bring Me Men to Match My Mountains is my favorite take on this.
Rudi bloody Mackenzie was the main reason sixteen-year-old me have up on the series after they found his precious Infinity+1 sword on Nantucket. Trying to retread the series only to have my teeth set on edge by the cloying Oirishness of the entire Clan just turned me against it altogether. The entire Clan Mackenzie just becomes Stirling's pets who can do no wrong, and it erodes any tension from later stories.
I do like Arminger's wife, though. Only person after Havel does with a lick of sense in the whole series.
I do like Arminger's wife, though. Only person after Havel does with a lick of sense in the whole series.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Yeah I think those were among his best Solo works, I'd love to see more stories in that verse
IMO Stirling is an extremely good writer when he is serving as a coauthor with someone else. I've never been disappointed in a book or story he coauthored, but his solo work not so much
Admittedly having taken my username from one short story he coauthored I could be somewhat biased
Everyone except for the bunny-ears atheists recognize - in story - that the change is and act of God. Which god, or which specific pantheon or aspect of gods is left to the different interpretations based on preexisting faiths, but the hand of a higher power is almost universally accepted as the only logical conclusion by most of the characters.
And there is a difference from reading about a fictional flood that happened six thousand (or whatever) years ago and experiencing divine wrath. I mean, even people who suffer through natural disasters today can say that it was the act of god, and who can know gods will? This is completely different than living through an event (the Change) that is obviously an act of God, and which is obviously murderous in intent. The motives of the divine are not unknowable and mysterious, His acts are specifically designed to kill you.
The McKenzies practice Tanistry and have a clan structure. This is not democracy. And I think the books are plenty 'preachy'. It's just that they preach that there are divinely-selected rulers who will command power over the wretched peons of post-Change America, and any desire to revive self-government on a large scale isn't even worthy of serious consideration.
I'll go ahead and answer both of these at once.
How, in nine years, do you go from stable republican self-government, to post-apocalyptic shitshow, to stable feudal aristocracy. Key word stable. Stable enough that large numbers of the military-elite, who are almost all thugs of some description, can be killed off and yet still a system of government as ridiculous and un-American as feudalism can remain in place over an rebellious population who have recent memory of self-determination?
Nearly the entire upper echelon of PPA aristocracy is wiped out, including their insane dictator who was holding the whole thing together. And yet the widows have no problem maintaining their newly-invented and institutionally oppressive positions of power over the whole shebang.
It does not compute. It is absurd and unbelievable.
Fair enough.
None of that negates my point. The concept of self-government isn't nonviable in a medieval situation. The principles remain the same.
From the bottom up here, I don't see how ideological underpinnings (All men created equal, self-determination) are discredited. The change is extreme sure, but once the crisis has passed, and people have firm footing again and can reliably feed themselves, there would almost certainly be a societal 'correction'. I'll point again to the quote I made in my earlier post:
"Juniper smiled sadly. And it’s not surprising that you’re the leader in this. It’s the man who has a little who wants more, not the starveling with nothing but an empty belly. Also things haven’t quite had time to settle down and set hard yet. A generation or two, and our friend’s grandchildren here might be fighting for the baron, not against him."
Stirling, S. M.. The Protector's War: A Novel of the Change (Emberverse Book 2) (p. 350). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The crisis has passed, and yet the very idea of a return to self-government it met with disdain and viewed with derision. Of course this doesn't stop the 'democratic' McKenzies from exploiting their desire to be free by encouraging rebellion.
In any realistic telling (and maybe this is where my blind spot is. This is after all a fantasy series) the PPA would have been a barely-functional wreck even before the Lord Protector got ganked. Nine years simply is not enough time for people to become attached to an alien form of government. Especially when that form of government is obviously and intentionally heinous. They put slave collars on people for gods sake! And yet the 'peasant' revolt is dealt with quickly, the new aristocracy is quietly and efficiently put in it's place without (apparent) turmoil, and our stage is set for golden-boy Rudi to take the lead in our next exciting installment. It's too convoluted and obvious.
He was truly imaginative when it came to the Angrezi Raj and France-outre-mer, but when it came to everything else, he seems to have run out of ideas.
Faeelin
Banned
Well, inscrutable oriental hordes are a stock trope in the old novels. It's just that that is one reason those novels are racist and boring.
Faeelin
Banned
Of course in a realistic retelling, you get something like the Postman, where people come together to restore democracy and kill the crazed sociopaths.
Agricola seems to suggest that democracy requires Level 28 democracy, but he ignores that the levels of democracy could vary. Puritan New England and Colonial Virginia were at the same tech level, but with vastly different levels of freedom. And as the characters tell us again and again, they are not stuck in the medieval era. They can use later inventions as well.
He is a BANNED member here. The reason he was banned was beyond justified. He has, by his own actions here, illustrated who he is.
