A Meeting at Corvallis

[CalBear]

Okay, I give.

I've been waiting for someone to launch a thread on Stirling's latest "emberverse" but no one has stepped up!


What did you think?

Where do we go from here?

Is Astrid really crazy or simply coping the best she can?

What part of the world would you like to see next?

Is it ASB's or is God just F---ing with us?

Paper or plastic?

To answer my own questions:

I liked it, I was just a bit disappointed with the ending. A bit more obvious than I had expected.

Maybe Juney is right. A low tech world is what the Old Religion is built around. Perhaps we will find out in book 6.

Mad as a March hare.

Upstate Maine, the Upper Peninsula, and Deseret.

Maybe its not God, but the Goddess?

Plastic dammit!

 

[Psychomeltdown]

As Diamond likes to say "the Power of Search"

it was... meh. Preferred Dies the Fire to the sequels.

 

[Chris]

Ditto me. I liked DTF. The world of the emberverse is so F***ing hopeless! Stirling deserves credit for making it clear that Knights in Armour wasn't as romantic an age as we think...but I see no way out for humanity.

Chris

 

[Adept Havelock]

Ditto me. I liked DTF. The world of the emberverse is so F***ing hopeless! Stirling deserves credit for making it clear that Knights in Armour wasn't as romantic an age as we think...but I see no way out for humanity.

Chris

Oh, I think there is a way out. It's just going to take a very very long time.

JMO.

 

[waltK]

Okay, I give.

I've been waiting for someone to launch a thread on Stirling's latest "emberverse" but no one has stepped up!


What did you think?

I loved it!
Weirdly differnt, and i cant see how you can change the laws of physics so that people can breathe but air guns and steam pistons dont work... but hey, i dont ask mark twain how the connetict yankee got to kng aurthurs court. Suspension of disbelife is worth the effort in this case.

Is Astrid really crazy or simply coping the best she can?

Crazy is a relative term i think...and it has nothing to do with how effective some one is.
Think of the book of mormon ... while "I" think its a load of make belive there are a good few million who take it as their life guide. Mormons were VERY effective in setting up their state, and almost managed to break away and form a theocratic NATION.
Imagine a world 1000 yrs hence when the works of tolkien are taken as history.... shudder with the linguists trying to find the indo-european roots of elvish! LOL

What part of the world would you like to see next?

Europe might be nice... though england seams to have turned into some kind of hobbt world....

Is it ASB's or is God just F---ing with us?

My moneys on the aliens... but mabye some one decided to create a 'peace bomb' and save humanity from its war and destructive like nature so that we could live at one with nature... LOL

.......
Maybe Juney is right. A low tech world is what the Old Religion is built around. Perhaps we will find out in book 6.

the "Old" religion was quite possibly made up by a bunch of late victorians who felt the need to re-attach themselves to the old ways... the same sort of folks who re-invigorated morris dancing then say that their making mother earth fruitfull....
A good movie exploring that theame is the ORIGONAL 'wicker man' with edward woodward. Not seen the re-make.
Dont think thats its any better then christianity at living in a low tec world - as is pointed out in the book the Catholic church did pretty well at exisiting and functioning through one dark ages- no reason why not another.
That said i can see people, and Americans especialy, getting caught up in a new religion like that. We're much more religiously minded in the US then anywhere else in the western world.

 

[Prunesquallor]

As I've remarked before, best thing he's ever done. There are four sample chapters of a sequel trilogy posted on Stirling's approved website. I'm pleased to know what happens to the characters, but I'm mildly concerned about a case of the "Feist Syndrome", when as soon as one "Dark Lord" is beaten another has to be produced to keep the story going.

 

[sbegin]

I liked it too, although I was a bit disappointed in the ending, it seemed a bit of a let down.
I've started reading the posted online chapters for the next install, I can't wait.

Although, I'd still prefer a sequel to ISOT.... if anybody is listening

 

[Jaeger]

I liked the seires (something in the Finnish Pagan in me woohoo )
What I had a problem with is how "fast" everyone picked the whole Knights thing up, yea I know gun's don't work, but still thier is modern body armor both police and millitary, I would have thought more of a mix of diffent era's what about ww1 era trenchworks for an outer defence instead of "yon castel" I know write your own book.
As for the whole baddie of the week, you gotta have something for the heros to to do other than plant and harvest and build/fix things, most people think that is the dull stuff. Granted in this setting and ISOT setting that is some of the most interesting things, but then agian I reenact both 1630's and WW2 , so I'm odd.

 

[joatsimeon@aol.com]

As I've remarked before, best thing he's ever done. There are four sample chapters of a sequel trilogy posted on Stirling's approved website. I'm pleased to know what happens to the characters, but I'm mildly concerned about a case of the "Feist Syndrome", when as soon as one "Dark Lord" is beaten another has to be produced to keep the story going.

-- as one of the Dunedain characters remarks, they're like cockroaches. No matter how much boiling water you pour on the baseboards, they always come back... .

 

[waltK]

..... I had a problem with is how "fast" everyone picked the whole Knights thing up, yea I know gun's don't work, but still thier is modern body armor both police and millitary, I would have thought more of a mix of diffent era's what about ww1 era trenchworks for an outer defence instead of "yon castel" ....

I only read Meeting at Corvaliis so far and some sample chaps on-line.
I agree with you in the sense that every one adapted very rapidly to their new world, though one could argue reasons that this might happen a) If they didnt adapt fast they were dead
b) Many were very young, and lost a good chunk, or all, of their family, freinds, and other social 'scaffolding' that we live in so they would proberbly activly seek to fit into whatever group they were living in. I think they said that the mekenzies were starting to talk with a brouge dispite the dearth of REAL celts amung them.

The Portland gang adapted to thier medeveal paradigrm very fast, but it seams to be a top down construct. The whole world wasnt 'medeval' minded- the pendleton 'cowboy' guys struck me as having a very different mindset then the portlanders.
I suspect that the reason the 'knights' did so well was that they were on the one hand very well organised and trained, and on the other had very good gear for killing folks pre-gunpowder.
The knight in plate armour stands like a tank- he can take a LOT hits more then anyone else and shrug them off... HE only has to give one good blow to a un-armoured foe.
Pikes, some times crossbows, sometimes longbows, and massed halbards COULD take on armoured knights, but historicaly it was gun powder that made it more efficent to train cheep 'common' foot soilders.
I dont think modern body armour is near as effective as plate- its designed for a whole different set of factors...a modern helmet might protect from a sword blow, but a coif on the neck and face and leg and arm guards would be WAY more useful.

 

[DuQuense]

I loved it!
Weirdly differnt, and i cant see how you can change the laws of physics so that people can breathe but air guns and steam pistons dont work... but hey, i dont ask mark twain how the connetict yankee got to kng aurthurs court. Suspension of disbelife is worth the effort in this case.

I suppose I read to much hard Sci-Fi, But this is in fact a magic Fantasy World, pretending to be Sci-fi. As such the Suspension of Disbelieve just didn't work for me here, just like with Ringo's Posleen Verse.

 

[Slacker]

Well, from the little bit we've seen so far, the new badniks are at least crazy religious nuts instead of a Bastard You Have to Sort of Respect. *shrugs*

It amuses me that Iowa's apparently the greatest power in the Western Hemisphere, though.

 

[Prunesquallor]

Blackie- to me, the situation is totally believable. Whatever physics I learned at school is forgotten, but the discussion of the various changes in physical law is plausible (which is all I ask). Could an advanced alien race manipulate in a small area (by cosmic scale) the laws of nature? For the purpose of the story, I'll go along.

 

[Funion The Barbarian]

Which book is the first one?

Which book is the first one in the trilogy? I just bought The Protectors War and wanted to know if I am skipping ahead...Thanks

 

[Prunesquallor]

The sequence is DIES THE FIRE, THE PROTECTOR'S WAR, and A MEETING AT CORVALLIS.

 

[CalBear]

Which book is the first one in the trilogy? I just bought The Protectors War and wanted to know if I am skipping ahead...Thanks

Definitely read Dies the Fire first. It will save you tons of WTF moments.

 

[Funion The Barbarian]

Read Protectors War First

Definitely read Dies the Fire first. It will save you tons of WTF moments.

Thanks but I already read the second book. Can't help it, I picked it up at a bookstore on 12/23 so I could pass the time at the in-laws over Christmas. Well I guess I f-ed up. I didn't really get that many WTF moments. I am not sure I really liked the book though, it seemed to drag in at times and I got bored with the Clan MacKenzie and Ranger storylines. I actually started to skip ahead when I hit these storylines. Does the story pick up any with "Meeting"?