Am I the only one offended by S.M. Stirlings Emberverse series?

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I wounder what Latin america and Africa could look like in the emberevers, Latin america will probably look more stable thanks to having experiences from the junta regimes.
 
Worffan101

Worffan101

theg*ddam*hoi2fan said:
I agree that military leaders would be the ones who take over alright.

IIRC, Stirling's way of dealing with that was lazy as hell. I could be wrong, but I think he implied their discipline was their downfall - they were still waiting for orders from Washington while people like Armiger were getting going.
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Yeah, the "I AM SOLDIER I AM ROBOT" handwave was bullshit as all hell.
 
Petike

Petike

Worffan101 said:
I take it from this that you're not from America. American culture is steeped in instinctual association of royal rule over America with tyranny. (...) We just instinctively accept that America is good and Kings are bad. (...) If you think that people raised for decades in a culture where that attitude is so deeply ingrained into our minds that we hardly ever notice it and we simply instinctively assume that that's the way things are will turn around and just accept a bizarre feudal clan structure with stupid noble titles and autocratic rule, you're completely unfamiliar with 'Murica and its people.
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This is very well summed up.

And yet, in contemporary America at least, there is a popular fascination with the concept of monarchy and existing monarchies. Especially the British royal family and so on. Now, you can perhaps brush that aside with "Oh, it's just tabloid fans.", but I don't think it's just down to that. Otherwise the US wouldn't be such a hotbed of people as equally enthusiastic about medieval and early modern history (and reenactment and research, etc.) as their European counterparts. I don't think US citizens instinctivelly object to the concepts of nobility and aristocracy, they just don't like calling things "royalty" and "nobles" and invoking the form these concepts had back in Europe. There's also the whole can of worms about the "Imperial Presidency", but I don't want to get too much into discussing history and politics...

Personally, I think if you want the US to go all feudal, the earliest states will be something in the vein of noble republics. Some might be "nobles-as-warlords" affairs, perhaps providing the "uppity warlord" and "barbarian conquerors/invaders" trope, if you're fond of things like that in quasi-historical storytelling. Maybe in a later period, distanced from the still-in-memory history before the Change, or the Fall or call it whatever, you might see some of these "downplayed nobility" states morph into kingdoms and empires in all but name, and then also in name. But it would take time. No one is going to drop all memory of the pre-Change US and start playing King Arthur or whatever in just 20-30 years time, like in the Emberverse. I'm actually under the impression that survivors with such lofty pretenses would probably get quickly overrun by the more pragmatic, less "fancy-minded" survivors.

Worffan101 said:
If you lurk in the right parts of Baen Books's forums, some of the other big-name Baen authors, all ones who've worked with him, have a tendency to imply that he's a right prima donna who cuts deadlines uncomfortably tight at best and is super hard to work with.
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Well, at this point, I think few of us would be surprised by this particular revelation. Stirling hasn't been doing himself any favours for a long, long time, already before he started cranking out the Emberverse books.

Worffan101 said:
Overall he has interesting ideas but he just can't pull together a cohesive world and has a marked tendency to fall back on eye-rolling stereotypes--the hard-boiled detective from Drakon, the unbelievably stupid Samothracian agent (Stupid virus is canon, y'all) from that book, the Draka being an entire culture of ridiculous, pointlessly evil cartoon villains, Clan MacKenzie's version of Irish-ness, and the cannibals. All of the cannibals.
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All my "Yes" to this paragraph.

Worffan101 said:
He also tends to fall into black and white morality more than I'm comfortable with.
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Yes. Which is what prevents him from being seen as a more serious adventure author.

Laqueesha said:
Wait, you can't vote for kings. They're hereditary...
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In a democracy, your vote counts. In feudalism, your count votes for you. ;)

B-29_Bomber said:
Best. King. EVAH!!! 10/10 would vote for him.
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I have reservations against Birmo's writing as well, but that snippet with him as ruler in post-Change Australia is genuinely the best thing to come out of the Emberverse. Silly, but lovely cameo.
 
theg*ddam*hoi2fan

theg*ddam*hoi2fan

Petike said:
This is very well summed up.

And yet, in contemporary America at least, there is a popular fascination with the concept of monarchy and existing monarchies. Especially the British royal family and so on. Now, you can perhaps brush that aside with "Oh, it's just tabloid fans.", but I don't think it's just down to that. Otherwise the US wouldn't be such a hotbed of people as equally enthusiastic about medieval and early modern history (and reenactment and research, etc.) as their European counterparts. I don't think US citizens instinctivelly object to the concepts of nobility and aristocracy, they just don't like calling things "royalty" and "nobles" and invoking the form these concepts had back in Europe. There's also the whole can of worms about the "Imperial Presidency", but I don't want to get too much into discussing history and politics...
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That's true.

I remember Heinlein joking about that in Double Star. In that future, America joins a human Empire (under the Dutch monarchy :p ) but only on condition that they preserve autonomy and that the Emperor never visits the US. Heinlein's character observes that despite this, Americans in his future are fascinated by monarchy and it's a minor scandal that American women are always the most anxious to be presented at court. Which I couldn't help but think was possibly a social comment on RL...

Petike said:
Personally, I think if you want the US to go all feudal, the earliest states will be something in the vein of noble republics. Some might be "nobles-as-warlords" affairs, perhaps providing the "uppity warlord" and "barbarian conquerors/invaders" trope, if you're fond of things like that in quasi-historical storytelling. Maybe in a later period, distanced from the still-in-memory history before the Change, or the Fall or call it whatever, you might see some of these "downplayed nobility" states morph into kingdoms and empires in all but name, and then also in name. But it would take time. No one is going to drop all memory of the pre-Change US and start playing King Arthur or whatever in just 20-30 years time, like in the Emberverse. I'm actually under the impression that survivors with such lofty pretenses would probably get quickly overrun by the more pragmatic, less "fancy-minded" survivors.
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I do agree with this :)

Petike said:
I have reservations against Birmo's writing as well, but that snippet with him as ruler in post-Change Australia is genuinely the best thing to come out of the Emberverse. Silly, but lovely cameo.
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Same. If that had been the basis of an entire story it would have been great fun :)
 

serdog

I find the series as a whole to be dumb fun and I enjoy them. Are they Great? No. Will a get the next one ? Yes
 
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