I've been reading this. Interesting, and like most Sterling well-written, if one can tolerate the fantasy than only members of SCA, Celtic pagans, antosocial outdoorsy types, criminals, and ancient history professors will be able to cope.
However, I have a really odd-ball suggestion. Stirling (or his characters) keep coming back to the notion that ASB's (let's say space aliens) have deliberately changed the laws of nature on earth for some sort of deliberate reason. Now, in the Worldwar series, Harry Turtledove created a group of Aliens who really, really wanted to conquer a bunch of 12th century humans but got here too late and ended up screwed big-time. Now let's imagine we do some time-line jumping and we have some disgruntled Lizards from about 300 years in the future of the World War books. The Race is ruled by humanity, but some of them still don't like it and want to change things. By then, mechanisms have been developed which allow some localized alterations in the laws of nature and some Lizards, a la the Afrikaaners in GOTS, go back in time to change things so they can create a new TL in which the Race can conquer the earth. Time travel technology is still in its infancy, so instead of appearing in the 1941 of HT's "Worldwar" series, they misjudge and show up in the 1990's of Stirling's "Islands" series, creating a depleted 12th century world ready for the taking. Imagine, "Dies the Fire" is first in a series of joint Sterling-Turtledove novels in which outdoorsy pilots and witch queens lead a war of 12th century humans against a small, but very angry group of crazy Lizards. Although the Lizards have turned off the "natural law disrupters" so their killer craft and landcruisers now can work, all our technological stuff has rusted away or has been chopped up to make plows. Things look real bad for earth until a super space battlecruiser painted like a coast-guard cutter with a 10th generation black lesbian herititary captain in charge shows up in a new space-time warp and toasts the ever-overconfident Lizards and proves once and for all the Big Uglies are just too nasty to mess with after all. Sterling writes all the human characterizations and dialog while Turtledove handles the Lizard side of things.
Think it'll sell?
I was afraid not.
However, I have a really odd-ball suggestion. Stirling (or his characters) keep coming back to the notion that ASB's (let's say space aliens) have deliberately changed the laws of nature on earth for some sort of deliberate reason. Now, in the Worldwar series, Harry Turtledove created a group of Aliens who really, really wanted to conquer a bunch of 12th century humans but got here too late and ended up screwed big-time. Now let's imagine we do some time-line jumping and we have some disgruntled Lizards from about 300 years in the future of the World War books. The Race is ruled by humanity, but some of them still don't like it and want to change things. By then, mechanisms have been developed which allow some localized alterations in the laws of nature and some Lizards, a la the Afrikaaners in GOTS, go back in time to change things so they can create a new TL in which the Race can conquer the earth. Time travel technology is still in its infancy, so instead of appearing in the 1941 of HT's "Worldwar" series, they misjudge and show up in the 1990's of Stirling's "Islands" series, creating a depleted 12th century world ready for the taking. Imagine, "Dies the Fire" is first in a series of joint Sterling-Turtledove novels in which outdoorsy pilots and witch queens lead a war of 12th century humans against a small, but very angry group of crazy Lizards. Although the Lizards have turned off the "natural law disrupters" so their killer craft and landcruisers now can work, all our technological stuff has rusted away or has been chopped up to make plows. Things look real bad for earth until a super space battlecruiser painted like a coast-guard cutter with a 10th generation black lesbian herititary captain in charge shows up in a new space-time warp and toasts the ever-overconfident Lizards and proves once and for all the Big Uglies are just too nasty to mess with after all. Sterling writes all the human characterizations and dialog while Turtledove handles the Lizard side of things.
Think it'll sell?
I was afraid not.