Emberverse: The Golden Princess

[Meatshield]

Plus, he does go out of his way to screw the USA too. Which is why, save MAYBE the Nantucket series, the USA always ends up wiped out nearly to a man, and then replaced with some neofuedalist Mary sues who are all into neopaganism and lesbian sex

It's why I like all the fix fics for the Emberverse that nerf those tendencies right from the get go.

That's a pretty small sample set.

The Draka series. The Emberverse books. Pretty much every other book series isn't particularly hard on the USA. Peshawar Lancers (a one-shot book) really doesn't count, since it's basically inherently a British Empire story to begin with.

The Lords of Creation books have the US as the (rather more overt than in OTL) primus inter pares of the Free World, with only the Soviets as a counterweight, and all the bad people are foreigners (even the British guy).

ISOT is basically "Yankee Americans culturally or militarily conquer the entire planet". If you are reading any anti-American tone into that...you're smoking amazing stuff.

Conquistador is basically neutral (literally nothing good or bad happens to the USA), and is only stopped from being pro-American by virtue of the "Conquering American" faction that takes over Earth-2 happens to be rather villainous sorts (Rolfe and his faction are Reactionary agrarian aristocrats, and some of the others are basically outright Bad Guys).



Considering that the Emberverse books are basically post-apocalyptic adventures....they are no more "anti-American" than any number of Niven/Pournelle books (Lucifer's Hammer?) or the undying Post-Apocalyptic genre at large.

Neither are the books heavily drenched in "lesbian sex". Stirling, if anything, is rather gun shy about overt sexual imagery, and "Fade to Black!" is his most frequent tactic.....and there's not very many lesbians at all in the Emberverse (one, total, among the secondary cast, with less than half a dozen among the entire cast of named characters).


That's basically an unfair description of Stirling's body of work...akin to dismissing Elizabeth Moon's career as "a bunch of Women and Spaceships".


God knows I complain about some of Stirling's writing tics....but he's more or less innocent of what you are accusing him of.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

-snip-

Well from my own observations only the first Emberverse trilogy seems to have a disproportionate number of lesbian neo-pagans (and even then they are all background characters, save Lady Death, who kills two of those said characters) with the Draka having the next largest number.

Though TBH I can't say many of Stirling's descriptions of lesbians or bisexuals are particularly flattering when compared to the ones I know in real life. Though that he includes them is pretty great.

 

[Meatshield]

On that note he does have a fondness for national stereotypes (I mean you read some of his stereotypes of Muslims in works like Marching Through Georgia or the Peshawar Lancers and cringe a bit. Though he's never overtly awful about it I've found, save for maybe the Muslim pirates in the Protector's War) that does tend to seep into his works a bit.

I think the way it works is, if the character is important to the story, Stirling has more invested in making them three-dimensional and complex, and really works at it. If the character is a two-scene wonder, or just a pest for the Protagonists to hurdle...it's a quick and dirty "<Adjective><Noun>" stereotype with shallow characterization and motivation.

Though it always confused me as to why the Irish split into three separate states versus two.

Reasonable People (Republic of Shannon) and the two Nutters (Provoland and the Orangeman's Junta). The latter two didn't quite manage to kill one another off when Ulster imploded (it's sort of implied that the British Army presence went over to the Orangemen right off the bat), and the fallout was two crazy states instead of one....with the Republic of Shannon simply stuck on the same island with the nutters.

 

[R. E. Lee]

In all seriousness, I've long realised that to Stirling, only Americans, Canadians and the British deserve to rule the world. But...'Provoland'?

The reason is obvious: Stirling is trying to find a way to have his British dominion over Western Europe. That takes an act of God to uphold, when you consider that after the initial die-off and before the Icelanders joined them, the Irish outnumbered the Brits 5:1. You would think that if one in four people one Ireland died, Northern Ireland would get at least some of that being that the eastern half of the island is so much more densely populated than the west. There should be two states at most, more likely a Cork-based united Ireland.

It's why I like all the fix fics for the Emberverse that nerf those tendencies right from the get go.

Any you'd recommend?

 

[thekingsguard]

Any you'd recommend?

One of the best I've seen recently is GovernorGeneral's Storm Surge, here on AH.com. Starts to be centered on a pullback of the Washington State Government and the Army troops in Fort Lewis, rather than hold the idiot ball, withdraw to a stable point near the coast and the Pennensula, organizing an emergency state government that manages to handle supplies, defense and refugees admirably.

Refugees largely stick to the interstates, allowing them time to stabilize and organize. Within the first month, they have established a functional remnant of the state government with entire brigades from fort lewis armed with pikes and slowly but surely with crossbows. They form an early check on the Protectorate, work with what, in the novel, become Corvalis, the Bearkillers and CORA, and eventually forms the core of what becomes the "Pacific States of America, capital out of Portland, extending from Northern British Columbia to recently planted or contacted surviving settlements out of California.

There are also hints that other such efforts have succeeded in areas of the USA marked as "death zones". Rather than knock us down to the 12th century, the Change just knocked us down to the 18th. And the only ones comlaining are Norman Arminger and Judi MacKenzie

 

[EnglishCanuck]

One of the best I've seen recently is GovernorGeneral's Storm Surge, here on AH.com. Starts to be centered on a pullback of the Washington State Government and the Army troops in Fort Lewis, rather than hold the idiot ball, withdraw to a stable point near the coast and the Pennensula, organizing an emergency state government that manages to handle supplies, defense and refugees admirably.

Refugees largely stick to the interstates, allowing them time to stabilize and organize. Within the first month, they have established a functional remnant of the state government with entire brigades from fort lewis armed with pikes and slowly but surely with crossbows. They form an early check on the Protectorate, work with what, in the novel, become Corvalis, the Bearkillers and CORA, and eventually forms the core of what becomes the "Pacific States of America, capital out of Portland, extending from Northern British Columbia to recently planted or contacted surviving settlements out of California.

There are also hints that other such efforts have succeeded in areas of the USA marked as "death zones". Rather than knock us down to the 12th century, the Change just knocked us down to the 18th. And the only ones comlaining are Norman Arminger and Judi MacKenzie

Any other good ones you've seen?

 

[EnglishCanuck]

As an aside, did anyone find the map in the book a little infuriating for not revealing many details beyond Montival?

 

[Lateknight]

As an aside, did anyone find the map in the book a little infuriating for not revealing many details beyond Montival?

Yes that always irritated me he never really updated either so by the end of second series it doesn't really resemble the world we are told about.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Yes that always irritated me he never really updated either so by the end of second series it doesn't really resemble the world we are told about.

Other than a few incremental improvements it seems rather...lacking is the word I would use.

If he doesn't offer a map of the Pacific it will be extra confusing.

 

[Thoresby]

Okay I've now read this and it's a improvement on his last few books mostly because bloody Rudi and his bloody Mackenzies are absent or sidelined which is a massive relief. There were some really good bits like the "interesting" understanding of World War 2 (apparently it was against Germany and there was a Kaiser with a withered arm and airships) showcasing that it's now a 2044 and even well educated POV characters have a realistically poor understanding of the pre-change world, which is now as distant to them as Rome was to the Middle Age's. The introduction of the Japanese was also cool though the thoroughness with which they've recreated pre-Meji Japan is off. Just as the PPA is based on Frankish feudalism while nonetheless being completely distinct and unique Japan should be more different imho.


The problem SPOILERS is there is no story, there is no conflict, there is barely any action and everyone agrees that; the North Koreans are nasty, it's a shame Rudi is dead but they have to move on and they should go and find the Grass Cutting Sword.
So they set off to find the sword. And then the book ends. Apart from one encounter by some scouts with some Haida/Cannibals there is basically no action. Similarly apart from token warnings to be careful and a discussion about needing to keep Mathilda in the dark no one opposes the main characters in their desire to launch this new quest. This is literally an entire book of scene setting where you keep hoping that soon the action is going to start but it never does. This book needs to be read in conjunction with the next series where presumably there is a going to be an action packed quest in the ruins of LA to find the sword. Which I'm really looking forward to. But this book was crap.

In conclusion this is an improvement thanks to the removal of some really annoying elements from previous books but it doesn't stand on it's own and is basically setting the scene for the next in the series. As such I advise any fans of the series to hold off buying and reading this book until the next book comes out and then read them together.

 

[Meatshield]

One thing that does really feel forced is the flat-out declaration (happens at the end of TGS and is restated a couple of times in this book) that some Korean dude killing Rudi in what amounts to a skirmish is a rational casus belli for Montival to wage a transoceanic war (a little more difficult than it was in the 20th Century).

That's kind of dumb. If Korea and Montival shared a border, or were in the same geographic area (or even continent!)....yeah, I could see the killing of Rudi sparking a full-scale war.

As it is, Orlaith is talking about dragging (tens of?) thousands of Montivallans across the Pacific to fight in a war that does not directly concern them....on the strength of Rudi being killed (by a soldier/agent not verifiably carrying out the instructions of his government).

That's kind of dumb.

If it were the case that the Montivallan government is saying "Welp, here's those Possessed Dudes again....chances are they have some Evil Plan to take over the world. So, best we send an expeditionary force to help the Japanese put them down, before we end up fighting them in Alaska or something!"....I could see it. That (aside from the odd comment that Montival has fought these guys before) isn't what we get shown. It's all "They Killed Rudi = War!".

So, it's basically another case of Stirling having the Main Characters make instant policy decisions (or decide them offscreen and present them in a kind of Renaissance PowerPoint presentation, to the Readers and the Non-Main Characters both)...which are simply ditto'd by everyone else. We don't get a scene where Prince John says "it's horrible that Dad died...but that's no reason to wage Renaissance Global Warfare!", or where the Corvallan Faculty Senate objects to being dragged into a ruinously-expensive global war over what amounts to a misadventure during a police action.

Again, we just aren't shown a lot of tension in the Good Guys' camp. Hell, none of the married* couples even throw crockery (closest we get is that Havel gets mildly angry, and comes close to telling Signe she's a cow, when Signe actively tries to manipulate Rudi into getting killed). Plans are either achieved via instantaneous consensus, or are hashed out offscreen....and nobody gets to derail them. It makes the average episode of the Smurfs look like a taut political thriller.

Given Stirling's skill, I think he's seriously shortchanging himself, when he dodges inter-character tension like this.


*-note that every marriage is basically ideal, nobody ends up divorced or Separated, and we never see married couples bicker.

 

[Thoresby]

So, it's basically another case of Stirling having the Main Characters make instant policy decisions (or decide them offscreen and present them in a kind of Renaissance PowerPoint presentation, to the Readers and the Non-Main Characters both)...which are simply ditto'd by everyone else. We don't get a scene where Prince John says "it's horrible that Dad died...but that's no reason to wage Renaissance Global Warfare!", or where the Corvallan Faculty Senate objects to being dragged into a ruinously-expensive global war over what amounts to a misadventure during a police action.

Again, we just aren't shown a lot of tension in the Good Guys' camp. Hell, none of the married* couples even throw crockery (closest we get is that Havel gets mildly angry, and comes close to telling Signe she's a cow, when Signe actively tries to manipulate Rudi into getting killed). Plans are either achieved via instantaneous consensus, or are hashed out offscreen....and nobody gets to derail them. It makes the average episode of the Smurfs look like a taut political thriller.

Given Stirling's skill, I think he's seriously shortchanging himself, when he dodges inter-character tension like this.


*-note that every marriage is basically ideal, nobody ends up divorced or Separated, and we never see married couples bicker.

Stirling isn't short changing himself, he's keeping up the general trend of being a great world builder and a crap writer. I buy and enjoy his books but he can't write inter-character tensions. Think about all his books and in none of them is inter-group tensions a factor. Take the Peshwar Lancers, at what point does anyone ever say to the main character (the British officer whose name I can't quite remember) "that's a crap idea lets do X instead.", or "no I'm doing not doing that because Y"? In every one of his book Character A (normally the designated hero) suggests a course of action. It is normally unanimously adopted instantly and the only times it's not is because one of the "good guys"* is in the pay of the enemy or doesn't understand what's going on**. I can't think of a single time in any of his books when a two "good" characters have a genuine disagreement about strategy that isn't resolved near instantly. For example in Dies the Fire when Eric Larsson suggests the Bearkillers become a nomadic mercenary company and Mike shuts him down in about two seconds by saying the second generation would be dirt poor, flea bitten savages.


*e.g. Corvallis merchants in the early Emberverse books.

**e.g. General-President Thurston of Boise when they first meet.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

-snipped spoilers-

In conclusion this is an improvement thanks to the removal of some really annoying elements from previous books but it doesn't stand on it's own and is basically setting the scene for the next in the series. As such I advise any fans of the series to hold off buying and reading this book until the next book comes out and then read them together.

I couldn't agree more. I have not purchased the book (and I seriously don't intend to) as imagine my shock when I realized that the 10 free sample chapters online constitute (almost literally) half the bloody book. Cripes! I've skimmed the remaining chapters (picking it up in the bookstore and going through them) but you're right, nothing happens!

Other than a fairly boring sightseeing tour of the new parts of Montival and lots and lots and lots of comparisons between Japanese style feudalism and European style feudalism (and dress, and culture...) we have no story. Rehashes of old characters, some very forgettable new ones (save for whatshername Montival princess and whatshername Japanese princess) we don't get lots to work with. Honestly the book should have been longer and cut lots of the fat. More Pacific POV's so we could understand just what the hell was going on would have been nice too.

-snipped for brevity-
Given Stirling's skill, I think he's seriously shortchanging himself, when he dodges inter-character tension like this.


*-note that every marriage is basically ideal, nobody ends up divorced or Separated, and we never see married couples bicker.

Hell yes! I was bemoaning the lack of character tension! It's just so boring to have all the main characters go around nodding saying "Oh yes designated hero, of course that's the most logical plan in the world!". This has been the case since after the first trilogy (sure there wasn't that much but still the good guys seemed to struggle) and with Rudi taking center stage you could literally skip pages and pages and still not miss anything important.

Stirling can write better, but he's milking this so he doesn't have to.

Stirling isn't short changing himself, he's keeping up the general trend of being a great world builder and a crap writer. I buy and enjoy his books but he can't write inter-character tensions. Think about all his books and in none of them is inter-group tensions a factor.

Well I certainly agree that he's generally a better world builder than a character writer (he can make interesting characters, but really has no idea what to do with them). In a horrible irony there was probably better character interaction in the Draka series.

This is a good truth, the villains usually have better character traits because they actually argue over things, I mean they're rarely deeper than mustache twirling caricatures but they at least have that!

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

The reason is obvious: Stirling is trying to find a way to have his British dominion over Western Europe. That takes an act of God to uphold, when you consider that after the initial die-off and before the Icelanders joined them, the Irish outnumbered the Brits 5:1. You would think that if one in four people one Ireland died, Northern Ireland would get at least some of that being that the eastern half of the island is so much more densely populated than the west. There should be two states at most, more likely a Cork-based united Ireland.

Aaaaahhh... Now I'm even madder....my country could have actually become an Imperial power in fiction for a change!

On a more serious note, despite being a straight man I've never had a problem with Stirling's use of LGB characters (I am, however, a colossal liberal) - when you think about it, it's quite a step forward for right-of-centre sci-fi to have heroic characters who aren't straight (the egregious example of a certain writer who shall remain nameless and whose most memorable villain was a lesbian version of Hillary Clinton springing to mind here). I'm not keen on many of his villains being obsessed with bondage, but since when it comes to his heroes and their love-lives he Fades To Black so often, I actually find his books far preferable to (shudder) Harry bloody Turtledove when it comes to sex.

Also, I have the idea that he includes many positive lesbian characters in his work as a kind of penance for how, in the Domination series, the female Draka were all insane bisexual nymphomaniacs and the heroes were all square-jawed, white straight Americans

Hmmm...mixed reports. I'll probably buy it, though, because I've invested too much time and money in this series to give up now.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

That's a pretty small sample set.

The Draka series. The Emberverse books. Pretty much every other book series isn't particularly hard on the USA. Peshawar Lancers (a one-shot book) really doesn't count, since it's basically inherently a British Empire story to begin with.

The Lords of Creation books have the US as the (rather more overt than in OTL) primus inter pares of the Free World, with only the Soviets as a counterweight, and all the bad people are foreigners (even the British guy).

ISOT is basically "Yankee Americans culturally or militarily conquer the entire planet". If you are reading any anti-American tone into that...you're smoking amazing stuff.

Conquistador is basically neutral (literally nothing good or bad happens to the USA), and is only stopped from being pro-American by virtue of the "Conquering American" faction that takes over Earth-2 happens to be rather villainous sorts (Rolfe and his faction are Reactionary agrarian aristocrats, and some of the others are basically outright Bad Guys).



Considering that the Emberverse books are basically post-apocalyptic adventures....they are no more "anti-American" than any number of Niven/Pournelle books (Lucifer's Hammer?) or the undying Post-Apocalyptic genre at large.

This is pretty much my reading of Stirling. He might screw over the US on occasion, but he's always fairly pro it. Hell, in the Draka series, the US is the ONLY ONE who has a hope of stopping the threat that's been building for over a century but only just got noticed now... And they're the hope for humankind's future after the Draka win the Final War and become post-humans. And the Emberverse...OK, they go for a Kingdom, but Stirling still tries to have what he considers best about America - freedom of religion (Wicca, Asatru, Catholics and Tolkien-ites), (comparative) freedom of sexuality (in Mackenzie and Bearkiller lands, at least) etc. The only one where America dies and its legacy is just forgotten is Peshawar Lancers.

 

[R. E. Lee]

Aaaaahhh... Now I'm even madder....my country could have actually become an Imperial power in fiction for a change!

Just reread that part, and sorry, the Irish initially only outnumber the British by... three to one. He also has a condescending one-off line about how the Irish would have gotten their day in the sun, had they not "gotten back to their old national pasttime of whacking each other over the head," or something like that. Which is especially ridiculous when you consider that excluding Northern Ireland, the island is probably more unified and homogenous in terms of religion and ethnicity than any time in the last thousand years, and would assumedly get by with 20th Century national identity intact, though perhaps with more romantically Celtic tilt of the type that seems to pop up after the Change.

And then the British, who barely have enough people to sparsley recolonize a few southern English counties, somehow manage to pull off an evacuation of a couple hundred thousand within 24 months of the Change, giving them a bigger population than any of the three Irish states. The less wrecked Ireland should have more resources to pull that off, especially as the surviving areas should have much more of the population density needed for a pre-industrial economy. And the reduced Ireland even still has plenty of land for settlers, given the Dublin death zone and the lowest population its seen in hundreds of years...

OK, sorry for ranting, I'm done.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

Just reread that part, and sorry, the Irish initially only outnumber the British by... three to one. He also has a condescending one-off line about how the Irish would have gotten their day in the sun, had they not "gotten back to their old national pasttime of whacking each other over the head," or something like that. Which is especially ridiculous when you consider that excluding Northern Ireland, the island is probably more unified and homogenous in terms of religion and ethnicity than any time in the last thousand years, and would assumedly get by with 20th Century national identity intact, though perhaps with more romantically Celtic tilt of the type that seems to pop up after the Change.

And then the British, who barely have enough people to sparsley recolonize a few southern English counties, somehow manage to pull off an evacuation of a couple hundred thousand within 24 months of the Change, giving them a bigger population than any of the three Irish states. The less wrecked Ireland should have more resources to pull that off, especially as the surviving areas should have much more of the population density needed for a pre-industrial economy. And the reduced Ireland even still has plenty of land for settlers, given the Dublin death zone and the lowest population its seen in hundreds of years...

OK, sorry for ranting, I'm done.

No, no, it's all good. I feel like ranting on this subject myself often... especially since the Change would actually be a lot less awful in Ireland than in many other Western European states, given the lower level of urbanisation and the fairly decent amount of arable land. Not great, I'll admit, but I can see small towns like Skibbereen or Baltimore pulling through OK and becoming the nucleus for a new post-Change state. Things would be worse in Leinster, as you say, with refugees from Dublin and the commuter towns, but still not so bad (comparatively).

Also...whacking each other over the head... So, we get through the Change, and then we collectively decide 'Ah, feck this whole homogenous nationhood lark, let's start stealing each other's cattle again'. Marvellous...

 

[Thoresby]

Hey at least the Irish come off better than the Welsh. While the Valleys and Flintshire are completely screwed northern Powys, Ceredigion and Gwynedd should all have been fine considering their low population density and isolation from major urban centres and Pembrokeshire might have made it though refugee's from the Valleys would probably overwhelm them.
Separately Cumbria and Galloway also have a chance to make it, they're as distant from major urban areas as eastern Oregon and Washington plus of course the Scottish Highlands where even Inverness might make it through, never mind Sutherland. The Isle of Wight on the other hand being right next to Southampton and full of retiree's should have been completely screwed.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

Hey at least the Irish come off better than the Welsh. While the Valleys and Flintshire are completely screwed northern Powys, Ceredigion and Gwynedd should all have been fine considering their low population density and isolation from major urban centres and Pembrokeshire might have made it though refugee's from the Valleys would probably overwhelm them.
Separately Cumbria and Galloway also have a chance to make it, they're as distant from major urban areas as eastern Oregon and Washington plus of course the Scottish Highlands where even Inverness might make it through, never mind Sutherland. The Isle of Wight on the other hand being right next to Southampton and full of retiree's should have been completely screwed.

Let's face it: Southern England as a whole should have been a dead zone. If we're assuming that heavily urbanised areas equal a) dead zones in their own right and b) a source of refugees that turns everything else in walking distance into dead zones...yeah, realistically the only parts of the island that really should have survived would have been rural Wales and Scotland.

 

[Thoresby]

Let's face it: Southern England as a whole should have been a dead zone. If we're assuming that heavily urbanised areas equal a) dead zones in their own right and b) a source of refugees that turns everything else in walking distance into dead zones...yeah, realistically the only parts of the island that really should have survived would have been rural Wales and Scotland.

Bits of Northern England near the Scottish border also have a chance though they could be caught between refugee's coming south from the Scottish Central Belt and north from the big English cities. Also you could get surviving pockets in Cornwall, some of those valleys are pretty isolated. But South of the Wash and East of Plymouth should have one of the highest mortality rates on the planet. Only the Dutch and Singapore would be more screwed.