Emberverse: The Golden Princess

[PaperbakWriter]

WTF! Bearkillers Getting Shafted

Anyone else believe that since Mike Havel's death, the Outfit has been shafted by the author?

Without the Bearkillers, everyone would be dead; even those "beloved" Mackenzie's.

In Emberverse and Lord of the Mountain series, Bearkillers are thought of as grim and mean (Signe); have been relegated to the back-backbench; their religion is mocked, those who are Asatruar.

It's kind of aggravating, for me at least. I thought they were one of the more interesting groups who the reader wasn't forced to fall in love with any brand of hippie-dippie lovey Paganism.

 

[Lateknight]

Anyone else believe that since Mike Havel's death, the Outfit has been shafted by the author?

Without the Bearkillers, everyone would be dead; even those "beloved" Mackenzie's.

In Emberverse and Lord of the Mountain series, Bearkillers are thought of as grim and mean (Signe); have been relegated to the back-backbench; their religion is mocked, those who are Asatruar.

It's kind of aggravating, for me at least. I thought they were one of the more interesting groups who the reader wasn't forced to fall in love with any brand of hippie-dippie lovey Paganism.

I agree I would say they have been basically forgotten about by the author. I didn't like how the all became pagan in the gap between the first and second trilogy that happened for literally no reason.

 

[PaperbakWriter]

I agree I would say they have been basically forgotten about by the author. I didn't like how the all became pagan in the gap between the first and second trilogy that happened for literally no reason.

Yeah, it was very sloppy. I picked up TGP and am almost done, but I really don't see a need to ride out this series any longer. The plot of TGP is basically the plot of TSL but sped up. Lazy and, again, sloppy. I hear the other story, Conquistador, about the flipside of the Change is good. Any thoughts?

 

[DTanza]

My only experience with Stirling is him having been banned from the forum for being a huge bigot.

How does he rank as a writer? I mean, in AH you usually have to take what you can get, but how is he as a writer in general?

 

[Mad Missouri]

My only experience with Stirling is him having been banned from the forum for being a huge bigot.

How does he rank as a writer? I mean, in AH you usually have to take what you can get, but how is he as a writer in general?

First I don't think he's a AH writer at all. Military sci-fi, and fantasy yes but no real AH. I think that's one of this websites main mistakes it assumes the Draka series was meant to be AH while I think it never was. I think its military sci-fi because of the insane technology development. Overall in my opinion he is generally good, but sometimes his battle scenes are lacking in detail so they don't flow smoothly. I find myself having to re-read the battle scene to figure what way the upcome happened. World build seems to be his main strength. His two space books on Mars and Venus were his best stories since the ISOT series in my opinion. The Emberverse has become his cash cow, sloppy, slow and pointless, and they stopped being worth the money before the end of the CUT war IMO.

 

[Mad Missouri]

I hear the other story, Conquistador, about the flipside of the Change is good. Any thoughts?

As a stand alone story I thought Conquistador was good. Not great but worth the price of an ebook.

 

[theg*ddam*hoi2fan]

My only experience with Stirling is him having been banned from the forum for being a huge bigot.

How does he rank as a writer? I mean, in AH you usually have to take what you can get, but how is he as a writer in general?

For me, he's one of those writers you go 'I enjoy reading him, but...' for. Like, he's great at building a world, but he goes for extremes. His characters are either great and noble or they're cannibal Satanists/S&M loons. There's very little grey, with a couple of notable exceptions (Sandra Arminger, Isketerol) . At least, that's my take on his stuff. I think otherwise as a writer, he's better than some writers in the same genre but he could be better.

I wasn't a member when he was banned. What was the deal there? Reading his material... Some stuff makes me think he's a bigot, other stuff leaves me less sure. Like, on the one hand he has prominent characters from minority groups, but then there's his depiction of Muslims, in particular. My personal feeling is he's a cultural chauvinist - he doesn't give a damn what your ethnic/sexual/religious background is as long as you subscribe to Western cultural values, in particular American and British.

 

[R. E. Lee]

Yeah, it was very sloppy. I picked up TGP and am almost done, but I really don't see a need to ride out this series any longer. The plot of TGP is basically the plot of TSL but sped up. Lazy and, again, sloppy. I hear the other story, Conquistador, about the flipside of the Change is good. Any thoughts?

The flipside is actually Island in the Sea of Time, which is where we get "ISOT." It's pretty good, the trilogy is probably about as good as the first Emberverse trilogy. Conquistador, on the other hand, is IMO up there with Peshawar Lancers and the Lords of Creation (his pulp Venus and Mars duology).

First I don't think he's a AH writer at all. Military sci-fi, and fantasy yes but no real AH. I think that's one of this websites main mistakes it assumes the Draka series was meant to be AH while I think it never was. I think its military sci-fi because of the insane technology development. Overall in my opinion he is generally good, but sometimes his battle scenes are lacking in detail so they don't flow smoothly. I find myself having to re-read the battle scene to figure what way the upcome happened. World build seems to be his main strength. His two space books on Mars and Venus were his best stories since the ISOT series in my opinion. The Emberverse has become his cash cow, sloppy, slow and pointless, and they stopped being worth the money before the end of the CUT war IMO.

Yes, with the Emberverse he seems to be falling into the Turtledove formula of a proven series, just slower, more drawn out, and generally not as good. Wish he would go back to stand-alones, or hell, even sequels for his older works. He had an idea for a Drakaverse WWI novel, "Laughter of the Guns," that he never got around to, I think there was some sort of conflict with the publisher. Even that would be better than his next Change trilogy set in CY 75 or something.

 

[Redcat]

How does he rank as a writer? I mean, in AH you usually have to take what you can get, but how is he as a writer in general?

As others said, Stirling is a mixed bag as a writer. His pros are that his concepts and premises, while not always rigorous, are usually entertaining and creative; his world-building is similarly good. His writing style is easy to read and well embellished, though he has a tendency to repeat certain writing tics across characters and novels. (A common one: "Some random topic X" [pause while everyone looks at the speaking character] "Fuller description and context of X")

Stirling's cons are in his characters; they're usually either heroic types or clear villains with very few in between. More egregiously, the villains usually have very weakly developed motivations and are oftentimes just being evil for the sake of being evil (I want to conquer and rule this area JUST BECAUSE). Neither heroes nor villains display much character development, which can be sorta grating and Mary Sue-ish in the heroes. Classic example for this is Rudi, who throughout the Emberverse series is a perfect heroic figure and so handsome and noble yet humble and pages upon pages are devoted to other characters having internal monologues musing on how perfect Rudi is.

All that said, Stirling is an entertaining writer and I owe a lot to him and Turtledove for sparking my interest in AH. I read anything of him that comes out (through the library) though I really wish he would wrap up the Emberverse and write a follow-up series with the Nantucketers...that was a lot more straightforward, and therefore enjoyable to me since I prefer tales of exploration and invention in an ISOT scenario as opposed to the Emberverse's mysticism and magic and all belief systems are real and we are just pawns of the gods.

Not to get too off-topic, but Isketerol (the guy who becomes king of Tartessos) and McAndrews, the guy who runs off to Egypt, provide some grayer villains/opponents of the Nantucketers. Walker and his clique are there to represent the worst parts of the 20th century.

Yeah, Isketerol is one of my favorite of Stirling's characters because Stirling managed to break free of the usual black&white morality spectrum and write a sympathetic anti-villain who opposes Nantucketer hegemony because he genuinely cares for his people and wants to build a great nation.

 

[Mad Missouri]

Yeah, Isketerol is one of my favorite of Stirling's characters because Stirling managed to break free of the usual black&white morality spectrum and write a sympathetic anti-villain who opposes Nantucketer hegemony because he genuinely cares for his people and wants to build a great nation.

I know this is a minority opinion but I never found Walker to be a "black" character. Ambitious to an extreme, morally flexible, and too accepting of bad behavior in others if it helped his cause, yes, but not pure evil like some people believe him to be. The man's main fault was he didn't subscribe to the Nantucketers nonsense demand that post-industrial social norms be the standard. I see no reason a stranger with no bonds to that island has to be loyal to their system. Walker was a empire builder willing to do hard/bad things sure but not pure evil like say Hitler. I found the scene where he frees the slaves in the mass ceremony very telling about the man. I believe that's where he comments he had no real fondness for slavery and that it was in his opinion just the easiest means to acomplish his goals of modernizing that society and making him rich/powerful. I found the main cut and dry characters in the story to be the annoying Coast Guard Commander and her lover and the psychotic Asian S&M nurse. Neither of those were well developed or interesting in my mind.

 

[Redcat]

I know this is a minority opinion but I never found Walker to be a "black" character. Ambitious to an extreme, morally flexible, and too accepting of bad behavior in others if it helped his cause, yes, but not pure evil like some people believe him to be. The man's main fault was he didn't subscribe to the Nantucketers nonsense demand that post-industrial social norms be the standard. I see no reason a stranger with no bonds to that island has to be loyal to their system. Walker was a empire builder willing to do hard/bad things sure but not pure evil like say Hitler. I found the scene where he frees the slaves in the mass ceremony very telling about the man. I believe that's where he comments he had no real fondness for slavery and that it was in his opinion just the easiest means to acomplish his goals of modernizing that society and making him rich/powerful. I found the main cut and dry characters in the story to be the annoying Coast Guard Commander and her lover and the psychotic Asian S&M nurse. Neither of those were well developed or interesting in my mind.

I agree about Alston and Swindapa and Hong being not very well developed (like I said, nobody, protagonist or antagonist, usually gets much character development) but we'll just have to agree to disagree about Walker. He's a very smart villain, but morality-wise he's black as midnight IMHO. Everything he did was for his own self-aggrandizement and at first and last Walker was all about Walker. What's more, there was never really any reason to go down that course besides him apparently being a sociopath. Hitler at least had memories of national humiliation and revanchist desires fueling him, Walker was given no such backstory. Furthermore, the Nantucketers didn't to my recollection make any demand that post-industrial social norms be the standard (unless you're referring to within the island of Nantucket itself, then of course). In fact, the only thing they proactively tried to counteract whenever they came across it was human sacrifice; everything else, including slavery, they let slide.

Walker having no real fondness for slavery is overstating it a bit, I looked at the passage and he actually says he doesn't have anything against slavery, but sees it mostly as a management tool instead of a personal kink (as opposed to Hong).

 

[Mad Missouri]

Furthermore, the Nantucketers didn't to my recollection make any demand that post-industrial social norms be the standard (unless you're referring to within the island of Nantucket itself, then of course). In fact, the only thing they proactively tried to counteract whenever they came across it was human sacrifice; everything else, including slavery, they let slide.

They were more than a little preachy outside of their island. For example the cultural genocide the Coast Guard Commander was so happy about with the Sun People tribes in England, so they weren't angels. But I was talking about on their island. The Nantucketers automatic demand of loyalty to their odd ball system from everyone who just happened to be on the island at the moment it went back in time was ridiculous. No one owned them anything. Someone isn't a traitor for leaving their island and trying to better their station in life somewhere else. For example, there is no moral obligation for the Kuwaiti man shown in the books not to book passage on a ship to where ever he wanted and start preaching Islam if that's what floats his boat. Or for a pissed off engineer who was t in that odd little clich that set up the system on the island to sail to kingdom X and offer his/her services to King XY.

 

[Malta]

I wonder is it possible that the Precogs and Others and what not are actually hyper evolved Draka?

 

[Malta]

OH!!!!!!! Like Hutton's Journey updated on th Fanfiction page and it looks like it is finished!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.ipinc.net/~kiers/SMSFanFiction/LukeHuttonJ.html

 

[Redcat]

The Nantucketers automatic demand of loyalty to their odd ball system from everyone who just happened to be on the island at the moment it went back in time was ridiculous. No one owned them anything. Someone isn't a traitor for leaving their island and trying to better their station in life somewhere else. For example, there is no moral obligation for the Kuwaiti man shown in the books not to book passage on a ship to where ever he wanted and start preaching Islam if that's what floats his boat. Or for a pissed off engineer who was t in that odd little clich that set up the system on the island to sail to kingdom X and offer his/her services to King XY.

But that's not what happened, people could leave if they wished. In one of Isketerol's POV chapters, he mentions how he's been able to lure a few Nantucketer immigrants by giving them wealth and high positions as advisors in his court. None of them were punished, nor were there demands for their return. Walker was singled out because he was actively engaging in slavery and torture and general crimes against ancient humanity.

They were more than a little preachy outside of their island. For example the cultural genocide the Coast Guard Commander was so happy about with the Sun People tribes in England, so they weren't angels.

Yeah. They were going pretty hardcore with cultural imperialism. Hell, Alba was basically a client state which supplied their entire labor force and Nantucket's military was made of downtime sepoy troops commanded by uptime officers.

 

[Redcat]

As a wider thing, does anyone else think that some of Stirling's other independent work (not his T2 series, obviously) is linked to the Emberverse? I just got thinking about it when I was re-reading The High King (or Tears of the Sun?) and when Martin Thurston gets possessed, there's a remark that the Evil Force doesn't need to bargain for souls, they 'give themselves'. Which is very similar to a remark that Count Ignatieff made in the Peshawar Lancers, where he said basically the exact same thing about Malik Nous/Chernobog.

I have a headcanon theory that Ingolf was a Draka in another life: in The Sunrise Lands when they reach Nantucket and everyone has visions of their alternate lives, one of his is a vision of himself analyzing a computer model of "parasmallpox" (the Draka were all about the bioweapons) while drinking mango cola (which could be popular in the Africa-based Domination). And in Drakon the Draka character's name is Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, which implies an ancestor named Ingolf.

 

[thekingsguard]

I know this is a minority opinion but I never found Walker to be a "black" character. Ambitious to an extreme, morally flexible, and too accepting of bad behavior in others if it helped his cause, yes, but not pure evil like some people believe him to be. The man's main fault was he didn't subscribe to the Nantucketers nonsense demand that post-industrial social norms be the standard. I see no reason a stranger with no bonds to that island has to be loyal to their system. Walker was a empire builder willing to do hard/bad things sure but not pure evil like say Hitler. I found the scene where he frees the slaves in the mass ceremony very telling about the man. I believe that's where he comments he had no real fondness for slavery and that it was in his opinion just the easiest means to acomplish his goals of modernizing that society and making him rich/powerful. I found the main cut and dry characters in the story to be the annoying Coast Guard Commander and her lover and the psychotic Asian S&M nurse. Neither of those were well developed or interesting in my mind.

This, pretty much. I find the idea of someone basically deciding to play "Man who would be King" a lot more compelling then Sterling's usual Lesbians & Hippie wank.

 

[Malta]

People seem to bite into "Hippies and Lesbians" and run with it. I don't think it is a negative for his fiction.

 

[MerryPrankster]

I don't think Walker was a clinical sociopath due to his horror at the death of his son (emotional attachment--sociopaths are simply incapable of that), but he was a very, very wicked man.

Empire-building is one thing, but he was especially ugly and brutal about it. What was to be gained by mass-castrating those slaves, an act so ugly that one of his most loyal supporters decided to go on a lengthy hunting trip rather than be present for it?

IIRC he did have some kind of honor--the blood-brother thing with Isketerol, frex.

Speaking of Isketerol, he was pretty cool.

 

[MerryPrankster]

About the Bearkillers going Asatru en masse, I met Stirling at DragonCon one year and asked him where the heck that came from. He said Signe "had an epiphany" and she no longer feared Rudi trying to usurp the Bearkillers from her son.

(Were it me writing this, I'd have had her go fundie Lutheran and encouraged the spread of this among the Bearkillers in order to make it so the pagan Rudi could never, ever take Mike Jr.'s big chair.)

I also asked him about the younger Thurston's sudden conversion to Asatru from Methodism. Stirling said that was a joke--whenever one hears about a weird spiritual journey, they always start out Methodist. He said the Pacific Northwest going either pagan or Catholic was a specific response to events that happened and places like Iowa are still majority Protestant.

(On his Facebook fan-page he said Wyoming is largely Buddhist and there's a defanged "Reformed" CUT that's basically Theosophist.)