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| The Scourge of God: A Novel of the Change (Change Series) | 
 enlarge | Author: S.m. Stirling
Publisher: Roc Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $15.57
You Save: $10.38 (40%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 3214
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0451462289
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780451462282
ASIN: 0451462289
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A stunning continuation(Diana L. Paxson, author of Ravens of Avalon) of the New York Times bestselling authors splendid saga chronicling an alternate world without technology.
Rudi MacKenzie continues his trek across the land that was once the United States of America. His destination: Nantucket, where he hopes to learn the truth behind The Change that rendered technology across the globe inoperable.
During his travels, Rudi forges ties with new allies in the continuing war against The Prophet, who teaches his followers that God has punished humanity by destroying technological civilization. And one fanatical officer in the Sword of The Prophet has been dispatched on a missionto stop Rudi from reaching his destination by any means necessary.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Nothing to Advance the Story September 21, 2008
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
I've got to be the dissenter apparently on this one as all other reviews are 4s and 5s. But I have read all the books in this series and most have accomplished quite a bit, but this one did nothing to help advance the story. Really, the overall plot between the beginning of this book and the end of this book hasn't advanced the story. It's moved geographically but not plot wise. Still no answers to what is going on and we'll probably never find out the cause of the change at this point.
If you have never read any of the other books in this series you'll be highly confused here, and if you have read them and were hoping to get somewhere with this story in this book, sorry.
 A masterful example of the craft of story telling September 5, 2008
9 out of 13 found this review helpful
The literary trend these days is series. Series are wonderful for the true fans because they enable the reader to get ever deeper into an alternate world and experience it in all its richness. However they present an entry problem for new readers. Pick up a random volume to start with and either nothing makes sense or there are so many flashbacks the novel is double the length required to actually tell the story. Now to multiply the difficulty this is a middle book in a middle series in an extremely complex multitextured world such as this author excels at. Almost a 'can you top this' trick. Stirling pulls it off. The story works on its own as a stand alone novel. The few flashbacks definitely give the new reader everything they need to follow a complex story with multiple characters all happening near simultaneously. He gives you a vivid and unlikely post-apocalypse world where electricity, steam and gunpowder no longer function and some magic has returned. It sounds bizarre but he makes it work in all its picaresque glory. This book chronicles a pseudo-Ring quest by a party who all know their Tolkein and can argue who is which character. There is fighting, daring do, romance, intrigue and action enough to satisfy everyone. However for those who know the series there is a whole deeper level of high politics, fates and clashing cultures. Enough to make you want to go back and read/reread it all from the beginning. Many creative try for this double level. A few series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeed. Add Stirling's Emberverse to that list of successes.
his second tale in the second saga switches from the post apocalyptic thriller to a "Greek" Tragedy September 3, 2008
8 out of 20 found this review helpful
It has been twenty-three years since the Change when earth plunged into a pre-electric era. Mankind scrambled to survive as over ninety percent of the population died. Clan Mackenzie led by High Priestess Juniper and the Bearkillers thrived on the land while the dictator who wanted to rule perished (see THE SUNSET LAND). However a new danger has arisen; the prophet Sethaz and his flock slowly infiltrate the people surrounding Juniper and her people; he and his followers recruit or kill based on their cause being godly.
Meanwhile Juniper's son Rudi and other friends and warriors from home journey east across what was once the proud United States of America towards Nantucket where he hopes to learn more about The Change. The Lady sent a messenger Ingolf from Nantucket to pick up The Sword and bring it home. The prophet knows of Rudi's quest and sends his best assassins to prevent him from succeeding. At the same time the President of the United States of Boise, who got the job by committing patricide allies with the prophet because he wants to expand into Pendleton with Mackenzie's Western Oregon after that but they go to war to stop him.
This second tale in the second saga switches from the post apocalyptic thriller to a "Greek" Tragedy as the Gods manipulate and guide their followers and sinners. Readers observe dark demonic possessions and frightening futuristic visions while scrying and other magic takes the saga in a new direction. Fans will remain enthralled once the shock lets up as the tale is filled with action, strong characters in conflict, vivid descriptions of a battered dying land trying to come back to life two plus decades since the Change, and a great cliffhanging climax.
Harriet Klausner
 A deeper descent into fantasy September 29, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
From chapter nine:
"Long tables were set out buffet-style, with chefs in white hats waiting to carve the roasts and hams; whole yearling steers and pigs and lamb roasted over firepits behind them, the attendants slathering them with fiery sauce wielding their long-handled brushes like the forks of devils in the Christian hell."
The writing is flowery, with long, complex sentences hiding much ado about little, as our heroes, who call themselves such, make their way, mostly on horseback, across a vast continent once peopled by a homogeneous citizenry, but now inhabited by cannibals, remnants calling themselves the United States government, local dictators, religious fanatics, devils and gods.
That's enough of that. This series started, years ago in real time, as science fiction. It is now irretrievably fantasy. Or if it's not, the author has me completely fooled. The protagonists are on their way to Nantucket Island (remember that original series?) and, at the rate they are going based on the map in the front of the book, there are at least one or two more travelogs masquerading as novels to go before they get there. And then they have to find their way back.
Sterling's imagination is almost without living peer, I'll give him that, but things used to happen in his novels.
A Great Addition to Stirlings Change Series October 10, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
S.M. Stirling hooked me with his first novel of the Change series "Dies the Fire". Stirling does an outstanding job of describing what might happen should all of our technology cease to function; no electricity, gasoline powered engines, and more importantly gun powder no longer functions. In the earlier novels he skates around the "why's" and goes right to the "How do we function now"? How do his characters survive; and what type of government will function in a world without technology? The answer is simple. Man returns to his tribal roots and a feudal system of governance fills the void.
While the first novels were about survival and war and the Earth's rise of the nerds (Witches with pretend Irish/Scot accents, people that believe they're elves from a Tolkien novel and recreations are the new leaders), "The Scourge of God" is about Spiritual beliefs, prophets and messiah's. Stirling seems to be taking a page right from Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Now that man can again feed himself, he is searching for spirit and a reason for being. The world is beginning to change into a place of magic. Does the magic create the new beliefs and Gods, or does the belief itself create the magic? We don't know yet, but it will be interesting to find Stirlings views on this in his upcoming novels.
I found the "Scourge of God" to be a great read with plenty of action and hints at things to come. I anxiously await Stirlings next novel of the change.
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