Reviews and Comments

"Oh my gosh, does that suck!" - Frank Cross "Scrooged"

Editors note: I'm going back and giving another star to the first two books in the S.M. Stirling "Emberverse" series which I recently gave only two stars, because this story allowed me to re calibrate what a bad story is.

First the good: it's an interesting premise, the formerly young adventurers called back to re-battle the evil, but with one twist - they're now middle-aged!

What else...what...else.... Nope. Sorry, that's the end of the "good".

The Bad:

Disjointed story - just, a mess.

No sense of Place - I know it's set in England, because the writer keeps saying it, but I don't feel it.

Cardboard Characters - you meet two of the protagonists former (human) companions, and they're just there.

Major action takes place "off screen" - I just can't even. I actually wondered mid-story if the character would turn out to be imagining everything.

Clumsy writing: I've read handouts for RPG campaigns that were more movingly written and clearer. I actually had to force myself to finish - it's 66 pages.

The first 20 pages are just...disjointed. I've read books with that leave the reader feeling like they have come into an ongoing series (for example, [a:Steven Brust|27704|Steven Brust|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1361579656p2/27704.jpg]'s marvelous "[b:Jhereg|133454|Jhereg (Vlad Taltos, #1)|Steven Brust|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328204364s/133454.jpg|1521838]" series) and I'm aware that it's hard to kick start something like this in only 66 pages, but that's the writers job, isn't it?

Sadly, it doesn't get better, old compatriots are brought up to be discarded, major action happens off-screen, with some heavy-handed "the call is coming from inside the government" writing that really didn't work for me, in no small part because, other than repeatedly being told that this was happening in England, I never had a real sense of place established.

I'm really left with the impression that this story really doesn't know what it is; if it was written for adults, the characters are too simple; in the sense that they behave in ways that a kid might think adults would, and yet it's too poorly written to be of interest to a younger reader (not to mention the rape and abortion references made in the early part of the story).

I guess I can give it one other thumbs up for being thought provoking, in that I'm thinking about how a story like this could have been handled so much better, so call it a 1.5 star story.

I appreciate the obvious nod to Narnia, but C.S. Lewis is probably spinning in his grave. I kid, he's likely up in heaven, and since heaven is bliss, he will Never. Learn. Of. This. Story.

Alternate Title: A post-apocalyptic love letter to the Society For Creative Anachronisms (SCA) and Wiccans from S.M. Stirling.

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with post-apocalyptic stories. I know they're inherently silly, explained most clearly by the marvelous short story "The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged)" by [a:John Varley|27341|John Varley|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1346593830p2/27341.jpg]. But I like them anyways.

So what do I want out of a Post-apocalyptic story?
Interesting Research: Check, this story has some good stuff, on Wicca and medieval weapons/armor, etc.
An Interesting Premise: How does the world end? This is an interesting premise, but it's never really explored.
Watching the dominoes fall: The actual "how" - this is so-so.
Interesting Characters: So-so - the characters are...decent, but this book could really have benefited from an editor. There are points where things bogged down so much I started skimming, which I normally never do.

There some seriously large gaps in the plausibility in the breakdown of society, and the number of just staggering coincidences becomes simply laughable.

If you can't ignore circumstances like:

(not actual quote, but does actually happen in book)
"What's that, you've found a man injured in the woods who is not only a SAS (Special Air Service) commando, but's he's also a master bowyer and archer, capable on churning out longbows with the yew wood you also just happen to have stacked in your woodpile?"

Or several of the characters going on (and on, and on) about Wicca...multiple times.

Then these are not the books for you. Enjoyable read, but I read fast, and as noted above, even I had to "skim" (and did more of it in second book)