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Dies the Fire, Dead on Arrival

Dies the Fire is a fiction novel set in a future where all technology more advanced than medieval-level mysteriously stops working. In order to accomplish this, the author tosses laws of physics in the trashcan left and right. What really makes me mad, though, is the total lack of any internal consistency in doing so. For example, the sun still illuminates the sky and heats the Earth. This tells us two things: one, that fusion, at least, still works normally; and two, that electromagnetic radiation still works (this being the means by which the sun illuminates and heats the Earth, after all). If electromagnetic radiation still works, then radios and wireless communications and all that should still work. Fire, too, still works. This means that gunpowder, which works by burning very fast, should still work. Water still boils. Steam engines, anyone? Human bodies still function, which tells us that chemistry still works. The fact that chemistry still works tells us that electrons can still be passed from atom to atom (that being how chemistry works), which tells us that electricity should still work. So, in other words, the entire novel appears to be nothing more than an exercise in authorial fiat, with little if any internal consistency, and it really drives me insane that this drivel can get published.

I haven't read the novel. Is the premise that electricity doesn't work anymore, or that electrical devices get fried?

I mean, frying all electrical devices on Earth so that they do not work would pretty well knock us back into the Dark Ages. It would be possible to build electrical apparatus, but it would take a functioning pre-electric civilization to do so on a large scale. And such a civilization would take a while to crawl out from under the rubble.

On the other hand, you're right that the premise of electrical equipment never working again, while the rules of atomic physics as they apply to non-manmade phenomena stay the same, is fantastic.

What makes a book is not the concept but the delivery - the writing, characters, plot etc. You have to be able to turn off your inner scientist sometimes to enjoy some science fiction. I certainly have to turn off my inner biologist in order to enjoy Star Trek (alien after alien that looks almost human? Come on! Breeding with humans? do me a lemon!) X-Men (evolution? More like saltationism. Also, what's up with the whole mutant equals new species? That isn't how speciation works). Don't get me started on Star Wars (the pit of sarlac will digest you over a thousand years? Yeah, right. )

Hate the book because it is poorly written by all means. But hating the concept behind it because it lacks a certain consistency? I'd stick to hard sci-fi from now onwards.

Very hard sci-fi. Even among "hard" science fiction people tend to posit stuff that strains credulity if you aren't willing to suspend disbelief.

For example, David Drake's "Lieutenant Leary" series (not sure that's the formal title) is pretty hard science fiction. The spacecraft are plausible, the guns are plausible.

But the FTL drive is quite deliberately set up to replicate many of the features of Napoleonic era sailing. Voyages through "the Matrix" (Drake has been using this term for 'hyperspace' since the early '90s or possibly the '80s, I think) are uncomfortable. Long voyages, doubly so. Ships are propelled by "sails" (sheets of electrically charged fabric surrounding the ship that blah blah blah) on hydraulic masts that require trained and dedicated riggers to keep them working. Skilled human navigators can actually improve the time a spacecraft needs to get from point to point by direct observation of the Matrix, and so on.

It all hangs together. It really does. You can read those books and it won't bother you in the books. But if you step back for a minute and think "Wow. What are the odds that all these factors would conspire to make interstellar flight that much like sea travel in the Age of Sail?" it kind of spoils things.

By the way, I highly recommend the series, because I don't believe it's possible to read any truly interesting work of fiction without the suspension of disbelief. If, of course, you aren't turned off by dashing heroics in true Sidney Smith/Nelson fashion.


As for the "Dies the Fire" novels, remember that Stirling likes to write the kind of thrilling 'adventure story' that is no longer possible in a world of radios and automatic weapons. It's very difficult to write stories about a small group of embattled explorers facing hordes of screaming foes and set them in the modern world. It's not even possible to write stories about total war, the kind where everyone feels the pinch, set in the modern era. Wars like that cause too much collateral damage, and there are too many large nuclear powers who won't put up with that sort of thing.

I suspect that, like the Nantucket trilogy it's linked to (by origin event, anyway), the "Dies the Fire" series is designed to put Stirling's characters in a universe that allows for heroic adventure without making them alien to us.

I haven't been able to bring myself to read it personally, but I have talked to several people who have. But it's not just electrical devices that don't work anymore. Gunpowder doesn't work, internal combustion engines don't work; apparently, anything that early medieval Europeans wouldn't have had, doesn't work anymore. Note that this includes bicycles (apparently it never comes up in the books).


Star Trek uses techobabble justifications, Star Wars is MYTHOLOGY IN SPAAAAACE, and I don't know enough about X-Men (or evolutionary biology) to say.

I'm not asking for uberhard scifi. I'm just asking for a little thought to be put into justifying why fire works but gunpowder doesn't.



"Wow. What are the odds that all these universal constants would align so perfectly to allow life to develop on our planet?" I can deal with that kind of thing, as long as it's handled consistently. Which, as I say, is my major point of contention here.

Heck, I'd have been fine with "magic" as an explanation. I'd expect somebody somewhere to figure out how to use that magic, but whatever.

It's not realistic, but it does have enough self-consistency that you can guess what's possible and what's not. That lets you make some idea of the world, put yourself in the story, think about what you'd do. If you can't do that...well, no rules basically means everything that happens is a deus ex machine. It's not going to be compelling.

For instance, imagine a world where weapons don't work and so disputes are all settled with martial arts. The hero stands no chance against the ninja-master - but in the last chapter, he kills him with a rock, because it's not a weapon! That's not a twist so much as a rule change, and you'd have to be a really good author to make it work.

Star Trek's biotechnological babble is enough to make a creationist seem like a good biologist at times.

But like I said, sometimes you just have to let it go. I mean, the Lord of the Rings would have been a dull book indeed if the big eagle thingies had just flown into Mordor with the ring and dumped it there themselves (which would have made more sense than a harmless burrow-dwelling rodent doing it). In fact, there are plenty of instances in books (actually, make that fiction) were you just have to shrug your shoulders and go "well, that makes no sense". Assuming the book is well written or the film is well made and acted, of course. If it isn't (and it sounds like the story you're describing isn't) then yeah, I guess you can't forgive it.

I concede Leochopper's point though. I don't tend to read those kinds of books much anyway.

In fairness, they're extremely uncreative and the last time they fought a serious war was apparently before the development of effective space travel.

It honestly appears not to have occured to them that redirected asteroids (or other kinetic strike weapons) were a viable tactic. Certainly, in the sequel Colonization series, they didn't display any awareness of the danger until humans did a dry run by dropping a kiloton-range rock on Mars.

It's obvious to us because we are (compared to the Lizards) an anarchically creative species. I mean, look at how hard it was for them to adapt to ideas like "Humans rely heavily on water transport." What were the odds they'd think of effing dropping rocks from space in a couple of years of ground combat?

In the original novel, they were desperate. Mars was suffering total ecological collapse, and the Martians launched their capsules to Earth in hopes of terraforming (areoforming?) this planet to suit their needs. They didn't have much of a choice but to take a chance that their point men would be able to survive on Earth despite the crushing gravity and other dangers.

Also, in the original novel there are indications that the Martians tried colonizing Venus after the invasion of Earth failed. Whether or not that worked, the author does not say...

Bicycles?

OK. If bicycles quit working I can't continue my suspension of disbelief.

I dunno.

"Magic" on that scale kills a plot unless it operates as a natural disaster, because any entity capable of using it doesn't have any real challenges. As a natural event, "the Change" works if you accept the initial condition it creates without analyzing it. It falls apart insofar as it creates unbelievable persistent conditions (the Earth's magnetic field continues to shield us from lethal radiation from space, but compasses don't work).

I might read the books anyway. I mean, the Discworld novels actively use the power of plot as an explanation for how things work, and they're awesome anyway. Good writing can transcend implausible premises. However, I may end up throwing the book away in disgust for the same reason you do, depending on how Stirling spins it.

In fairness, they couldn't do that. Dumping the ring was a nigh-impossible act for any intelligent being, especially when it was close to its true master. And, again, the ring needed to be dropped into the Cracks of Doom, which were inside a cave.

The idea makes a spectacularly funny YouTube clip, but it wasn't a viable alternative given the constraints they were working under.

Whether or not bicycles work is never addressed in the series. The mere fact that there is even the possibility that they do not is enough to make me refuse to read it.

So you refuse to read enough of the series to find out whether or not he 'killed off' bicycles because you can't rule out the possibility that he did kill off bicycles?

Yeah, but they were dumb enough to get out of their machines. As far as I know, none of our astronauts has been foolish enough to take his suit off on the moon and go for a stroll.

The deus ex machina arguement I can accept.

Also there was the fact that any Eagle flying straight to the mountain would have had the entirety of Sauron's forces unleashed against it. It was only after the ring was destroyed that the eagles were able to fly in and rescue the Hobbits.

According to the people I've talked to, it's never addressed. Why should I bother to look for the information when I know it isn't there?

To be fair, there are ways to have a believable situation where radio (and electrical appliances in general) won't work but the sun still does. See, for example, The Waveries. (Bicycles still worked in this story. And I assume gunpowder too. Lightning was no longer observed, though.)

I've never read "Dies The Fire", though, so I can't comment on it specifically.