The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
- ISBN13: 9780451462909
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The New York Times bestselling author continues his “epic of survival & rebirth” (Library Journal), chronicling a modern world without technology.
Rudi Mackenzie has journeyed far across the land that was once the United States of America, hoping into find the source of the world-altering event that has come into be known as The Change. His final destination is Nantucket, an island overrun with forest, inhabited by a mere two hundred people who claim into have been transported there from out
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September 5th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Review by A. Barger for The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
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Stirling writes his usual multiplicity of cultures, warfare, religions and so forth so it was interesting and even fun in that regard. The really frustrating part of this was the book blurb leading you to expect you’re going to get a LOT further in this story than you will. There is a slight spoiler alert here, although I won’t tell you what happened other than this: You don’t get to Nantucket until about the last 5 pages of the book and then nothing is really resolved. I get annoyed when I get the feeling the author is intentionally dragging out a series to sell more books. I wondered a bit after “Scourge of God” and this one left me even more frustrated. I’ve abandoned series mid-stream in the past because of this and I’m approaching that point again. Get on with it, already.
September 5th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Review by Future Perfection for The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
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“Dies the Fire” was a brilliant new direction after Stirling finished the Island series, but the story arc hit some real absurdities in “Sword of the Lady”. A lot of book space gets allocated to trivial side stories that do nothing to enhance the reader’s mental imagery or understanding of the world. But that is the style of many writers today who have confused quantity with quality; Stirling shares the trait with other writers such as David Weber.
I was even on-board with the gradual introduction of fantasy elements into what started as a straight science-fiction book. But the ending of the book was wholly implausible, and seemed like a desperate attempt to mash together a supernatural and super-scientific solution to both the Change series and the Island series. Stirling would have been a lot better off if he’d never attempted such an explanation, because it’s so full of holes that it renders the series meaningless. Now I’m in no hurry to finish the series at this point, I’ll wait until the paperbacks are down to the $1 level.
I wonder if Stirling is feeling his own mortality and projecting into his writing? Many sci-fi and fantasy authors succumb to this trait, creating their own religious or technological “afterlifes” and dwelling endlessly upon them. Sometimes they still manage to create entertaining or challenging stories within that context, but often it just ends in the equivalent of sappy wishful thinking that is far from engaging or enlightening.
Sorry, it could have been so much better …
September 5th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Review by Randall T. Karle for The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
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Mr Sterling is a better writer than this. Unfortunately, he has decided to spend most of his time preaching about the truth and beauty of the Wiccan religon, and very little time on the story itself. By skipping over the pulpit pounding, which he has been doing for the last 3 books in this long series, this novel is reduced to a novellette at best.
By the time the reader has finished the first 3 works of the Change Series, we have enough understanding of the Wiccans to get by. If he had spent the same amount of time preaching the wonders of Christianity, Islam, or Hindu Polytheism, this series would have been a dismal failure. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in the series (with the Wiccan references), liked the 2nd book (while become irritated by them), and enjoyed the 3rd book (despite them.) But enough is enough. Please, sir! Get back to what you do so well.
September 5th, 2010 at 10:57 am
Review by Fantasy Fan for The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
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I loved the first Change series (DTF) books. I was held fast from beginning to end. But in the second series (Sunrise Lands, etc) things have only gone down hill. The content is mind-numbingly hard to swallow- from Wicca to all of the “girl power” it was hard to keep reading these books. I could understand the MacKenzies being some sort of post-Wicca nature cult, but why are there Wiccans literally EVERYWHERE? Give me a break! Secret covens all over the midwest? Has the author ever been to the midwest? I found the Norrheimers paganism a little bit less irritating, as it reflects actual paganism (the violence, drinking, coarseness, etc), but people who could be killed by bandits or a farming accident any second without warning putting their spiritual stock in some decadent reflection or bourgeois America’s homage to their pre-Christian ancestors with no modicum of historicity whatsoever makes my eyes roll till I get a headache. If you want to write about pagans, don’t forget the animal and human sacrifices, the sexual rituals, the beastiality (which Stirling describes in Island in the Sea of Time), and all those other little non-PC bits that make it all plausible.
The girl power doesn’t bother me in principle- I married a woman with a career- but in this time and place it seems absurd. We know that female equality cannot exist without the birth control pill. That is what spawned the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, etc. If sex meant babies the female characters would put a little more thought into who they slept with than they do in these books. Also, the notion that women could be soldiers equal to men (pre-gun powder) is insane. If Stirling thinks that women are “quicker” than men- or even have the capacity to be so in a general sense- he doesn’t know much about human physiology. Speed (or power) are types of muscular strength. If women had to fight men with swords, they wouldn’t stand a chance at actually mastering the techniques, let alone being the “best” in the world (Tiphaine and Astrid) save for their lack of brawn. Stirling obviously has never wielded a sword before, which isn’t his fault, but it seems that if he asked anyone about sword fighting at all it was probably some silly SCA re-enactor from the local Renaissance Festival. Our contemporary values about gender equality are the result of affluence. They are luxuries. Luxuries that people without electric lights and cars cannot afford.
My final critique is his choice of mysticism. This is a spoiler, but ought to be predictable so the reader can make the call about reading this or not. In the end, the metaphor the “goddesses” give Rudi is that there are “forces of order” and “forces of entropy” at play and he and his friends and magical sword are all on the side of order and the CUT is on the side of chaos. This seems like a bizarre metaphor because if anything, the CUT is all about order and Rudi and his pseudo-Irish pals are all about chaos! The CUT wants to unify North America under one authoritarian government with one state religion. While they may not be the nicest guys around, and have done some terrible things, this cannot be called “chaotic”. If he wanted to go the “cosmic struggle” route, Stirling should have picked a more apt (and less hackneyed) metaphor.
Again, I thoroughly enjoyed his first three Change novels, just as I enjoyed the first two Nantucket novels. I think that no one has better settings or premises than Stirling. He creates really ingenious events and situations to make an adventure story more viable to the modern person. But when everything has to be PC and reflect our values entirely, he ruins the whole beautiful, exciting world that he created.
September 5th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Review by C. F Fulbright for The Sword of the Lady: A Novel of the Change (Change Series)
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I liked the first five books, and I like the storyline in this sixth book. I have two problems with the current release.
First, Stirling must get paid by the word. I’ve always felt this way about his books. He waxes on without any addition to plot, fleshing out of character, or even philosophical expansion. His use of simile has been a long-running joke in our family as my son and I listen to the books on audio. Here are just a few examples:
- like men who find themselves clutching something in the dark and feel the wiggling of too many legs
- like some small animal in a trapper’s toothed steel
- like the tongue of a frog spearing a fly
- like a hammer on hard wood, as regular as a carpenter’s
- like tumbling coins of ruddy copper or a swirl of butterflies fashioned from flame
But more fundamentally, I’m disappointed in this latest book to see the return of Stirling’s evident preference for primogeniture as the best means of picking leaders. It happened in the first trilogy where the Bearkillers picked a male baby with regent mother to replace the leader, even though he himself claimed to prefer democracy. It’s now happened again in Iowa, with another male baby and regent mother to take over for a dead “bossman”. The second son of the dead Boise leader says, “My dad always wanted to unite the country,” leaving aside that his father most wanted to restore a democracy rather than a succession.
The books are fine, notwithstanding these issues.