# S.M.Stirling's new Emberverse novel, "The Desert & the Blade," coming 09/01/15
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 9, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171 "2015-04-09T00:37:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/1 "2015-04-09T00:37:09Z")
[Seven sample chapters available online.](http://smstirling.com/books/the-desert-and-the-blade/)
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### Author:  [@Lorene89095](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorene89095)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/2 "2015-04-09T02:28:23Z")
Thanks!! I have it ordered,tho he’s gotten a bit woo … But his characters… They are so real…
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### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/3 "2015-04-09T02:31:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> [Seven sample chapters available online.](http://smstirling.com/books/the-desert-and-the-blade/)
I read the Golden Princess and it wasn’t bad, so I’ll most likely continue with this new series. It has gotten a bit woo-ish, but it’s still an interesting read, though I think the first 3 book in the Dies the Fire series were the best and most interesting.
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### Author:  [@tripthicket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tripthicket)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/4 "2015-04-09T06:06:20Z")
Loved the first three also, but have stalled out on book 5, I think. Book 6 purchased and never opened; nothing bought past that. For me, it’s just not the same series after the first 3.
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### Author:  [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/5 "2015-04-09T12:31:31Z")
After the incredible anticlimax of The Given Sacrifice, I won’t be reading any more of his Emberverse books.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/6 "2015-04-09T23:08:41Z")
At this point, complaining the Emberverse is woo-ish is like complaining Harry Potter is woo-ish.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/7 "2015-04-09T23:37:58Z")
> [@RikWriter](#):
>
> After the incredible anticlimax of The Given Sacrifice, I won’t be reading any more of his Emberverse books.
Pretty much this, except I gave up after Book 4. The first 3 are great. After that they go downhill very rapidly.
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### Author:  [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/8 "2015-04-10T00:23:44Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> Pretty much this, except I gave up after Book 4. The first 3 are great. After that they go downhill very rapidly.
I was still able to get excited about the next three books, but at that point I only kept reading out of curiosity…I just knew there would be a great big honking showdown to end things. Sure, Rudy would probably die in it, but it would be worth reading.
Then…
the great big showdown was a truncated anticlimax and Rudy died in a meaningless skirmish on the beach years later.
I was fucking pissed.
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### Author:  [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2015, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/9 "2015-04-10T02:12:54Z")
There’s a new collection of short stories coming out on June 2 called _The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth_ with stories by Stirling, Turtledove, Walter Jon Williams, John Birmingham, John Barnes, Jane Lindskold, and others.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/10 "2015-06-01T19:22:16Z")
[Nine chapters online now.](http://smstirling.com/books/the-desert-and-the-blade/)
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### Author:  [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/11 "2015-06-01T21:36:06Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#):
>
> There’s a new collection of short stories coming out on June 2 called _The Change: Tales of Downfall and Rebirth_ with stories by Stirling, Turtledove, Walter Jon Williams, John Birmingham, John Barnes, Jane Lindskold, and others.
I was never super-taken with Stirling’s “Change / Emberverse” – perhaps I’m a nancy-boy over-fond of unicorns / rainbows / fluffy bunnies, but I feel the same as at least one other Stirling fan who said approximately, “call me a wimp, but the death of 95% of the world’s population is a bit more than I like hearing about”. Nonetheless, I read the earlier books in the series, with interest and a good deal of enjoyment; but the increasing role therein of the magical / mystical / mythical / miraculous, increasingly stuck in my throat – I let the series go after book 5. However – these short stories, with presumably various “takes” by assorted writers, arouse my interest.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/12 "2015-06-01T23:32:01Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#):
>
> I was never super-taken with Stirling’s “Change / Emberverse” – perhaps I’m a nancy-boy over-fond of unicorns / rainbows / fluffy bunnies, but I feel the same as at least one other Stirling fan who said approximately, “call me a wimp, but the death of 95% of the world’s population is a bit more than I like hearing about”. Nonetheless, I read the earlier books in the series, with interest and a good deal of enjoyment; but the increasing role therein of the magical / mystical / mythical / miraculous, increasingly stuck in my throat –
Hey, at least he’s kept the unicorns out of it so far.
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### Author:  [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2015, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/13 "2015-06-02T00:31:20Z")
> [@RikWriter](#):
>
> I was still able to get excited about the next three books, but at that point I only kept reading out of curiosity…I just knew there would be a great big honking showdown to end things. Sure, Rudy would probably die in it, but it would be worth reading.
>
> Then…
>
> the great big showdown was a truncated anticlimax and Rudy died in a meaningless skirmish on the beach years later.
>
> I was fucking pissed.
This. I haven’t read the next book yet. Not sure I will. I wish he’d write more _Peshawan Lancers_ myself, but the chances seem remote.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/s-m-stirlings-new-emberverse-novel-the-desert-the-blade-coming-09-01-15/717171/14 "2015-07-08T01:14:47Z")
[Ten chapters now online.](http://smstirling.com/books/the-desert-and-the-blade/) The book comes out September 1.
From [_The Given Sacrifice:_](http://smstirling.com/samples/the-given-sacrifice-chapter-six/)
> [@](#):
>
> “I was just thinking,” Sandra said, “of how often I’ve wondered what the world will be like when the last of us oldsters have shuffled off to our—literal, as it turns out—rewards and the Changelings like Mathilda are left to run things without us.”
>
> “And I’ve had the same thought, many a time,” Juniper said. “But?”
>
> “Just now,” Sandra said, tickling the tip of the baby’s nose with one finger as she smiled and kicked, “it struck me that I should wonder what the world will be like when _Órlaith’s_ generation is in charge… people who never knew the people who knew the world before the Change. When she’s my age it will be… Good Lord, it’ll be Change Year 84! Nearly a century! Will they really believe anything about our world by then, except as myths? And of course _her_ children…”
>
> Juniper’s face froze for a moment, though the Changelings showed polite incomprehension. Then she said, slowly: “It never fails; in a conversation with you, something truly _disquieting_ will be said. Now I’ll be having that thought every time I look at a baby, instead of just enjoying the little ones. _Thank_ you, Sandra.”
>
> “You’re _welcome,_ dear Juniper.”
Clearly, that’s what this new series is about. In _The Golden Princess,_ characters of Mathilda’s generation appear onscreen hardly at all.