Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling

I am going to start writing short reviews of books I read. I just finished [Dies the Fire](http://www.amazon.com/Dies-Fire-S-M-Stirling/dp/0451459792P) by S. M. Stirling. It is connected to his previous series where Nantucket is sent back time. The Event causes all electronics and explosives to stop working. Civilization collapses and knocks the human race is knocked back to medieval technology. The book follows some groups of survivors which assemble working societies in the Pacific Northwest. Much of the action was in the Willamette Valley which gave it a personal connection.

One of the groups is a bunch of neo-Pagans which form a settlemenet in the southern Willamette Valley. The Celtic heritage of the founders turns into the culture of the survivors. The second group is a family and their pilot whose plane crashes in the Idaho mountains. They walk out, kill some bad guys and a bear, and join other survivors to form a military band who recreates armored cavalry. They migrate to the Willamette Valley fighting bad guys along the way, and hooking up with the pagans. The bad guys are from Portland, organized into a feudal dictatorship who attempt to take over but are beaten back by the good guys working together.

It was an interesting variation on the end of world genre. The characters are quite sympathetic. They are lucky and skilled but that is a pretty common Stirling thing. I like how it has a generally positive tone that the survivors will prosper to balance the horror of the situation. I was avoiding reading the series even though I heard good things about it. It was just as good as Nantucket series. Now I need to get the rest of the trilogy.