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Read The Protector's War (2006)

The Protector's War (2006)

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Rating
3.95 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0451460774 (ISBN13: 9780451460776)
Language
English
Publisher
roc

The Protector's War (2006) - Plot & Excerpts

I think it's largely a case of middle book syndrome because while I enjoyed the book I didn't really care about it. It was mostly just setting the stage for A Meeting at Corvallis. As a medievalist who is getting more and more into the re-enactment side of things I think I enjoy these books so much because of their premise. Several times I thought that it would be great if such an event did occur. I think I enjoy the premise more than I like the actual book considering there are several things that drive me crazy: 1)The Wiccan stuff. I'd feel the same about any religion or faith because there's just too much of it and it just exudes craziness way more than any of Astrid's fantasies. I understand and appreciate the way religion is used for social cohesion and it's understanding how such a religion could take ground in such a world. However at times there was so much of it it bordered on preachy, especially when Rudi is concerned. 2) the italics . He uses them for both thoughts and sign language dialogue which when used together on one page can get choppy and confusing. He also uses italics and un-italics for emphasize which is simply annoying on the eyes when used with the frequency he does. 3) Juniper, Signe, Eilir all annoy the crap out of me. Astrid may be the crazy one but she annoys me the least. Stirling is terrible at writing female characters apparently considering I love severl of the main male characters.4)I did enjoy the descriptions of everyday life in the post-Change world but there was way more of it than really necessary. 5. Parts of the book skipped back and forth in time. He provides little chapters heading with the date and location of the chapter but I had gotten into the habit of ignoring those as they are unnecessary for all but perhaps 6 chapters. 6) Should have a different title. There is no war in this book. Overall, it was a fun read despite the aforementioned problems and I will read the third novel eventually.

The charm of the first book wears off a bit. While the basic story is quite good, I think, this novel suffers the same unfortunate problems of most science fiction. The book is simply flabby: there is a lot of unnecessary stuff, and it would be a tighter, better paced, more exciting story if 1/3 of it were cut out. Stirling has no ear for dialogue whatsoever (and I wish I could find all these writers that feel the need to write accents phonetically and punch them in the face), and his characterizations are generally clumsy. In addition to that, the cultural aspects of the post-Change world--on which he spends an incredible amount of time--are overwrought to the point of cliches. I doubt there are many Americans of Finnish ancestry (even the crazy ones from the depths of Michigan) who know ten words of the Finnish language, much less ones that would be inclined to shout medieval war-cries, recall the details of Gustavus Adolphus's military campaigns, or quote lengthy passages from the Kalevala. The whole wiccan thing gets really tiresome too, but the thing that rankled me the most is that the whole book comes off as a sort of paean to the pre-modern world, when everyone worked for their food and fought for their kin and blah blah blah, before those stupid useless citified folk came and mucked everything up. I don't think Stirling intends for it to come out that way, but the pervasively smug anti-modernism is irritating.

What do You think about The Protector's War (2006)?

The story picks up roughly ten years after the phenomenon that everyone has come to call "the Change." Things have more or less settled down in western Oregon. Tension continues, however, between the Protectorate and the other groups of the Willamette Valley. While the title suggests a war, the book deals mainly with events and developments leading up to such.We meet new friends and foes. Some of the old ones die. We see several types of communities rise up out of the ashes of the Digital Age, which is one of the things I find most fascinating about the series. The contrast between the new traditions, as well as the ways in which the new clashes with the old, as well as the new interpretations of what we today consider "the old" is interesting and sometimes entertaining. (Picture. for example, the Oregon State University football stadium, but with soldiers instead of football players, and with cheerleaders calling chants dealing with ACTUAL fighting, rather than the surrogate warfare that's typically the role of sports in the modern world.) The characters and the world have grown into themselves, as it were. But the struggle for long-term survival persists. There's a good balance between tastes of the duldrums of everyday life, the tension and headache of politics, and the excitement, terror, and horror of pre-gunpowder warfare--the latter of which ware more or less skirmishes, but still brutal enough.
—Nathan Miller

Stirling's characters are a bit clumsy and often interchangeable, and I still don't buy that so many people would suddenly drop everything and become Wiccans so quickly. Romance is particularly oddly written - if any one character ever shows remote attraction to another, you can guarantee the attraction is mutual.The title is also misleading - the titular war doesn't begin until the last 20 pages, and I assume the rest will play out in the concluding volume of the trilogy.Stirling's attitude in this book can be summed up as pining for the good 'ol days, before computers and technology ruined everything for us.The book also takes some odd structural turns, suddenly becoming a series of flashbacks for a little while in the later half, then switching back to the main action again.That said, I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic survival stories, and seeing everyone retrofit the modern world back into a pre-industrial one is kind of fun. I really enjoyed the glimpses of the world beyond US shores that we got this time around.
—Chad

The author starts up the story in England, nine years after the change. It was lovely to have more characters, but the author's technique of flipping between storylines -- done well in the first book -- was really difficult in this book. Not only did he go between the storylines, but he kept moving the timeline -- it was hard to follow at times. I don't see that this technique furthered the plot or improved the book at all.I think the book was overall good, but perhaps the author waxed a bit too poetic in descriptions. I found myself getting bored in certain passages because I was reading too much descriptive prose -- and I'm a fan of that usually. I think this story is best served by being a bit more concise. I wanted to know what was going to happen next to these characters! And I found myself occasionally skimming over passages and then needing to go back because there was one important detail buried in the hefty paragraph I just skimmed.Overall, I liked the book. I'm completely enthralled by the storyline and am eagerly moving on to book #3. I'm hoping the writing returns to more of what I found in book #1 (Dies the Fire.)
—Deb

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