The Sea Peoples (A Novel of the Change)

This series continues the Emberverse story from Prince of Outcasts. I would recommend reading through the first and third stories of the King in Yellow (yes, that one) before reading this book; it isn't necessary, but you'll get more out of this book if you do.

Originally, Mr. Stirling spent more than 300 pages introducing his characters. Combined with the complexity of the intertwined plots and the rapid move in and out out of combat, I ended up rereading various sections, which did serve to make the book longer.
How many books are planned until the Mongols invade Europe again.

Like those who were disappointed in the book, I wondered what the point of the prolonged dreamquest sequence was and when we'f hit the payoff. But it was obvious from the start, because this book too short to include the Korean War and the cleanup back in Montival, that there would be a second book, and I expect the payoff to be obvious by then. One thing is certain: just as a sword has to be tempered and polished, the heirs of House Artos are being sent on their quests as an important rite of passage, from girl to woman and boy to man. I fully expect to see this in the third generation, at which point it will become established custom.

I liked the characters, including the over-the-top Captain Pip who began the tale as an adolescent out for adventure, and grew up quite a bit on this quest, as did Prince John. He will make a thoughtful, worth Lord Protector one day. The puzzled, tormented Alan Thurston was multidimensional enough to hold anybody's interest The glimpses of Hawai'ian, Australian, and Southeast Asian culture were as rich as all Stirling's Emberverse tours, and the touchy, proud, exasperating Japanese added spice to the dish.

Now to the villains: When Stirling wants to depict someone as epitome of evilest evil for the sake of evilness, he makes them cannibals.Irredeemable and incurably evil. Always. \The High Queen already has a plan (see the previous book) for wiping them off the face of Southern California It would be interesting to see some of them redeemed, though that may not be likely.

Finally, some of the nightmare scenes, "ripped from the headlines" of history, prove that there is very little an all-hating demon can to do humans that we haven't done to ourselves. A major city nuked. The Holocaust. The interminable, futile trench warfare of the First World War. Those truly hit home to any native of the 20th Century.

All right, sir! Let's see that sequel! And three cheers for Prince John and his odyssey!

Reading a Stirling novel is like engaging in a secular Ignatian contemplation. An Ignatian Contemplation could be described as a sacred day dream. For example, I might take a Bible story, and spending some time daydreaming through it with me as part of the action. This is really easy to do with Stirling's books, his writing is so vivid and detailed that the requisite "suspension of belief" is never hard to achieve. It's like I am there, every step of the way. Recoil in horror -- rejoice in the feast (and yes, there is great food porn herein as always with his novels) -- be confused as the characters obviously are -- experience their emotions as they unfold in the book. With this book, it is never hard to just be part of the adventure, in a vicarious way of course, avoiding all the life and soul threatening dangers and evils, with which this book is packed. One of the other reviewers mentioned Lovecraft, and I think that's an apt reference. For me, this first time through was a power-read -- staying up late, spending most of my day off reading it, almost being late to an appointment so I could finish the last few pages. It's that gripping. Yes, its different in some ways from the other books in terms of the extended dream sequence, but its like the book says, the people were real, even if it was a "dream", because it was, I guess we could say, a "dream within a reality" or a "reality within a dream."

Diverging from the usual for a Change series book, the book takes place over just a handful of days and focuses heavily on the supernatural aspects of things creeping into the world, with a visit to a Lovecraftian shadow of a world based on elements from The King in Yellow. Even there, there's still loving descriptions of delicious food though. There are huge, staggering implications at the end, ones that definitely alter the arc of the greater storyline. Well worth a read, but definitely not a good starting place.

Another action-packed installment in the Change Saga finds half of our heroes trying to save Prince John in a transdimensional vision quest while the heir apparent to Montival does battle against demon-possessed Korean forces. Being a fan of classical Lovecraftian horror, I particularly enjoyed the homage to Chambers' The King in Yellow; the collected works are available via Project Gutenberg and make a for great companion volume to this book. Can't wait for the next volume.

More good stuff, with lots of twists and turns. I could do without the descriptions of characters I know very well but that comes with the territory. As the Powers grow stronger, straightforward action gives way in places to horror but it's all good. By the way, I saw nothing much Lovecraftian. Carcossa and The King in Yellow are from elsewhere.

His writing draws you into the story and he makes his characters come alive. He is one of the few authors whose books I have reread (David Weber is another). NOW THE ONLY PROBLEN IS WAITING UNTIL THE NEXT BOOK COMES OUT!

Strength to strength, warp to weft, thread by thread... Each book builds the stories within the greater tapestry. With the less mundane journey of Prince John and his companions, and the deeply mundane journey of Órlaith and Reiko, one finds the final common thread... but the ending of that thread was so not what I expected.
Now it is time to cross the ocean and follow the adventure.
I love how Steve weaves his stories.

This is a very unsatisfying ending for a story-line that has taken us over 50 years (and a dozen books). This author has had a tendency to create characters and events with no relevance to moving the mainstream of the story along. An original character became pregnant at age 40, there was a dead A-lister on the Quest to Sea people, how about the riverside swim with two young squires and two lusty peasant girls. They were small things that could be overlooked. With this novel, the author has detracted from ending the main story with a silly and endless dream sequence that I felt was quite ponderous. Many questions were left unanswered. I expected steak and feel as if I got shoe leather.

I am sorry because I generally like Mr. Stirling's writing, but he took this book in a direction that I was afraid of after I read the preview chapters. Spends most of the book getting Prince John back from whatever imaginary world he was in where everything is a blasted metaphor. This will be the last of the change books I read. I hope he does better with his new series.

Love the series, but wonder if Sterling has run out of content or if he is just dragging it out. This is the worst book in the series so far. It is slow and doesn't move the plot much. The dream world part should have been cut by 90%.

I have the whole “Change” series in hardcover, as well as almost all of Sterling’s other offerings over the years. S.M. Stirling is one of my favorite authors of alternative timeline fiction. But, increasingly, as this series has extended and the storylines have played out it has morphed more into fantasy than alternative timeline adventure. And although I have some good Fantasy on my shelves, it is not my favorite genre. H.P. Lovecraft was never a classic favorite of mine, and much of this new story has a definite “drifting in the mist” Lovecraftian feel to it. I guess I am not into “spirit journeys” filled with evil ghosts and ghoulies and things that go “bump” in the night. And there appears to be no end to the series...not in “The Sea Peoples” at least. The end of the book just kind of hangs there, with no tying up of ends and no sequel in sight. I am put in mind of the Heroic Fantasy author who is murdered at a Con in “Bimbos of the Death Sun”. He keeps writing endless sequels, despite having come to personally despise his large, dumb barbarian hero because he cannot resist his publisher dangling money in front of him for more in the series. For me, the magic fantasy stuff in this volume so got in the way of the characters that I found myself not really caring what happened to them, and caring about the characters has always been one of the things I liked best about the author’s other writings, including the earlier volumes of the “Change” series. Regretfully, this will not be one of the S.M. Stirling books I will reread. It didn’t speak to me...although your mileage may vary...

Basically a 350 page dream sequence. I love this series, but this particular book was a huge disappointment. Lets hope the next one is better. I’d rant about specifics, but I want to leave this spoiler free.

Had this book been badly written, I would have given it two stars. Alas, S M Stirling's technical skills as a writer are still in evidence here, but the story itself is a flailing, sputtering mess. Dies the Fire has ended up a Dumpster Fire. None of the third generation Emberberse characters - Orlaith, John, even Pip - are nearly as fully formed or compelling as those in the earlier books. (Compare Astrid Loring with Heuradys d'Ath and tell me I'm wrong.) As many other reviewers have pointed out, a huge chunk of this book was taken up with a tedious dream sequence in which four main characters enter a vaguely defined Otherworld to "rescue" Prince John from the Lovecraftian horror that has him in spiritual bondage. How exactly this is supposed to be accomplished is never quite made clear. What is clear is that Stirling has lifted almost all of Robert W Chamber's story The King in Yellow *word for word* and injected his characters into it here and there. Maybe he was trying to go metafictional on us, with characters at one point suspecting that if they're in an imaginary realm, then they might be imaginary themselves. But it doesn't work, and that's not what the readers are coming to the Emberverse for anyway. We do get the inevitable salivating descriptions of every meal, and oh yeah, there's bits of a sea battle, but nothing here is worth the price of admission, even if you borrowed your copy from the library. So only one star for the disappointment of a talented writer turning out an indigestible, half-baked product that satisfies no one, including, I suspect, himself.

I have the whole “Change” series in hardcover, as well as almost all of Sterling’s other offerings over the years. S.M. Stirling is one of my favorite authors of alternative timeline fiction. But, increasingly, as this series has extended and the storylines have played out it has morphed more into fantasy than alternative timeline adventure. And although I have some good Fantasy on my shelves, it is not my favorite genre. H.P. Lovecraft was never a classic favorite of mine, and much of this new story has a definite “drifting in the mist” Lovecraftian feel to it. I guess I am not into “spirit journeys” filled with evil ghosts and ghoulies and things that go “bump” in the night. And there appears to be no end to the series...not in “The Sea Peoples” at least. The end of the book just kind of hangs there, with no tying up of ends and no sequel in sight. I am put in mind of the Heroic Fantasy author who is murdered at a Con in “Bimbos of the Death Sun”. He keeps writing endless sequels, despite having come to personally despise his large, dumb barbarian hero because he cannot resist his publisher dangling money in front of him for more in the series. For me, the magic fantasy stuff in this volume so got in the way of the characters that I found myself not really caring what happened to them, and caring about the characters has always been one of the things I liked best about the author’s other writings, including the earlier volumes of the “Change” series. Regretfully, this will not be one of the S.M. Stirling books I will reread. It didn’t speak to me...although your mileage may vary...

Basically a 350 page dream sequence. I love this series, but this particular book was a huge disappointment. Lets hope the next one is better. I’d rant about specifics, but I want to leave this spoiler free.

Had this book been badly written, I would have given it two stars. Alas, S M Stirling's technical skills as a writer are still in evidence here, but the story itself is a flailing, sputtering mess. Dies the Fire has ended up a Dumpster Fire. None of the third generation Emberberse characters - Orlaith, John, even Pip - are nearly as fully formed or compelling as those in the earlier books. (Compare Astrid Loring with Heuradys d'Ath and tell me I'm wrong.) As many other reviewers have pointed out, a huge chunk of this book was taken up with a tedious dream sequence in which four main characters enter a vaguely defined Otherworld to "rescue" Prince John from the Lovecraftian horror that has him in spiritual bondage. How exactly this is supposed to be accomplished is never quite made clear. What is clear is that Stirling has lifted almost all of Robert W Chamber's story The King in Yellow *word for word* and injected his characters into it here and there. Maybe he was trying to go metafictional on us, with characters at one point suspecting that if they're in an imaginary realm, then they might be imaginary themselves. But it doesn't work, and that's not what the readers are coming to the Emberverse for anyway. We do get the inevitable salivating descriptions of every meal, and oh yeah, there's bits of a sea battle, but nothing here is worth the price of admission, even if you borrowed your copy from the library. So only one star for the disappointment of a talented writer turning out an indigestible, half-baked product that satisfies no one, including, I suspect, himself.

I'm not sure what happened with this book. Stirling seems to have lost his way with this series. The plotting in this offering is disjointed, incomprehensible, and inconsistent. It is so far gone into the metaphysical and mystical that it is almost unreadable. I stayed with it to the end, hoping for the plot pieces to be tied up and the symbolism made clear. Did not happen.

This is only a partially realized effort to recall the Chambers/Lovecraft use of the "Yellow King" tale in part of the novel and very poorly integrated into the general narrative. Generally, the writing is disjointed and denotes an uncertainty or inhibition on the author's part. The characters are, likewise, poorly drawn; perhaps they lose life in serving an unfortunate story line. This a disappointing component of the 'Change' series.

I love emberverse, have since I read "Dies the Fires" when it first came out. This Sea Peoples is just plain awful. 90% of the book took place is some weird alternate New York, why? To recover Prince John spirit? There were none of the great adventure and battle scenes the other books had, and made them worth reading. This one does nothing to advance the story of Monteval and Japan's war against the Koreans. Not worth reading even used.

This book is set in a post Apocalyptic world where technology has been truncated by some unknown source. I have no idea what number in the series this is. It is entirely too long since I have read anything in this series. This is sometime after the initial characters have kids and those kids are sending out their own children into a world fraught with peril. The peril is a dark, evil force trying to twist mankind to evil purposes. The good guys have their own forces for good providing their champions with magic swords.

I must have missed too many books because this book only made vague sense. It jumps all over which I referred to in my last review of this series.

Polytheism is a staple throughout the series and some explanation of such is provided in this book. I said in my last review based on the way the story jumped from one time and location to another, it often felt like a book of short stories.

I really enjoyed the first few books in this series but the last few have left me feeling cold at best.

Stirling creates worlds I never knew I wanted to visit. The new generation of Changelings has moved across the Pacific Ocean to fight the new generation of bad guys. The Montival/Japanese (Japanese are called something else) alliance hooks up with Hawaiians and Australians to battle the Koreans (the new bad guys are controlling the Koreans like the CUT controlled Montanans in earlier books). There is a fascinating attempt to rescue Prince John in some kind of parallel universe controlled by an evil creep called the Yellow King or Pallid King (something like that). Clearly I am unclear on some of the details. However, once again, I am invested in this new generation. I love following their journeys. I worry about their outcomes. I’m upset when they die. And, I am really upset that I have to wait another year to find out what happens next.

Another excellent installment in the long running series, with the skillfully-braided tales of Princess Orlaith of Montival and her brother Prince John having adventures in the very wild Pacific. True to the old adage, John is in deep trouble with possibly the creepiest enemy yet seen in Stirling's Changeverse. Fortunately, he has friends and so does Orlaith - one of whom gets to utter a history-bending declaration that made me chortle. The mysticism and folding of alternate universes is mind-bending and frightening down in the deep places where people's minds and souls live. Some of those alternate Americas and Japans will give me nightmares for years. The ending presents us with not one but two cliffhangers of a decidedly non-traditional sort that left me grasping for the next book - what do you mean not until next year? I'm hooked NOW!

I have to agree with some of the other reviews... I love this writer, he has been one of my favorites for many years, but he is either stuck in creative rut or just trying to string things out to make a buck. Sad, because I have always believed he has more talent than anyone out there in his field.

Good entry in this excellent series. More fantasy than I prefer as this epic begins to skew in that direction. However, the major characters world building and vibrant storyline are strong enough to keep me coming back.

The latest installment in Stirling's Change series. Like all of Stirling's books, this is a solid performance but has 2 significant weaknesses. First, its a relatively short installment that really should be part of a larger book. Second, most of the book is a diversion from the main plot. Most of the book is a pastiche from Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow. Stirling has done this kind of thing previously, notably with Edgar Rice Burroughs' planetary romances. This is not the usual pastiche but a well done and creative use of Chambers' themes but still a diversion from the main sequence.

Stirling is a master at world-building and character development. This book may not have the same feeling as the earlier books in the series, but who wants to rehash the same style and story over and over? It’s a different approach, but still a remarkable example of his abilities.

I was actually excited about this book but it was uninspired and worst of all very boring. I have read almost all of SM Stirling's work and have never been so disappointed in a book ever. Mr. Stirling's writing quality in this series has been declining for the last 4-5 books and this volume has reached its nadir. I guess I will have to find another author to follow. This book was about 75% made up of a dream sequence. Sorry to disappoint but don't even bother reading this book let alone spend any of your hard earned money on this work.