Rudi MacKenzie has grown up knowing that he will one day assume leadership over the survivors of the technological disaster known as the Change. But a prophecy made at his birth spoke of an even greater destiny?a destiny that is about to be fulfilled. A mysterious traveler from Nantucket, long rumored to be the source of the Change, arrives on a mission to bring Rudi back with him. And between him and his destiny lies the the cult of a madman determined to stop him?
SUMMARY: A generation has passed since The Change that rendered technology inoperable around the world, and western Oregon has finally achieved a degree of peace. But a new threat has risen in Paradise Valley, Wyoming. A man known as The Prophet presides over the Church Universal and Triumphant, teaching his followers to continue God's work by destroying the remnants of technological civilization they encounter-and those who dare use them. Rudi Mackenzie, son and heir of the mystic Juniper, must journey with seven friends across a continent in chaos to the Sunrise Lands to solve the riddle of what destroyed a civilization. And as the friends journey farther into the interior, enemies may be within their own band as well as outside it...
Young Rudi Mackenzie has grown up knowing that he will one day assume leadership over the Western Oregon survivors of the technological disaster called the Change. But a prophecy made at his birth spoke of an even greater destiny—a destiny that is about to be fulfilled.
A mysterious traveler has arrived in the Willamette Valley. He brings news from the East, from Nantucket Island, long rumored to be the source of the Change. He has been sent on a mission to bring back with him the Sword of the Lady from the sunset oceans.
As son of the High Priestess, Rudi is the Sword of the Lady. Now, guided by the traveler, he sets out on a quest across the Changed land that was once America. But between Rudi and his destiny lies the Valley of Paradise…and the cult of a madman determined to stop him.
What is now called the Change Saga resumes a generation after the action of Dies the Fire (2004). Rudi Mackenzie, Juniper's son, has a mission to cross post–Change North America and find out what is going on around the mysterious island of Nantucket. This entails crossing the Rockies, a literally howling wilderness, and New Deseret, semicivilized thanks to its Mormon roots. Some rump states also survive on the Great Plains, sans twentieth-century technology, but then bows and swords can keep enemies at bay, and buffalo are splendid meat animals. Avoiding the formerly urbanized Death Zones, now reduced largely to ruins, skeletons, and savage remnants of de-civilized humanity, Rudi and his companions find the sadly misnamed Valley of Paradise and its bloodthirsty leader, self-dubbed the Scourge of God. This leads to rather a cliff-hanger ending, but readers who have survived Stirling's usual high body count will recognize brilliant action fiction and alternate history when they see it and happily hang fire for more. Green, Roland
The Sunrise Lands (Emberverse Series #4) by S. M. Stirling
Young Rudi Mackenzie has grown up knowing that he will one day assume leadership over the Western Oregon survivors of the technological disaster called the Change. But a prophecy made at his birth spoke of an even greater destiny—a destiny that is about to be fulfilled.
A mysterious traveler has arrived in the Willamette Valley. He brings news from the East, from Nantucket Island, long rumored to be the source of the Change. He has been sent on a mission to bring back with him the Sword of the Lady from the sunset oceans.
As son of the High Priestess, Rudi is the Sword of the Lady. Now, guided by the traveler, he sets out on a quest across the Changed land that was once America. But between Rudi and his destiny lies the Valley of Paradise…and the cult of a madman determined to stop him.
SUMMARY:
A generation has passed since The Change that rendered technology inoperable around the world, and western Oregon has finally achieved a degree of peace. But a new threat has risen in Paradise Valley, Wyoming. A man known as The Prophet presides over the Church Universal and Triumphant, teaching his followers to continue God's work by destroying the remnants of technological civilization they encounter-and those who dare use them. Rudi Mackenzie, son and heir of the mystic Juniper, must journey with seven friends across a continent in chaos to the Sunrise Lands to solve the riddle of what destroyed a civilization. And as the friends journey farther into the interior, enemies may be within their own band as well as outside it...
Description:
Rudi MacKenzie has grown up knowing that he will one day assume leadership over the survivors of the technological disaster known as the Change. But a prophecy made at his birth spoke of an even greater destiny?a destiny that is about to be fulfilled. A mysterious traveler from Nantucket, long rumored to be the source of the Change, arrives on a mission to bring Rudi back with him. And between him and his destiny lies the the cult of a madman determined to stop him?
SUMMARY:
A generation has passed since The Change that rendered technology inoperable around the world, and western Oregon has finally achieved a degree of peace. But a new threat has risen in Paradise Valley, Wyoming. A man known as The Prophet presides over the Church Universal and Triumphant, teaching his followers to continue God's work by destroying the remnants of technological civilization they encounter-and those who dare use them. Rudi Mackenzie, son and heir of the mystic Juniper, must journey with seven friends across a continent in chaos to the Sunrise Lands to solve the riddle of what destroyed a civilization. And as the friends journey farther into the interior, enemies may be within their own band as well as outside it...
Young Rudi Mackenzie has grown up knowing that he will one day assume leadership over the Western Oregon survivors of the technological disaster called the Change. But a prophecy made at his birth spoke of an even greater destiny—a destiny that is about to be fulfilled.
A mysterious traveler has arrived in the Willamette Valley. He brings news from the East, from Nantucket Island, long rumored to be the source of the Change. He has been sent on a mission to bring back with him the Sword of the Lady from the sunset oceans.
As son of the High Priestess, Rudi is the Sword of the Lady. Now, guided by the traveler, he sets out on a quest across the Changed land that was once America. But between Rudi and his destiny lies the Valley of Paradise…and the cult of a madman determined to stop him.
**
From Publishers Weekly
Set 12 years after A Meeting at Corvallis (2006), Stirling's latest novel of a chaotic near-future U.S., crippled when the mysterious Change rendered most technology nonfunctional, combines vigorous military adventure with cleverly packaged political idealism. When assassins pursue a traveler into Oregon's Willamette Valley, the resulting skirmish propels the heirs of three influential local leaders on a risky continent-crossing mission to Nantucket. Stirling's narrative deftly balances sharply contrasting ideologies—the Mackenzies' proto-Celtic clan system in Oregon against Gen. Lawrence Thurston's strict and principled military democracy in Idaho, the zealotry of the Church Universal and Triumphant versus the pagan Powers venerated by the Mackenzies—though the most difficult cosmological questions are never addressed. Meanwhile, there are hints of otherworldly intervention and time travel on Nantucket, echoing the parallel continuity established in Island in the Sea of Time and its sequels. Despite these fuzzy underpinnings, the thought-provoking and engaging storytelling should please Stirling's many fans. (Sept.)
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From Booklist
What is now called the Change Saga resumes a generation after the action of Dies the Fire (2004). Rudi Mackenzie, Juniper's son, has a mission to cross post–Change North America and find out what is going on around the mysterious island of Nantucket. This entails crossing the Rockies, a literally howling wilderness, and New Deseret, semicivilized thanks to its Mormon roots. Some rump states also survive on the Great Plains, sans twentieth-century technology, but then bows and swords can keep enemies at bay, and buffalo are splendid meat animals. Avoiding the formerly urbanized Death Zones, now reduced largely to ruins, skeletons, and savage remnants of de-civilized humanity, Rudi and his companions find the sadly misnamed Valley of Paradise and its bloodthirsty leader, self-dubbed the Scourge of God. This leads to rather a cliff-hanger ending, but readers who have survived Stirling's usual high body count will recognize brilliant action fiction and alternate history when they see it and happily hang fire for more. Green, Roland
The Sunrise Lands (Emberverse Series #4) by S. M. Stirling
Young Rudi Mackenzie has grown up knowing that he will one day assume leadership over the Western Oregon survivors of the technological disaster called the Change. But a prophecy made at his birth spoke of an even greater destiny—a destiny that is about to be fulfilled.
A mysterious traveler has arrived in the Willamette Valley. He brings news from the East, from Nantucket Island, long rumored to be the source of the Change. He has been sent on a mission to bring back with him the Sword of the Lady from the sunset oceans.
As son of the High Priestess, Rudi is the Sword of the Lady. Now, guided by the traveler, he sets out on a quest across the Changed land that was once America. But between Rudi and his destiny lies the Valley of Paradise…and the cult of a madman determined to stop him.