Dies The Fire - Literary Significance and Reception

Literary Significance and Reception

There were many positive reviews on the novel. Fellow science fiction writer Paul Di Filippo praised the novel saying: "Post-apocalypse novels often veer either too heavily into romantic Robinsonades or nihilistic dead ends. But Stirling has struck the perfect balance between grit and glory." Filippo also complimented Stirling on his characterization and being able to "make all his retro-tech plausible, easily visualizable and interesting." The review on Scifidimensions called the novel "highly entertaining" and complimented Stirling on being able to make coming up with "novel premises, memorable characters, and hard to put down storytelling." Mel Odom also gave a good review of the novel and said the fact that Mike and Juniper were not perfect heroes made them even more likable as characters. He also was pleased at how Stirling worked in various themes from myths and legends into the story. Kel Munger from the Sacramento News and Review called the novel the "Best. Apocalyptic. Novel. Ever."

Some reviewers commented on the large amount of research that went into the novel. Thomas M. Wagner of SF Reviews.Net said Dies the Fire is "intelligent, meticulously crafted, but overlong and sometimes pokey end-of-the-world epic." He also complimented Stirling on his research and said he was the one "the government needed to send to New Orleans to singlehandedly feed and rescue hurricane survivors." Though he also found the large amount of the detail to be a bit dragging but stated that it was still a good read for those fans of "character-driven SF and fantasy epics." Wagner though did feel that the novel would have been stronger had Arminger a more prominent role in the novel. Raymond Camden, though he recommended the novel, found that it had too much detail which detracted from the story.

SFReader.com claimed the novel was repetitive and had rather weak story-telling, but complimented it for a good plot-line, astonishing depth of the ideas, and colorful characters. SF Reviews called it a brilliantly done post disaster novel that is more fantasy than science fiction. The review on SF Crowsnest called the opening of the book exciting as the reader followed how Clan Mackenzie and the Bearkillers attempt to survive in the world after the Change, though it judged that the book dragged at the end.

There were negative reviews on the book. Danny Sullivan called the novel "grating" and "too forced to be that enjoyable." He also found it implausible for the main characters to be so lucky in a disaster on the scale of the Change. Dan Rahmel described the characters as being unrealistic and said the novel had too many improbabilities.