The Emberverse Series - Connections To The Nantucket Series

Connections To The Nantucket Series

Stirling has confirmed that the Emberverse series are linked to his Nantucket series. Evidence of this can be found throughout the novels:

• The Change occurs at the same time as the Event that propels Nantucket back in time: 6:15 p.m. PST (9:15 pm EST).
• The Mackenzie Dennis Martin's brother John, a blacksmith, is an important secondary character in the Nantucket series.
• The Larssons bought their Montana property from the family of William Walker, the principal antagonist of the Nantucket series, and Signe dated him briefly.
• A general in the Church Universal and Triumphant is named Walker, and may be related to William Walker. At the 2009 DragonCon, Stirling confirmed this relationship and said the Walkers were troublemakers in both worlds.
• Ingolf has a vision of Nantucket where he sees a picture of Swindapa.
• Two of the protagonists of the Nantucket series, Marion Alston and Swindapa, appear with Juniper Mackenzie at the end of The Sword of the Lady as aspects of the Maiden–Mother–Crone trinity during a vision sequence.

The connection between the Emberverse series and the Nantucket series has led to some confusion by readers. Science-fiction writer Paul Di Filippo appeared to miss the connection entirely:

I'm a little baffled as to why Stirling set this book in 1998. It seems to me that it requires more suspension of disbelief to pretend the world ended in the past when we know it didn't.

Paul Skevington, writing for SF Crowsnest, also missed the connection:

Curiously, Stirling has set this novel in 1998 placing us firmly within the realms of alternative history. The reason for the use of this device is not clear, as it doesn't really impact upon the progress of the narrative. Perhaps the author sought after a sense of immediacy garnered by making the events take place in our past rather than our future. Perhaps he sought to avoid the work being viewed as a prediction of things to come – an obvious trap for many speculative works.

However, Joan Field noted a basic connection: "The basic premises of the two series are a precise mirror image of one another. In one, modern Americans are transferred to a past world without modern technology and must introduce this technology in order to survive; in the other, modern Americans are suddenly deprived of the same technology and their survival depends on re-learning and re-creating older skills and technologies. (...) In both, the main conflict is between those who try to build up a fairly decent society – though by no means perfect or flawless – and those who see in the crisis a chance for seizing complete, ruthless power".