S. M. Stirling

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S. M. Stirling

Born September 30, 1953 (1953-09-30) (age 54)
Metz, France
Occupation Writer
Nationality America
Writing period 1980s–present
Genres Science fiction, fantasy, alternate history
Official website

Stephen Michael Stirling is a French-born Canadian-American science fiction and fantasy author.

His novels are generally conflict-driven and often describe military situations and militaristic cultures. In addition to his books' military, adventure & exploration focus, he often describes societies with cultural values significantly different from modern western views. One of his recurring topics is the influence of the culture on an individual's outlook and values, with a particular emphasis on the idea that most people and societies consider themselves (mostly) moral.

Stirling also has a fascination with technological development, and frequently turns to explorations of this within the context of many of his novels. The Draka (see below) for instance, chose and faced a different imperative in their conquest of Africa, and turned earlier to breech-loading firearms and steam power than the rest of the Western World. The stranded islanders of Nantucket must try to rebuild their technological base once the island is stranded in 1250 BC, while the dazed survivors of the 'Change' now face a world where electricity, firearms, and internal combustion no longer work.

In the past he has frequently collaborated with other authors, including David Drake, Jerry Pournelle, Anne McCaffrey and Raymond E. Feist.

Stirling is probably best-known for his Draka series of alternate history novels and the more recent Island in the Sea of Time time travel/alternate history trilogy and Emberverse series. His novels Go Tell The Spartans and Prince of Sparta are set in Jerry Pournelle's "CoDominium" future history.

Contents

[edit] Personal

Stirling was born in Metz, France on September 30, 1953 -- then the site of a Royal Canadian Air Force base -- to an English mother and Canadian father. He has lived in several countries and currently resides in the United States in New Mexico with his wife Jan.

Stirling, along with Eric Flint, was tuckerized as a Secret Service agent in John Birmingham's alternate history WWII novel Weapons of Choice (2004).

Stirling often posts to Usenet, message boards and blogs, often with the handle "joatsimeon".[1] (One of his books, The City Who Fought, has characters named Joat and Simeon.)

[edit] The Lords of Creation

What if Mars and Venus really were inhabitable and inhabited, as in many SF stories from the early sixties and before? In this alternate history series Mars and Venus were terraformed a long time ago and "seeded" with Earth life, including several different [sic] human species. On Earth everything is the same until the start of space exploration, but then the Cold War dampens down into a real, collaborative space race which overtakes the military budgets of both superpowers.

The vast investment in interplanetary exploration has changed this alternate history deeply, in ways mentioned in passing, including the close alliance of the United States, Great Britain and the Dominions; but there are other changes: The Suez invasion receives American support and succeeds, and there is no Sino-Soviet split in 1959. The Cold War, including the Vietnam War, The Soviet Union does not collapse, and there are two competing space efforts: the Sino-Soviet alliance and the US-Commonwealth alliance. The European Union is led by France, since the United Kingdom did not join it, but their space effort is considerably behind the others. The Sky People is set on Venus, while its sequel In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is set on Mars.

[edit] Nantucket series

In Island in the Sea of Time the island of Nantucket is transported by an unknown phenomenon (called "The Event" in the series) back in time into the Bronze Age circa 1250s BC (corresponding to the late Heroic Age of Greek mythology). The trilogy describes the conflict between the different factions of the island's population—some trying to dominate the world for their own benefit, others trying to better it, while most just want to survive, work hard, and claw their way back to something approaching their pre-Event way of life.

As the series progresses, it becomes clear to Nantucket's scaled-down Government that sitting back and reinventing isolationism will only profit those renegades who, under the leadership of ex-Coast Guard lieutenant William Walker (inspired directly by William Walker), have fled the island to live like gods amongst the Bronze Age peoples of Europe and the Middle East. Walker—who, unfortunately, is as smart as he is callous—exploits the 'magic' of gunpowder, iron-forging, and the spinning-jenny to build up an empire of his own, one that will inevitably conquer the entire world unless the people of Nantucket build an army, a navy, and a set of foreign alliances of their own and take the fight to Walker.

By the end of the third book, Nantucket is the dominant member of a sizable and expanding network of allies, rather reminiscent of the British Empire (though Britain itself is called "Alba" in the novel, one of Nantucket's protectorates and a source of "warrior tribes" to be enrolled as mercenaries in its armies), and the Nantucketars ("Eagle-People", "Islanders", "Nan-Tukh-Tar", etc.) seem well on their way to re-enacting the United States's Manifest Destiny three thousand years early.

Nantucket has 'Outport' colonies spanning the globe, with bases in the Caribbean, Argentina, the Azores, South Africa, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Mauritius, Bombay, etc.; basically, anywhere there is a good harbour situated close to existing or future trading routes, the Republic is on the scene. The Alban Alliance rules the British Isles where Walker initially tried to carve out his empire, and are a close ally, a source of labour and military recruits, and, as its people absorb more of the New Learning, look like being at the heart of a very early Industrial Revolution. Babylon, Hittite Empire and Mitanni (a vassal of Babylon), are also allies, though how long that will last now that they have arms industries of their own is anyone's guess, even with an Islander military officer married to Babylon's ambitious young king. At the end of the third book, the allies are already laying plans for carving up the Caucasus and Persia between them.

Other major powers:

  • Achaea (Greece), which was the location of Walker's second—and much more successful—attempt at empire-building, but which is now ruled by King Odikweus (Odysseus/Ulysses of Iliad and Odyssey fame).
  • Tartessos, an Iberian city-state which gained greatly from its new King's decade-long alliance with Walker's Meizon Achaea, and which managed to survive its unsuccessful challenge to Nantucket for control of the sea.

Minor powers include:

  • Egypt, which gained some basic New Learning from one of Walker's lieutenants who was a fanatical—and naïve—Afrocentrist who was shocked to discover that the "Black Egyptians" were not truly black. After Egypt's defeat at the 'Battle of Armaggeddon' and the lost of its Canaan territory to Babylon, the same lieutenant fled to Meroe, a region in east-central Africa, with the intention of giving the black population a leg up before armed Caucasians started arriving in numbers.
  • Sicilian Republic, which was formerlly an Achaean colony but is now an independent nation after it was invaded by Nantucket. The government is currently divided between the Sicilian natives, freed slaves, and Achaean colonists.

There also appears to be a threat growing out in Central Asia, where Walker's lone surviving heir and a convoy of mostly Achaean rejectionists have chosen to carve out a new empire in the Ferghanna region, far, far away from the reach of Islander naval power.

The series consists of three books:

[edit] The Emberverse series

Dies the Fire (2004) shows the effects on the planet—a world Nantucket left—of something called "The Change". Electricity, guns, explosives, internal combustion engines and steam power no longer work. The series mostly deals with the Willamette Valley area of Oregon, with some description of the United Kingdom. After describing how people in those places survive the loss of 200 years of technological progress (no power, no food, no weapons), the primary focus of this series turns to a conflict between a Portland-based neo-feudal dictatorship created by a sociopathic history professor, and the free communities of the Willamette Valley, most notably the Wiccan Clan Mackenzie and a group led by a former Marine, the Bearkillers.

A second tetralogy, set 22 years after the Change, is in progress:

Recent information from Stirling indicates that ' Montival ' is the name by which the west coast region comes to be known. The sample chapters for "The Sunrise Lands" listed on Stirling's website indicate the possibility of the second series giving some sort of explanation for the event/change. A vision from a major character's trip to Nantucket potentially includes Swindapa, a major character from the Nantucket trilogy.

A duology for a later period is planned:

  • The Blood of the Sun
  • The Given Sacrifice

[edit] Fifth Millennium series

Stirling at GAFilk, January 2007. Photo by Brenda Sutton.
Stirling at GAFilk, January 2007. Photo by Brenda Sutton.

These are a collection of post-holocaust fantasy novels, in which civilization was destroyed (probably by a nuclear war) in something near our present time and new civilizations have grown to take their place. The novels are set in about the year AD 5000. There are elements of magic or psionics present, but they are fairly low powered, while technology is approximately at the level of the historical middle ages. Two additional novels in this series (Lion's Heart and Lion's Soul both by Karen Wehrstein) overlap these novels but were not authored or co-authored by Stirling. Shadow's Daughter by Shirley Meier is also part of the series.

  • Snowbrother (1985)
  • The Sharpest Edge (1986) (with Shirley Meier) (Later re-written and expanded as Saber and Shadow)
  • The Cage (1989) (with Shirley Meier)
  • Shadow's Son (1991) (with Shirley Meier and Karen Wehrstein)
  • Saber and Shadow (1992) (with Shirley Meier)
    • Shadows Daughter related novel (by Shirley Meier)
    • Lion's Heart related novel (by Karen Wehrstein)
    • Lion's Soul related novel (by Karen Wehrstein)

[edit] Draka series

Main article: The Domination

The Draka novels postulate a dystopian slave-holding militaristic (white) African empire founded by British Loyalists who escaped to South Africa after the American Revolution rather than to Canada (as in our history). They were later joined by French Royalist emigrés, Icelandic refugees, and demobbed veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, then by tens of thousands of defeated Confederates after the American Civil War. Stirling provides a timeline for its historical development through the 19th and 20th centuries, first as the Crown Colony of Drakia (for Francis Drake), gradually breaking away from British control to become the Dominion, then the Domination, of the Draka. The Draka culture is remarkable for combining a strictly race- and class-based hierarchical society with near-complete gender-equality (including female soldiers in integrated military units in combat roles). The Draka are greatly outnumbered by their slaves, and quite ruthless in maintaining their rule. Compared to current western society, nudity and sexuality are much less taboo among Draka.

As a result of the intense manpower pressures stemming from their conquest of Africa through the 19th century, all Draka are liable for service in the military/security forces, and the Draka-only Citizen Force is by far the deadliest and most advanced military machine on the planet. But there are never enough Draka (only 30 million or so at the start of World War 2) to go around, and the bulk of the Domination's Armed Forces are made up of "Janissary" Legions recruited from the Serf population. The Citizen Force provides the élite cutting edge, while the "Janissaries" are the cannon fodder.

Stirling frequently uses the Draka and other villains as point-of-view characters, leading to complaints that he has some sympathy with them. He is known to be dismayed by this analysis of his work. He describes the Draka series as dystopias based on "suppos[ing that] everything had turned out as badly as possible, these last few centuries".[2] The title page of his novel Conquistador has the quotation (variously attributed to Larry Niven or Robert Heinlein) "There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot."

[edit] General series

Main article: The General series

These books are loosely based on the life of Belisarius, the great Byzantine general, but set on a colony planet with roughly late 19th century technology. They are currently available in omnibus editions (2005).

with David Drake

  • The Forge (1991)
  • The Hammer (1992)
  • The Anvil (1993)
  • The Steel (1993)
  • The Sword (1995)
  • The Chosen (1996)
  • The Reformer (1999)

[edit] Falkenberg's Legion series

The first two volumes in this series, "Falkenberg's Legion" and "Prince of Mercenaries", were solely the work of Jerry Pournelle. In 2002, all four Falkenberg books, including the two listed below, were published in a single volume, The Prince. The Falkenberg books are part of the larger "CoDominium" series, which also includes The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand by Pournelle and Larry Niven. Stirling's books in this series are popular with many Western soldiers for their portrayal of the mechanics of an ideologically driven insurgency.

with Jerry Pournelle

  • Go Tell the Spartans (1991)
  • Prince of Sparta (1993)

[edit] Other Novels

[edit] Belonging to series by other authors

[edit] Flight Engineer series

with James Doohan

  • The Rising (1996)
  • The Privateer (1999)
  • The Independent Command (2000)

[edit] Terminator 2 series

[edit] Not part of any series:

[edit] External links

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v • d • e
Works by S.M. Stirling
The Lords of Creation series
Nantucket series
The Emberverse series
Dies the Fire • The Protector's War • A Meeting at Corvallis • The Sunrise Lands • The Scourge of God • The Sword of the Lady • The High King of Montival • The Blood of the Sun • The Given Sacrifice 
Fifth Millennium series
Snowbrother • The Sharpest Edge • The Cage • Shadow's Son • Saber and Shadow • Shadow's Daughter • Lion's Heart • Lion's Soul 
The Domination series
Marching Through Georgia • Under the Yoke • The Stone Dogs • Drakon • The Domination • Drakas! 
The General series
The Forge • The Hammer • The Anvil • The Steel • The Sword • The Chosen • The Reformer 
Falkenburg's Legion series
Go Tell the Spartans • Prince of Sparta 
Other novels
The Children's Hour • Blood Feuds • The City who Fought • Blood Vengeance • The Ship Avenged • Jimmy the Hand • The Rising • The Privateer • The Independent Command • T2: Infiltrator • T2: Rising Storm • T2: The Future War • The Rose Sea • The Peshawar Lancers • Conquistador