Product Description

The New York Times bestselling author continues his "epic of survival and rebirth" (Library Journal), chronicling a modern world without technology.

Rudi Mackenzie has journeyed far across the land that was once the United States of America, hoping to find the source of the world-altering event that has come to be known as The Change. His final destination is Nantucket, an island overrun with forest, inhabited by a mere two hundred people who claim to have been transported there from out of time.

Only one odd stone house remains standing. Within it, Rudi finds a beautifully made sword waiting for him-and once he takes it up, nothing will ever be the same...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18270 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780451462909
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
S. M. Stirling is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels. He is a former lawyer and an amateur historian.

Customer Reviews

Some very good stuff, and some not so much (spoilers!)
"The Sword of the Lady" continues the story of Rudi MacKenzie and his band of questers as they cross what was the United States, heading towards Nantucket, so that Rudi can both find, and be transformed into, the Sword of the Lady. First, they have to extricate themselves from a situation in Iowa, and continue to avoid the Cutters and find allies as they progress toward Nantucket.

Some really good stuff here - Mathilda gets a chance to demonstrate her political acumen, and she IS good, better than anyone else, except, possibly, her mother. Ingolf reconciles with his family, in a totally believable and affectionate fashion. We get to see how the Change impacted yet another insular group, this one in Northern Maine, as well as running into some post-Change antagonists, who aren't the Cutters - with a nice tie-in to one of his short stories. Plus, the Cutters are slightly humanized, at least one of them is. Ignatius gets to demonstrate why he came along. Major progress is made in the Rudi/Mathilda relationship. Edain might even get a girl. Odard reveals hidden depths. We also get just enough "back at the ranch" insight so as not to lose touch with those people, without dragging down the pace too much. Great glimpse of Sandra, especially.

Oh, and some of the best meal descriptions ever. I swear I gained ten pounds just reading this book!

Here's why I didn't give it five stars:

- Rudi is in perilous danger of becoming a male "Mary Sue." He's handsome, charming, a deadly fighter, good at intrigue, in short, a Great Hero and close to perfect in every way. He'd be a lot more likeable with a blind spot or a fault or two.

- We get that he's going to die young. No need to go on (and on and on and on and on) about it.

- WTF is up with Mathilda and Signe suddenly becoming homophobic? Signe was a card-carrying LIBERAL. Liberals who are vegetarians and pacifists don't up and develop full-blown cases of homophobia twenty years later, especially homophobia directed at women - and no one is bugged by male homophobia? Oh, please. Mathilda grew up with Tiphaine/Delia and all of a sudden she finds Ulfhild creepy? Oh, please - times two.

- Edain more or less vanishes for the whole of the story. He gets a cameo when it comes to getting laid or shooting arrows (how Freudian!), but no more

- Constant references to male upper-body strength and what a Big Deal it is for fighters. Clearly, all female martial artists died out at the Change. Obviously, he's never heard of a naginata, or any of the arts that use great strength against the wielder.

- Constant references to how introspective people were pre-Change and how weird it is. The same independent thought occurs to about seven people during the novel. Hammer, beaten over head with. Repeatedly.

- Male leadership is an accepted norm and women appear just THRILLED TO BITS to just run kitchens and tend babies. Yeah, right. Clergywomen vanish. Female leaders, except in Dun Juniper, and except as regents for MALE minor child vanish. Mary, Ritva, and Eilir apparently don't mind stepping aside for their younger, MALE siblings. Mathilda continues to be the token female exception, but even she will be Rudi's consort - Lady Protector, yes, but his High Queen Consort.

- The question of what faith Rudi and Mathilda's eventual child will be raised in is completely ignored. That's a HUGE issue. Will he let the child be raised Christian? Will the child be accepted if pagan? Not addressed at all.

- Virginia/Victoria seems to exist to interject a cranky comment and to be Fred's love interest. Very dull.

- Stirling needs an copy-editor. I found several embarrassing typos.

Overall, a good, engaging read and I'm definitely looking forward to "The High King of Montival." Just wish this story was a bit tighter.

Another outstanding novel from S.M. Stirling
We continue following the group from the west, led by Rudi Mackenzie as they make their way across the continent of what used to be the U.S.A. The goal is to reach Nantucket, where a sword, referred to as the Sword of the Lady awaits Rudi to take it. He is now acknowledged by his group as the High King of Montival, which encompasses the territories of Oregon, Washington, parts of Idaho and the general areas in between. This news reaches the heads of Clan Mackenzie, the Bearkillers and the Portland Protective Association. Surprisingly enough, given their previous rivalries, they seem to realize that Rudi is their only hope of uniting and defending against the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT), in its attempt to conquer all territories It can. CUT is lead by "possessed" leaders, who use the supernatural powers they have to attack and conquer as many areas as possible in the western part of what once was the U.S.A.

This novel picks up with the group in Iowa and follows them through Wisconsin, out onto the Great Lakes, into what was once Maine and thence to Nantucket. All the while they are pursued by the Cutters (CUT group), lead by a High Seeker (a diabolical priest with supernatural powers) and Major Graber, an officer in the CUT Army and a thoroughly brainwashed, obsessive military leader, willing to sacrifice his own and all his mens' lives in pursuit of CUT's diabolical ends. Although there are battles and pursuit all across the Midwest and to Nantucket, unfortunately Graber and the High Seeker may still be alive at novel's end.

At Nantucket, Rudi and some of his followers receive visions in which it is explained how important it is to battle and defeat CUT, which is in the control of what are probably best described as diabolical forcesand more about the forces behind The Change and who is behind the CUT. Rudi takes the Sword of the Lady, and prepares to return westward to organize and lead all of Montival against the Cutters.

If you enjoy this theme, you will find no better books, starting with Dies the Fire, followed by The Protectors war, and then A Meeting at Corvallis. This series, set years later starting with the Sunrise lands, followed by The Scourge of God and now The Sword of the Lady, takes this changed world farther along and reveals something of the forces behind "the Change" which started it all.

Run and buy this book. You will be very happy you did.

Holdt Garver

Weakest of the series so far
It's been said that middle books of a series tend to be the weakest of a series, and this book bears out that cliche. I didn't expect it, though, because this book ends with the end of the quest to reach Nantucket Island, the fulcrum on which this whole series has rested.

I'd strongly recommend reading the other books in the series before this one. If you start with this book, you'll be confused and won't get as much out of the story arc that begins back in 1998, when electricity and gunpowder stop working. In this third book of the Change Series, we see magic start to bleed into the story, but if you've read the previous two books in the series, it's nothing you haven't read before.

The characters cross hostile landscapes, meet strange new people, kill some of them, and remark how silly the pre-Change world was (repeated references to this reach almost Turtledovian levels of repetition). Reading through the book, I thought it would be worth it because the novel includes the culmination of a quest that we've waited three books and several years to see. Unfortunately, that ending comes amid a muddled explanation involving a bit of convoluted mysticism that is utterly unsatisfying. When you've waited six books to find out what caused the Change, you should've had time to come up with something good. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

To make matters worse, there's little to no character progression. The characterization you got in the last book is what you get in this one as well. Rudy is still an uber-hero, the "elven" archers are still the same, and Matilda Arminger is still split between her dual loyalties. Worsening things is the problem that the one fully rounded character who has grown and changed over the course of the series -- yeah, he's killed off here. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but it's tough when the characters change so little.

We get brief glimpses of the war back west, but even that has changed little. CORA is still a disorganized group of ranchers with fast but lightly armored ponies. The Portland Protective Association is still heavily armored but arrogant. Corvallis, the Bearkillers, and the Mackenzies still bring the same tired characterizations they had in the last series, let alone the last book in this series.

I'm not hopeful for the next book in this series, either. It's title is The High King of Montival, and if you can't figure out what to expect in that one after reading this one, you've got some issues. Overall, this book telegraphs pretty much every move it makes (with the exception of the death of the one good character), and brings nothing new to the series.