{"id":768,"date":"2006-11-24T00:03:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-24T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=768"},"modified":"2006-11-24T00:03:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-24T00:03:00","slug":"steve-stirlings-wiccans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=768","title":{"rendered":"Steve Stirling’s Wiccans"},"content":{"rendered":"

For reading on last week’s train trip to Washington, D.C., I brought Steve Stirling\u2019s<\/a> The Protector\u2019s War<\/em>; it is the second of a post-apocalyptic trilogy, following Dies the Fire.<\/span> <\/p>\n

In the first book, set in the 1990s, some mysterious Change occurs and suddenly electricity does not flow, internal combustion engines do not combust, gunpowder will not explode, and even steam engines do not function well enough to be useful. One of the characters tries to explain it as a change in the laws governing the behavior of gases. That last is a bit of a stretch, since other sorts of machines, including pumps, do work, and wood-fueled fires do burn. But Stirling clearly wanted to write a Neo-Medieval tale, and so he bypasses any revival of the Age of Steam. <\/p>\n

Within months of the Change, the end of civilization as we know it, the survivors have reverted to idealistic feudalism (the good guys) or despotic feudalism (the bad guys) or outright banditry (the enemies of both). Having a background in special operations (Green Berets<\/a>, SAS<\/a>) or the Society for Creative Anachronism<\/a> seems to be helpful for survival as either good guy or bad guy, since large amounts of the books involved small-group tactics, covert operations, and combat with edged weapons. Having read all of Tolkien\u2019s work twenty times can be a plus too. (The SCA must luv<\/span> this series.)<\/p>\n

Probably the main reason that review copies of parts two and three arrived in my mailbox is Sterling\u2019s pride in creating the character of Juniper MacKenzie, folksinger and Wiccan high priestess, whose coven becomes the nucleus of \u201cClan Mackenzie,\u201d a burgeoning tribe of small farmers and craftspeople who take their archery practice very seriously. The clan makes the \u201cOld Religion\u201d the dominate faith tradition of Oregon\u2019s middle Willamette Valley\u2014except for the monks at Mount Angel<\/a> and a few other hold-outs.<\/p>\n

Having Wiccan characters in a novel of alternative history is not exactly mainstreaming them\u2014-and I could just as easily see a charismatic Protestant pastor organizing the Lord\u2019s Army of kick-ass archers and pikemen\u2014-but it does allow the books\u2019 characters to bring a Pagan sensibility to this tale of war and survival.<\/p>\n

In this second book of the series, which takes place nine after the Change, the older characters are looking at the older teens, who were little kids when civilization died, and then wondering about the next generation, who will never have known anything else, and how their worldview will be significantly different from that of the people who were adults during the Change. <\/p>\n

I wonder if Stirling would have related that to one of the live issues within Pagan studies\u2014-and the movement in general\u2014-about how the religion(s) will change as more and more cradle Pagans and then their children come into them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For reading on last week’s train trip to Washington, D.C., I brought Steve Stirling\u2019s The Protector\u2019s War; it is the second of a post-apocalyptic trilogy, following Dies the Fire. In the first book, set in the 1990s, some mysterious Change occurs and suddenly electricity does not flow, internal combustion engines do not combust, gunpowder will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-co","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12980","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":0},"title":"How about Museum of Witchcraft Version 4.0?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"You can buy the former mill (built 1828) in Castletown, Isle of Man, that once housed housed Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner's \"Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft,\" whose name went through various permutations, even as its little restaurant went from being \"The Folklore Restaurant\" to \"The Witches' Kitchen.\" All\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Gerald Gardner\"","block_context":{"text":"Gerald Gardner","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=gerald-gardner"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5171,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5171","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":1},"title":"An Eggcorn that Annoys Me a Lot","author":"Chas S. 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Somewhere on the Web there is a video clip transferred from film of 1930s students in ancient Greek costumes having an Olympic-style competition on the fieldhouse.This graphic series from Bard attempts to show the stages of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":301,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=301","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":3},"title":"All that I will say\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"All that I will say about the election While Internet pundits dissect the election, I just wish to point out that neither national party seems to recognize that environmental protection is a bipartisan issue. Bush's lame response in the last debate about off-road diesel engines, and Kerry's failure to exploit\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2366,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2366","url_meta":{"origin":768,"position":4},"title":"The Anatomy of Diesel Punk","author":"Chas S. 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Several years ago I participated in a series of conversations at Pantheacon focused on the needs of the Pagan community.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}