The Change alters both the course of history and all physical laws when it causes all the electricity, firearms, explosives, internal combustion engines, steam power and most forms of high-energy-density technology on Earth to permanently no longer work.

The first book, Dies the Fire, concerns the conflicts between a Portland-based neo-feudalist dictatorship and the free communities of the Willamette Valley, primarily the Bearkillers and the Wiccan Clan Mackenzie.

Although the region lost over 95 percent of its population, it was spared being turned into a "death zone" with no survivors except bands of cannibals—the usual fate for areas around large cities—for several reasons.

First, much of the population of Portland—the largest city in the region—was forced out by the Portland Protective Association (PPA) and either died en masse or joined the tens of thousands congregated in large refugee camps around Salem.

Third, large numbers of people living in refugee camps with limited medical supplies became susceptible to disease, including the bubonic plague.

[16] Post-Change Oregon history is then marked with the PPA's attempts to conquer the entire Willamette Valley, but the southern communities—led by the Bearkillers and Clan Mackenzie—successfully opposed them.

[19] A decade later, the nations of the Meeting became embroiled in a war with the combined forces of the Church Universal and Triumphant and the United States of Boise.

For a time, the PPA had an antipope, Leo XIV, and operated an Inquisition, but this ended after contact was re-established with the real Pope in Badia, Italy.

Havel saved the wealthy Larsson family from death after crash-landing their light airplane in the mountains of Idaho; they later formed the nucleus of the Bearkillers.

The lands held by the Bearkillers are divided into thorps, outlying farms centering upon a fortified settlement with a smithy, mill, and other utilitarian buildings.

Festivities include the Lord Bear setting a bowl of gunpowder on fire to test whether the laws of physics have been restored to their original condition, a feast with representatives from local nations attending, and the induction of new members into the Brotherhood of the Bearkillers.

Founded by Astrid Larsson (of the Bearkiller-Larsson family) and Eilir Mackenzie, the Dúnedain Rangers are a semi-mercenary military organization that protects caravans and fights brigands in the Willamette Valley.

The Eastern United States, most of Texas and California were some of the worst hit, as starving urbanites ate the remaining food in the area before resorting to cannibalism.

The Sioux live a nomadic lifestyle, taking care of their herds and hunting buffalo, though also raiding their neighbors unless they are paid protection money.

Prince Edward Island also survived relatively intact, becoming a part of the British Empire, compared to most of the heavily populated sections of eastern Canada along the Saint Lawrence Seaway, such as Toronto and Montreal, which also became a Death Zone.

Mexico and Central America, including the Caribbean, were almost completely depopulated by overlapping Death Zones, though by 2050, Jamaica would recover enough to have merchants trade in British ports.

Iowa managed to weather the Change, thanks to its rural economy, low population, and the fact that the Governor closed the bridges across the Mississippi River so starving refugees from the eastern states could not enter.

In Great Britain, the royal family and others were evacuated to the Isle of Wight on the third day after The Change to protect them from the starving rioters in London and other major cities.

Contact was made with other parts of the world, including Iceland, which removed a substantial portion of its population to Britain in order to survive.

Comments by the author suggest that Greek survivors from Cyprus become a power in the region, repopulating the fertile Egyptian Delta and the Levantine Coasts.

[attribution needed] Russia apparently regressed into a handful of rural kingdoms, including one based around Belograd, with the Cossacks and Tatars thriving.

Pope John Paul II died in the Vatican at the time of the Change, instead of surviving until 2005, as in our timeline, but Cardinal Ratzinger fled to Umbria, where connections with the worldwide Roman Catholic church were reestablished and he was still elected Pope, as in our timeline – and his pontificate lasts until 2022 (by coincidence, the real Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI lived up to that date but had resigned in 2013 for health reasons).

Shortly after the change, a single member of the Japanese Royal Family was evacuated from Tokyo by a group of soldiers referred to as the Seventy Loyal Men, though only 46 of them would survive the trip to Sado, Niigata.

Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Il, under the influence of the same Powers who guided the Church Universal and Triumphant in the United States, conquered much of mainland Eastern Asia following the Change.

[33] 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.

(...) 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.

"[36] Fredric Smoler, writing for American Heritage, notes that "reason still allows men and women the (sadly reduced) power to manipulate their environment", but "it is not obvious how a scientific (or feminist) worldview will survive in a newly feudalized, increasingly religious, and fundamentally agrarian world.

[33] This idea is originally expressed in-character by people in former First World areas, and later in the series other characters remark that the assumption is unfounded based on exploration many years post-Change.

[27] Critic Harriet Klausner described Scourge as being like a Greek tragedy due to certain characters receiving visions from "gods", incidents of demonic possessions, cursed arrows, and other uses of magic.

[38] In a dialogue between a mercenary and Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec deity, reveals that humanity's lack of attention towards the gods allowed "monsters below the horizon" to bring about the Change.