High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Scourge of God (2008) is an alternate history, post-apocalyptic novel by S. M. Stirling. It is the fifth book in the Emberverse series. The novel continues the journey of Rudi Mackenzie and his companions as they travel across the former United States, a generation after "The Change" killed off technology and plunged the world into a new Dark Age, on their quest to Nantucket where rumor says The Change originated. The novel`s title comes from the title Sethaz gave himself at the end of The Sunrise Lands: