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." First world more likely to survive Another theme of the series is that First World countries are likely to survive the Change better than Third World countries. Stirling speculates that the developed world is a larger repository of handicraft lore than the undeveloped world, because the latter group heavily relies on First World castoffs and is too busy on a day-to-day basis to keep up the old ways, while people in the First World have the leisure to become expert horse riders or bow makers. 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. Myth and magic In the novels, it often appears that magic exists in the world since the Change. When asked whether he was leaving room for magic in the Emberverse, Stirling replied that he could not answer that since he did not wish to give away any plot points, but admitted that by The Scourge of God, people will begin to decide whether or not "magic" is possible in the series. 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. As the character of Father Ignatius says, however, there is always a rational explanation available: he notes that Ingolf's capture by Kuttner when Kuttner simply spoke a word at the end of The Sunrise Lands was probably the result of a post-hypnotic suggestion. Reviewer Dale Arnold of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society suggests that magic has real political and societal impact in the Emberverse, whether or not it is actually the result of supernatural force or merely religious delusions, because the characters act as if it were real. As of "The Sea Peoples" (2017), "magic" is increasingly evident, yet still remains deniable by those of a rationalist mind who do not directly experience it. In particular, approximately half the action of this work takes place in alternate realms which are experienced only through the agency of shamanic magic. See