If the way Juniper Mackenzie forges Clan Mackenzie with longbows and ritual, while Mike Havel builds the Bearkillers to stand against the Protector’s neo‑feudal ambitions, hooked you, you’ll love how a comet strike forces California communities to reinvent law, agriculture, and defense in Lucifer’s Hammer. Like the clashes with Norman Arminger’s Portland Protectorate, you’ll get tense stand‑offs against raiders, hard choices about who gets shelter, and the nuts‑and‑bolts of rebuilding a working enclave from scavenged know‑how.

Drawn to the Bearkillers’ horse‑archer drills, pike walls, and scrounged medicine runs after the Change? One Second After delivers that same ground‑level urgency. As John Matherson organizes militias, rationing, and ad‑hoc clinics after an EMP, you’ll recognize the practical triage and tough council decisions that echoed when Juniper rationed grain for Sutterdown and Mike enforced hard discipline on the road—right down to the moral calculus of who the community can save.

If you liked how Dies the Fire weaves Juniper’s clan, Mike Havel’s Bearkillers, and the Protector’s warbands into intersecting paths, Swan Song offers a similarly sweeping tapestry. You’ll track Swan, Josh, Sister, and their allies as their journeys collide—much like the build‑up to clashes with Norman Arminger—balancing harrowing road episodes with the formation of tight‑knit bands that feel as lived‑in as Clan Mackenzie around the fire.

The way Juniper shapes culture—chants, oaths, and Wiccan rites—and how the Protector codifies chivalry for control are key pleasures of Dies the Fire. In The Postman, a simple postal uniform evolves into a nation‑binding myth, sparking alliances and resistance against Holnist warlords. If the Mackenzies’ moots, the Bearkillers’ command structure, and the Protectorate’s pageantry fascinated you, this rich, boots‑on‑the‑ground worldbuilding will hit the same nerve.

Enjoyed how Dies the Fire alternates between Juniper’s Willamette Valley hearth and Mike Havel’s road‑march decisions, letting you see the Change from multiple angles before converging on showdowns with the Protector? Station Eleven uses a similar mosaic: performers in the Traveling Symphony, archivists at the Museum of Civilization, and others piece together a post‑flu world, echoing the way Mackenzies and Bearkillers create culture and continuity out of loss.