The Story So Far… by Walt Boyes
Our story continues in Grantville Gazette 70. In 1631, or 2000, the town of Grantville and a ring around it were transported to an alternate universe and plunked down in the middle of Thuringia in Germany, during the height of the Thirty Years' War. Figuring out where and when they were, the inhabitants of Grantville needed to preserve themselves from what was the bloodiest war to date in human history. To do that, they geared down and reached out, taking in the immigrants that were coming to them displaced by the war and making them Americans.
As war-torn Germany sometimes resembles the Wild West, the State of Thuringia-Franconia set up a Marshals Service, based on what was remembered of the U.S. Marshals Service back in the Original Time Line. Mike Watson gives us "The Marshal Comes to Suhl."
Eric S. Brown and Anna G. Carpenter give us another chapter of the Monster Society, "Even Monsters Die," which brings the LARPers down to earth and back to reality.
In "A Little Help from His Friends," Nick Lorance provides another look at Sergeant Richard Hartmann—Sergeant Whatsisname. With his wife and newborn child dead in childbed, Hartmann takes refuge in soldiering and finds he has to fight off all the predatory females who want to displace Marta in his memory and his bed.
Tim Roesch gives us an only partly hysterical look at schizophrenia in "The Monster Under the Bed."
Bjorn Hasseler graces us this issue with another NESS (Neustatter's European Security Service) story, this time on a train. The story is "Kristallnacht on the Schwarza Express."
David Carrico gives us the beginning of a new serial, "Letters from Gronow, Episode 1."
Gábor Szántai finishes his series on Hungary and Transylvania with a look at key players in those areas.
Kristine Katherine Rusch talks about "Escapist Fiction" in her Notes from the Buffer Zone column, and Chuck Gannon concludes his outtakes from "Papal Stakes: Faces from the Cutting Room Floor." We have had a unique look at what it takes to edit a novel—what stays in and what goes out.
Finally, we are announcing a "Best of 2016" award. Check it out, and nominate and vote.