Introduction
This book is an example of a new project we're launching in the 1632 series. We're publishing e-books under the imprint of Ring of Fire Press, consisting of two kinds of materials.
The first are reissues -- sometimes expanded and/or rewritten -- of stories which were originally serialized in the Grantville Gazette. These stories were simply too long to be included in any of the paper anthologies published by Baen Books. At the same time, we felt it would be useful (and hopefully popular) to put them together in unitary volumes so that people who want to re-read them, or read them for the first time, don't have to hunt for them scattered over a number of separate issues of the magazine.
The second type are also reissues taken from the Grantville Gazette; in this case, compilations of fact articles on the same (or similar) subjects. We used to reissue fact articles along with stories in the paper editions published by Baen Books. But beginning with the change in format with Grantville Gazette V, where we switched from a direct one-to-one reprint of magazine issues to anthology-style "best of" collections taken from half a dozen issues, we stopped reissuing fact articles altogether. Again, we felt it would be useful (and hopefully popular) to put together unitary e-book volumes devoted to a single topic or closely related set of topics. That way, people interested in the subject matter don't have to hunt for the separate articles scattered across many issues of the magazine.
This is being done in consultation and with the agreement of Baen Books. As before, Baen will continue to publish the paper editions of the Ring of Fire series, as well as the e-book formats of those volumes. The material we will be publishing as Ring of Fire Press is material that Baen would not be publishing.
For those interested, it will also be possible to purchase paper editions of the Ring of Fire Press volumes on a print-on-demand basis.
Eric Flint
June 2013