THE MAELSTROM THAT IS EUROPE,
COMPLICATED BY IRON,
LOVE AND 20TH CENTURY AMERICANS
The Thirty Years War continues to ravage 17th century Europe, but a new force is gathering power and influence: the United States of Europe, forged from an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians from the 20th century, led by Mike Stearns, who were hurled centuries into the past by a mysterious cosmic accident.
This troubled century was full of revolutions and plans for more revolutions before the Americans arrived, and gave every would-be revolutionary an example of a revolution that succeeded. Europe is a pot coming to a boil, and Mike Stearns finds himself walking the fine line between keeping the pot boiling while keeping it from boiling over and destroying the USE in the process.
The USE has the know-how of 20th century technology, but needs iron and steel to make the machines. The iron mines of the upper Palatinate were rendered inoperable by wartime damage, and American ingenuity is needed on the spot to pump them out and get the metal flowing again—a mission that will prove more complicated than anyone expects. First, because the expedition sent to revitalize the mining industry in the upper Palatinate walks into the middle of a ferocious battle between the USE and the Duke of Bavaria. Second, because in the maelstrom that is Europe, even a 20th century copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica can precipitate a crisis from the most unexpected quarters. The young and beautiful daughter of the Austrian emperor, sent to marry the Duke of Bavaria for reasons of state, comes to an unforeseen conclusion based on her study of up-time history. The decision she makes as a result transforms the Bavarian war into a crisis for all of Europe.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Eric Flint is a popular star of SF and fantasy. 1634: The Baltic War, a collaboration with David Weber, was the latest New York Times best seller in the Ring of Fire series. His first novel for Baen, Mother of Demons, was picked by Science Fiction Chronicle as a best novel of the year. His novel 1632, which launched the Ring of Fire series, won widespread critical praise, as from Publishers Weekly, which called him "an SF author of particular note, one who can entertain and edify in equal, and major, measure." A longtime machinist, and labor union activist with a master's degree in history, he currently resides in northwest Indiana with his wife Lucille.
Virginia DeMarce, after jobs as peculiar as counting raisins for the Calif. Dept. of Agriculture, received her Ph.D. in Early Modern European History from Stanford University. She has published a book on German military settlers in Canada after the American Revolution and has served as president of the National Genealogical Society. She taught at Northwest Missouri State University and at George Mason University. She has had stories in the Ring of Fire anthology and Grantville Gazette (#1), and more stories in the online Grantville Gazettes. She has three grown children and five grandchildren, and lives in Arlington, VA, with her husband.
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Product ReviewCould be better, yet still a good one. Go ROF
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Product ReviewNot up to the normal ring of fire books but still a good read!
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Product ReviewMajor disappointment = long review. Same problems as in The Ram Rebellion. Like an object lesson in bad fanfic, not the good stuff. There is no spark. In fact, it's worse than TRR. Lots of characters, but it's only the central ones you can keep straight. The rest are multiple names. Quite unlike what Flint does on his own and with other authors, where even if there are umpteen characters, you get to know them - and are interested. Much of the time, even well-developed characters from earlier books seem like cardboard, except for brief flashes of their original selves. Most of the rest are simply boring. You're either bounced from setting to setting in snippets that make you dizzy... or bogged down in long sections that should be dramatic, but read like a bureaucratic report. It's not quite as plagued by the complicated minutiae of how extended-family Grantville characters are *precisely* related to each other as in TRR; but that's one of the few positives. I plodded through, but at the end wondered why I'd bothered. In fact, I felt like an idiot for thinking it had to have improved from the Gazette stories and TRR. Most of it could've been cut. The rest possibly might have made a mildly interesting novella. Maybe. Preferably, skip this and The Ram Rebellion and go straight to The Baltic War, which is great. The Bavarian front, alas, is boring.
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Product ReviewNot up to the standards of the other 1632 books.
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Product ReviewThis might be the best 1632 novel!
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Product Reviewtoo many womens, too much women mental
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Product ReviewI read the parts of the Book as it was developed and it was very good.
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