1634: The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint (and others) - is a collection of short stories with a common theme and plot build up with resolution. Confusing? Well, it's not a typical book with plot lines, and it's not simply a collection of short stories.
Eric Flint remarks that he doesn't subscribe to the "Big Man" view of history. So, this book is kind of the answer to that -- it's many stories of "normal, ordinary" people who together make history.
The book is set in Flint's "1632" universe where a 1990 mining town in West Virginia is transposed to 1630's Germany smack in the middle of the 30 year's war. From that "science fiction" setting, the rest of the book is written without further impossibilities. It's a fascinating alternate history setting with the mixture of contemparary (to us) people's with limited amounts of their technology and historical characters and people's.
Good portions of this book are laugh out loud funny. In all, though, I prefer a more traditionally plotted book. There is plenty of good material that make this a worthy read for those who have read the previous books in the series.
The book's publisher is Baen, so the ebook costs $6 and is DRM free, or from the Fifth Imperium Site.
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/2...asternFrontCD/ is the link to the contents of the cd that has this book.
http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/2...ernFrontCD.zip is the link to the files on the CD.
The CD is distributed with Baen's blessing.
Lee