1635: The Baltic War

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1635: The Baltic War: Eric Flint and David Weber

Two of my favorite authors teaming up to continue the story in Eric Flint's 1632 series. (a blurb I wrote about 1632)

The premise behind the series is a West Virginia mining town in 1990 is transported back to 1630's Germany in the middle of the 30 year's war. From that simple concept comes a wealth of stories. How people from "up time" deal with being thrust into the 17th century. How the contemps deal with the new ideas from the up timers. The introduction of up time technology. The disruption of the political landscape. How to build a society. Of course, war.

After the first couple of books (1632, 1633) the story line separates into separate strands, plotlines, sets of characters. I think I read this book out of order, but it's not all that clear what the reading order should be.

Anyhow -- to THIS book. I ended with a smile. It took me a bit to get into the book. I hadn't read any in the series in several months, and felt a little disjointed due to not remembering everything about the characters. And there are a LOT of characters, plus plenty of new ones introduced in this book. In time, you get into the flow of the book. It's fast paced and enjoyable. There is a lot to like. Politics, historical "what if's", action, a bit of romance, really good character development, great battle scenes.

One of the things I like about the series is the notion of the contempts (actual historical characters) having read the uptime history books. So Cromwell is arrested when King James reads that, in 20 years, Cromwell would over throw him. The painter Paul Rubens has to deal with seeing all of his life's greatest works -- in a book -- before he's ever painted them. Not to mention several hundred years of other art. Does he go ahead and try to paint those paintings as imitations of his own work from another time?

I also enjoy the societal interplay between 17th century royalty and the American "common man".

It's hard to describe these books. They are rich and involved. In addition, there is a vibrant online community. Lots of folks talking about the real technology, what was available, what could be accomplished. This isn't "science fiction" in the sense of lasers and worm holes. This is just a science fiction twist, and the rest is alternate history. What if.... The "what if" and "how could they" details are fascinating to me and really add spice to the story. There's also a lot of fan fiction, the best of which is compiled into "Gazettes" and sold as well. Some of the ideas brought up in fan fiction gets incorporated into the mainline books.

I'll conclude by reminding folks of the excellent Baen Free Library. All these books can be found there. Or purchase DRM free versions for only $6 from webscriptions.net

Lee