1632

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Story! Great Fun to Read!
Review: When it comes to silly premises "1632" can't seem much sillier. A small West Virginian town is transported back in time and dropped into 17th century Germany. The funny things is it works. Once you get past the impossible the story really works! How would 21st century man function in pre-Napoleon Europe? Is technology enough to overcome war, death and pestilence? This sure gives a reasonable account on what happens when two such disparate worlds collide.

The characters presented are well rounded deep and a joy to follow. The love stories intertwined throughout the book are wonderful, especially the romance of one steel-minded camp follower and a geeky boy from the future.

A thoroughly enjoyable blend of history, fantasy, action and romance it is one of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND "1632"

Rating:
Summary: A town full of WV Coal miners in Gustavus Adolphus' realm
Review: This book is as flawed as Mark Twain's original in the "What If" genre, and every bit as much a rollicking, rip-roaring good read! I ate the whole thing in one sitting!

Some reviewers have panned 1632 for "suspends disbelief" and "too pat". I fully agree, but what are they reading fantasy for if it must be fully believable? The beauty of Fantasy-SF is that it allows us to examine important values or principles isolated from the environment where they developed.

Had I been the author, I would have spent more time with logistics. If an army fights on its stomach, as Napoleon said, then it is also true that a society survives on its supply chain. I would worry about Latex for the pick-up tires, brass for the rifle reloads, petroleum for automotive technologies and a plastics/chemical industry. I would look at copper, vacuum technology, smelting, glass, gunpowder, paper, textiles, machine tools, etc.; all the fundamentals on which our civilization relies.

But I didn't write it, and I have had several days to deliciously fill in the details for myself. To me, the real test of a good read is how long it takes you to get involved and how long it lingers after you close the book. On both fronts, 1632 comes out first rate, I was hooked about the time the Union Boss cut his fists on a pikeman's jaw, and I have put myself to sleep for several nights doing my own what-ifs on its story line.

I have been so moved that I can't look at another of my favorite authors until I read 1633, fearing, at the same time, that it will degenerate into formula prose and disappoint.

I gave 1632 four stars because the good guys are too good and the bad guys, while bad enough, are incompetent. There was no real danger of danger, and only straw men stood between the town and happy-ever-after.

That said, this is the most readable book I have consumed in several years!

Rating:
Summary: Surprised Me
Review: I originally read this book as a free download from baen.com. I'd never heard of Eric Flint before, and so I went into the reading of this novel without expectations.

Flint's prose is crisp and propels the story forward at an enjoyable pace. As well, it appears as if he has carefully thought out how modern and medieval technology might mesh together. I am new to the genre of throwback "what-if" stories, but "1632" has made a believer out of me.

Buy this book and you'll find yourself hunting down other works by Mr. Flint. I did...

Rating:
Summary: A treasure from start to finish!
Review: The premise of the story intrigued me, and I bit. A modern day city is inexplicably cast into the past (guess what year?) and must contend with one 17th Century catastrophe after another. Alternate history books are great, but the greatest of all is when the present and past are mixed together like this. The action is nonstop, and the characterization is superb. I couldn't read it fast enough, and after about 50 pages, I ran to the computer to order its sequel, 1633. I am not an expert in history, so I'm not saddled with the need to pick apart whether there were any errors or not. I just simply enjoyed every page of this fantastic escape.

Rating:
Summary: An Odd Alternative History Novel
Review: This is an odd book. Its point of departure is the sudden transposition of town in modern West Virginia to Germany in 1632, right in the middle of the Thirty Years War. This type of book has become popular lately and is inspired by Murray Leinster's short story Sidewise in Time and the late L. Sprague De Camp's novel Lest Darkness Fall. S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time series is a notable recent exemplar of this subgenre. Essential features of this subgenre are that the interdimensional transfer generates a new path for human history and that the transferees are modern Americans whose advanced technology and political/moral values produce an actual improvement in the course of history. This book is no exception to these generalizations. The transferees prove themselves to be resourceful and humane. There are the usual adventure, combat, and romantic elements. The Americans establish a relatively modern republic in the middle of 17th century Germany and become allies of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the greatest general and monarch of the time.

Books like this can be judged to a large extent on the ability of the author to avoid really obvious anachronisms. In this respect, I am not sure that Flint does very well. He is certainly knowledgeable about the basics of 17th century history but his treatment of the attitudes of historical figures is suspect. At the heart of this problem is more than a strong hint of what used to be called the Whig Interpretation of History. This idea tends to see European history as a progression towards modern liberal values and Protestantism as a principal engine of that progression. Catholicism comes off badly, a source of intolerance and oppression. I don't disagree about the behavior of the Counter Reformation Church but there is no evidence that the Protestants were any better. The great English apostles of religous toleration, Milton and Locke, were unwilling, for example, to extend religous toleration to Catholics. The treatment of Gustavus Adolphus strikes me as very anachronistic. When Louis the XIVth said the state is me, he meant exactly that and those sentiments were shared by other 17th century monarchs. I can't see a man like Gustavus Adolphus, who treated Sweden as an instrument of his dynastic ambitions, behaving the way he is depicted in this book. This book is also an advertisement for trade unionism. In and of itself, this is not bad and I am sympathetic to Mr. Flint's belief that trade unions are an essential component of a decent society. In this book, however, this is an accretion and not an organic component of the plot. It was introduced, I suspect, to counter the individualistic bias of similar books like H. Beam Piper's Kalvan stories, which have a distinctly individualistic and conservative orientation.

As commented by several other reviewers, the quality of writing in this book is amateurish.

Rating:
Summary: look for other time-travel books
Review: I've read Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time and as I really liked it I was looking for a book with a similar setting, 1632 seemed promising - until I actually tried to read it.

To make it short
negative:
--- Reality is seldom black and white, not so in this book: protestant or jewish=good, catholic=bad; union member=good, capitalist=bad; swedish=best, dutch or english=good, the rest=suspect; gustav adolphus=godlike (oh he started wars with every single one of his neighbors but only for humanitarian reasons, really, and I'm sure the (catholic *and* protestant) cities pillaged to support his army were glad to have bathed in his unearthy glory -- perhaps he was actually better than most of his fellow kings at that time but he was definitely no peace-loving saint)
--- 1-dimensional doesn't do the characterisations justice; 0-dim comes closer
--- "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
Eric Flint obviously never heard of this saying as every "good" character (don't worry you will know whether one person is good or bad the moment he/she is introduced) casts aside every believe or custom of his old life and accepts the superiority of the UMWA way
--- I like unions, I really think they're a good thing; but I *don't* want to read every second sentence how the brave men of the UMWA saved the day and what good friends they are and how only unionists are true Americans... you get the idea
--- Everything goes smooth, too smooth; noone goes mad after realizing that he'll never see the 20th century again, there's enough of everything and some smaller problems with keeping the modern stuff running appear more like an afterthought
--- the writing is bad, really bad in fact that book would make an acceptable fanfic but it utterly fails as a serious book;

positive:
--- You really learn to appreciate the other alternate history/time travel books available - I already mentioned Island in the Sea of Time as it has a similar setting (small town is set back in time and its struggle for survival) but there are many more out there and I'd assume that most are better than this one

summary:
Due to its patriotic tendencies perhaps a nice read for Independance Day (unless you're a businessman, government official, catholic, historian or have troubles accepting the general superiority of the industrious West Virginian mine worker) but please don't read that book and expect to know anything about the 30-years war afterwards.

Rating:
Summary: A Bill of Rights Explosion
Review: Alternate history novels have been around for quite awhile, but most of them focus on the difference a single individual or a single decision will make. This book instead looks at what would happen if an entire town is transported back to the middle of 17th century Germany, during the middle of the Thirty Years War.

The town in question is a quiet West Virginia town of about 3,000 which at one point subsisted on proceeds of its coal mine, now shut down, but which has left the legacy of a great number of the town's adult men being UMWA union members. When plopped down in Germany, the union's leader, Mike Stearn, effectively takes charge and begins the process of not only turning the town into a self-sufficient entity but also melding it into a major player into the politics of day.

The good things about this work are its intense descriptions of the battle techniques and weapons of the day and what a difference a little bit of modern firepower can make, its obviously well researched look at the politics and religious battles of the Europe of that age, an interesting look at the position of the Jews within this society, and its easy reading style.

On the negative side, characterization, while adequate, is not very deep for anyone. The motif of 'love at first sight' is way overused. How the town makes the transition from 20th century technology to a stripped down mix of 18th and 19th century level is not covered in enough detail to make it convincing, which is a shame as this could have been one of the most interesting aspects of this novel. The ready acceptance by the German peasants of not only the technological marvels but also the concepts embodied by the Bill of Rights strained my suspension of disbelief mightily, even though it made an excellent theme for the novel. And finally the scene where the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, comes galloping on horseback to the rescue of the town's schoolchildren came across as both melodramatic and unnecessary.

Still, like many novels that occupy this sub-genre, it all makes for a good, fun read, with an interesting look at the history and people of that time.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

Rating:
Summary: If you liked the Dick and Jane series, you'll love this
Review: What a good idea to have a historical fiction book set in Thirty Years War Germany! Too bad Eric Flint had it, rather than someone who is capable of writing. Your first indication that the book may not be worthwhile is the cover, which informs you that the author was a longtime union organizer. But then you rationalize that the author could not infuse much of his tired ideology into a novel about seventeenth century Germany. So you open to the first page and see a map of the Old Reich, with Bohemia outside the border and identified as the Ottoman Empire! OK, so the author knows about as much history as you would expect of a union organizer. Maybe he can at least tell a story. Wrong again! He writes like a sixth grader. Not only short, choppy sentences but also one-dimensional fictional characters and pathetically unrealistic portrayals of historical figures are encountered by the reader. At this point, you either bail out or admit that you do not have a life, and thus are fully justified in wasting your time with this garbage. I bailed out.

Rating:
Summary: Low calorie, but satisfying...
Review: This is light reading. The key protagonists never really seem to be in danger. The plot advances slowly, but inevitably in favor of "the good guys." The volume would be right at home in the "young adult" section of the library.

Still, the premise is lots of fun, and the historical parts are quite educational, yet compelling to read. I'm not ashamed to state that I really enjoyed this book, although I am beyond the "young adult" reading level.

Never a history buff, my knowledge of 17th century Europe has been greatly expanded. If 1632 offers nothing else, it serves as a very palatable reminder of the precious value of the democracy and civilization that we enjoy.

Read this book, and, along with me, you will be casting your vote for the "4th of July Party".

Rating:
Summary: The best I have read in 2002.
Review: 1632, followed by 1633 are the best books I have read lately.
Very entertaining but also very informative. I can hardly wait for the next tome in the series...