1632

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Summary: UMWA got unstuck in time...
Review: ...and got well and truly stuck in again, with Eric Flint's usual style and ingenuity. The *Connecticut Yankee* subgenre of speculative fiction has been around for a long, long time, and I confess that I'm a sucker for every sort of change that's been rung on this set of bells. It's not just the notion of good storytelling predicated upon a clash of cultures but on the impossible-in-mundania juxtaposition of cultures in collisions that simply couldn't happen without time travel and/or alternate probabilities (see *Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen* and *Lest Darkness Fall* and *At the Earth's Core* and suchlike).

I confess that I'm also a sucker for stories with a subtext extolling not only the ownership and carriage of firearms but also the willingness of the private citizen to use such weaponry to protect and defend the rights of those around him, "gun control laws" be damned for the authoritarian bastardliness they've always been. Flint takes a wonderfully American attitude toward such matters:

(1) Armed conflict is neither glorious and grand nor so utterly horrifying that decent, humane people must be reduced to the status of passive victims;

(2) Like bowel surgery, the use of violent force in the defense of human rights is something to be gotten through as swiftly, skillfully, and with as little secondary injury as possible;

(3) When paying the butcher's bill, the objective is to end the aggressor's existence, either by sending him to perdition or by making him your friend and ally.

I'll not go into much further detail. As other reviewers have observed, there is a plenitude of discussion about the nature of government and the role of the citizen in a society where respect for individual rights is the first and foremost value. We'd be a helluva lot better country right now, in fact, if people like the senior Senator from West Virginia were to embody the values of Flint's fictional West Virginia mining town

*1632* is a fine, readable bit of work, and people who aren't fond of novels like this one are the sort of folks you shouldn't leave unwatched in the presence of your valuables.

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Summary: I would rather have it the other way around!
Review: A cosmic disaster transports an entire American mining town into 17th century Imperial Germany of a parallel universe. The teutonic hordes armed with saber, pike and cannon are soon disbanded, and whereas a millenium earlier Rome had brought civilization and underground sanitation to Germany, blue-collar America tries to establish the 'Novus Ordo Seclorum' called America on German soil... more than a hundred years ahead of schedule. Throughout the book, Germans are depicted as nekulturny savages, uneducated belligerents without a clue and seriously outgunned. I would have rather sent the 37th SS-Panzerdivision to bring law and order to a riotous and civil war ridden America of the 21st century.

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Summary: Time travel with a twist
Review: Very strong plot line combining true historical figures with fictional. I would expect nothing less from Mr. Flint ! Waiting with anticipation for 1633....

shooter83

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Summary: Another set of Americans lost in time ...
Review: Interesting: whenever Americans get lost in time they try to recreate the United States. No matter if it's the bronze age as with Stirling's Islanders or the Germany of the 30-years-war as in this book. But the if there ever was a place and age that required a beacon of light and the hope to exercise one's fundamental rights - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - it was Germany in 1632.

The characters are colourful and the humour is rich. For example the story who really wrote Shakespeare's plays but did not pay his doctor's bills .... . Well, lets just say that the book likes to tell little tales about divine justice.

The Grantville heroes have a blue-collar spirit and attitude, but then there is Gustavus Adolphus ... . IMHO Eric Flint makes him a bit too much of a saviour/hero - and at the same time Wallenstein and Richelieu villains, who were in many ways men ahead of their time and age.

So the mix of not-quite-historical people with Flint's West Virginians and its results is colourful, but very much wishful thinking. But then so is all alternative fiction. Here we get it all: suspense and romance, history and scifi, politics and humor.

With this book Eric Flint has established himself - ,together with S.M Stirling - as the master of colourful story-driven alternative history. The latest novels by that other master Harry Turtledove are much more like a reporter's account from a somewhat different history . History-driven instead of story-driven, which makes them somewhat less enjoyable to read because they almost beg to be taken seriously.

However with this book it is the story, the eternal values that make it such an enjoyable read and make me to eagerly wait for the sequel. It will be interesting to see if Flint continues as in the Belisarius-series with endless battles and an almost super-human hero, or if he takes the approach of Stirling's Islander series with a bit of fast forward in time and new central heroes.

It will be also be very interesting to see how Flint continued Stirling's „Reformer" in the upcoming „Tyrant". Some good books are coming soon ...

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Summary: A new Approach
Review: The whole concept has been done before but this book is an enjoyable read. However the author does tend to go heavily into the "Lets bring democracy to the 17th century" aspect of this story. Read only if you like to read A LOT and are a solid fan of this genera.

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Summary: 1632--Or how a trilogy seemed to be compressed into one book
Review: Mr. Flint took a great idea and didn't run with it. It seemed to me that this book would have been better if it was stretched out into a trilogy, or more, along the lines of Forstchen's "Lost Regiment" series. Every thing in 1632 seemed to happen way to fast. The UMWA conquered army after army, won the girl and created a society faster then anything Superman could have done. Within a matter of months or even days these W. Virginians "conqured" almost all of Europe. It would have been a more interesting book if there was more overall danger and the town didn't seem to overcome every disaster in a blink of an eye.

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Summary: One of the Best Alternative History Titles
Review: Eric Flint's 1632 is one of the spate of Alternative History books stranding modern Americans in some remote past. Like S.M. Stirling's Island in the Sea of Time, Flint's Americans are a mix, but not as natural a mix as Stirling creates. I got the feeling I was reading the script to an old WW2 movie with all the requiste types sometimes. This notwithstanding, Flint creates a dilemma and like the best of the alternative historians, plays it out to its inevitable conclusion.

Written painlessly, Flint's book celebrates the virtues of the disappearing American Union Worker, who according to the world Flint portrays is the last bastion of true American values, while the middle-class is not willing to extend the franchise to all who desire it.

What makes this book so good is that it's basis in the 30 years war is so well done. The mercenary armies of Tilly and Wallenstein ravage the countryside in the name of the Pope, while King Gustavus Augustus leads Protestant Sweden against them. The injection of modern American materialism, expectations of political freedom, and willingness to use massive force is dynamic, compelling, and alternatively stirring, horrifying, and amusing.

A good read, a good lesson. Well worth your time & money.

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Summary: An entertaining ride through alternate history
Review: Eric Flint is one of the masters of the Alternate History subgenre of science fiction, as seen in his ongoing Belisarius series. 1632 shows what the author can do with a more recent milieu, that of 1632 Germany. In this story, a small mining town of current day West Virginians is thrown back in time into the middle of the Thirty Years War, a destructive conflict between Catholics and Protestants. In their struggle to survive amid the harsh new reality they find themselves in, the inhabitants of Grantville must use every edge their technology gives them, and make common cause with the people they find in their new home. Along the way they meet such characters as the legendary Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus.

The story is filled with believable people and believable happenings. the Grantvillers, old and new, are a delightful group of characters ranging from the old mine supervisor and the union leader Mike Stearns, the doctor from Chicago's ghettos, the Jewish doctor/spy Balthazar Arabanel and his brilliant daughter Rebecca, the leftover '60s radical schoolteacher, the geek turned hero, the peasent camp follower turned revolutionary, the scottish cavalry commander, and the cheerleader who's the best sharpshooter in town. Together these characters (and others) can handle just about anything the rest of the world can throw in their way!

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Summary: easy to read omibus of historical errors about Germany
Review: By some kind of explosion, the town of Grantville, West Virginia, is transferred from today into 17th century's Thuringia, during the 30 Years' war.

The inhabitants of the city have to deal with the new surroundings. First thing for them is to "elect" an emergency staff to rule the town during the first phase of adjustment. They soon have to use their superior arms in open combat against imperial mercenaries. Of course there's no doubt as to the outcome of these skirmishes, and in consequence the small community is overrun by german refugees seeking protection.

After the first year Grantville has expanded, forming the "United States" that include almost all cities of southern Thuringia from Eisenach to Gera. Now the young Union has to prove it can take a lead role in European politics, which it does.

The main characters are the president of the Union, a sephardic Jewess, a black doctor, a liberal schoolteacher, a german prostitute and Gustav II. Adolph.

It might have been interesting to learn how the former persons, thrown together through time and space, grow in experience and personality. Unfortunately, none of the characters is credibly depicted. Any exchange of ideas is down to "you ... won't stop me" - like expressions that are sometimes funny but never really interesting.

Even worse is the picture of the latter and all historical persons. Their language is basically swearing. They address each other with first names - in a time, where even husband and wife were using formal addresses in conversation. Their motives are depicted as utter egotisms - except those of Gustav Adolph, whose goal is to rid the german people of tyranny.

Anybody only roughly familiar with history and literature of the age will easily find the flaws in this scheme.

Worse than the characters is the author's command of anything concerning knowledge of the part of Germany he describes.

One of ten German words or phrases is correct, some German is just barely understandable.

German geography and landscape are lost: for instance does Nürnberg lie at the Pegnitz, not the Rednitz river. The description of any German town is apparently fictitious. None of the several strong points of Thuringia at that time and place are mentioned besides the Wartburg, whose description lacks any reality.

The highlight of the book is the description of the battle of Breitenfeld in September 1631. As with any battle depicted in the novel, one is wrapped into its excitement and for once not bored.

On the other hand, the forming of the 'United States' is vague and does not concede with the political systems of the communities involved. The cities who are supposed to join the Union were mostly residences with garrisons and therefore unlikely to join any republic without an armed struggle within their boundaries.

Thus, the novel remains a nice, but not very convincing try at alternate history. If read as 'fictitious' history, however, it may still be amusing reading.

Rating:
Summary: OK, Not Great
Review: This novel is based on an interesting if completely implausible premise, and it has some strengths. Flint delivers some real history in colorful fashion. Most of his characters have some depth to their personalities. (A notable exception is the CEO character, a cartoonish stereotype that reflects the author's biases ' Flint is a proud union organizer and socialist.) The manner in which 17th Century Europeans react to American technology and culture almost makes the book worth recommending. Almost, but not quite.

Unfortunately, Flint has an annoying habit of hinting at events in great meandering detail before he finally zeroes in on the heart of each matter. Other passages have so many characters speaking to one another, it's nearly impossible to decipher who's referring to what.

Despite those major weaknesses, I can't say the book was boring or consistently difficult to read. But as hard as Flint tries, he's not in the same league as Michael Crichton, Robert Sawyer, or even Ben Bova. 1632 is a fun way to pass the time while you wait for the latest book from your favorite sci-fi novelist.