According to Amazon.com, there will be a total of four books published of Eric Flint's 163x series. Two of them, Grantville Gazette II and 1634: The Ram Rebellion, are already out, and the other two, 1635: Cannon Law (a sequal to 1634: The Gallileo Affair) and Grantville Gazette III, will be out in September and December, respectivley. Not only that, but 1634: The Baltic War (a "main-line" story) will be out early next year. And I haven't even gotten GGII or 1634: TRR.
Four 163x books this year
- Thread starter Archangel Michael
- Start date
Early reviews on 1634: The Ram Rebellion are not encouraging on Amazon. After being suckered into buying the lackluster 1634: The Galileo Affair after enjoying 1632 & 1633, I think I'll pass on this one. And what's with the stock romances in each of these books (the age discrepancy in 1634 was most unbelievable between Sharon & that old dude)--are these Harlequin romances, or survival narratives overlying an underlying ideological contest between democracy & aristocracy with lots of technowankery thrown in? I'm not expecting a series that started out as a trade unionist's triumphalist time travel fantasy to reach the levels of George R.R. Martin's characterization in A Song of Fire and Ice, but some better plotting would be appreciated. Harry Turtledove eventually learned to stop writing crappy sex scenes; perhaps the many authors in the 163x series can lay off the stock romances. (At least there's no copious teen-screwing like in Leo Frankowski's Knight series.)
Too many trips to the well here, Mr. Flint; don't dissipate the focus & interest in this universe with too many marginal products.
Too many trips to the well here, Mr. Flint; don't dissipate the focus & interest in this universe with too many marginal products.
Bwahahahah! i warned you all, there's gonna be a million of these damned books.
I'll just stay with 1632, by far the best book...
I'll just stay with 1632, by far the best book...
After GGIII, there's at least another five more to publish in paper form (with GGVIII coming out in electronic form soon). Plus there's going to be another Ring of Fire anthology, 1635: The Eastern Front, 1634: The Bavarian Crisis, 1635: The Dreeson Incident, 1634: Escape from the Tower(?), 1635: Julie's Curse, 1635: The Torturer of Fulda, 1635: The King of Bohemia, and 1635: Symphony for the Devil. So that's six more fan-written anthologies (probably more) and nine novels. And he's also said that there's going to be three more Assiti shard stories, 1776, By Any Other Name, and Timespike. If it wasn't for the numerous co-authors he's writing the 163x series with, there's be no way he'd be able to write it all.Psychomeltdown said:
joatsimeon@aol.com
Banned
Well...
Eric's good, but Baen does tend to overwork his authors and to do too many collaborations. Writing is a solitary task and books are one-off handicraft productions; any plan which doesn't recognize this is going to have negative effects long-term.
A little of the sharecropping stuff is OK; too much is dangerous.
Eric's good, but Baen does tend to overwork his authors and to do too many collaborations. Writing is a solitary task and books are one-off handicraft productions; any plan which doesn't recognize this is going to have negative effects long-term.
A little of the sharecropping stuff is OK; too much is dangerous.
Octoparrot, one of the great kindnesses of Eric Flint and Baen Books is the ability to check a few sample chapters out before buying.
Also to have something to read instead of doing work in my office, but I digress...
The latest anthology isn't looking so good to me, which is unfortunate as most of the short stories in the first Gazette were actually fairly good, which gave me hope that a screening process had been set up to maintain a certain level of standards. Oh well.
It is a great honor to share a thread with one of my favorite authors, and might I add that no less than six of your books are currently in sight from where I sit at my computer?
However, might I be so bold as to jest that the time spent here might also be used in getting more books finished and into the stores for my perusal?
Also to have something to read instead of doing work in my office, but I digress...
The latest anthology isn't looking so good to me, which is unfortunate as most of the short stories in the first Gazette were actually fairly good, which gave me hope that a screening process had been set up to maintain a certain level of standards. Oh well.
It is a great honor to share a thread with one of my favorite authors, and might I add that no less than six of your books are currently in sight from where I sit at my computer?
...great, I'm coming off as stalker rather than fan...
However, might I be so bold as to jest that the time spent here might also be used in getting more books finished and into the stores for my perusal?
Thanks for your thoughts Mr. Stirling...I recall you had some history with Jim Baen and his company's workings?
ANyway, I do appreciate Baen Books preview material for their products, and I have actually prepurchased both collections of the Grantville Gazette, but the later issues are declining in quality, though some stories are still quite good. (Mr. Huff's stuff is quite good.) Still there seems to be an overwhelming need to pair off couples. It's like there's a formula: take an uptimer, uptimer uses uptime knowledge & American entrepreneurial spirit to impress person of opposite sex (because 163x is schwulenfrei), then they pair up.
I am also starting to think some of the authors are eager to show off their knowledge of obscure canon or county law in 1630's Germany to the detriment of an interesting story. Who here remembers the infamous novel 1945 by Forstchen & (Newt) Gingrich? There was a line in there where a German described how they would employ the Me262, Ar234 and Do335 aircraft in different roles for Operation Sealion, and you know it was just put in there as technowankery to reward the technically knowledgable reader. Alas, the entire book was like that, lacking any other merits, and I'm hoping these 163x spinoffs avoid the same phenomenon. Similar in effect to the Dilbert cartoon where Dogbert mocks Dilbert by drawing Boron, the Most Boring Man in the Universe, who singlehandedly slays the marketing department through boredom by explaining asynchronous communication protocols....
ANyway, I do appreciate Baen Books preview material for their products, and I have actually prepurchased both collections of the Grantville Gazette, but the later issues are declining in quality, though some stories are still quite good. (Mr. Huff's stuff is quite good.) Still there seems to be an overwhelming need to pair off couples. It's like there's a formula: take an uptimer, uptimer uses uptime knowledge & American entrepreneurial spirit to impress person of opposite sex (because 163x is schwulenfrei), then they pair up.
I am also starting to think some of the authors are eager to show off their knowledge of obscure canon or county law in 1630's Germany to the detriment of an interesting story. Who here remembers the infamous novel 1945 by Forstchen & (Newt) Gingrich? There was a line in there where a German described how they would employ the Me262, Ar234 and Do335 aircraft in different roles for Operation Sealion, and you know it was just put in there as technowankery to reward the technically knowledgable reader. Alas, the entire book was like that, lacking any other merits, and I'm hoping these 163x spinoffs avoid the same phenomenon. Similar in effect to the Dilbert cartoon where Dogbert mocks Dilbert by drawing Boron, the Most Boring Man in the Universe, who singlehandedly slays the marketing department through boredom by explaining asynchronous communication protocols....
The thing is is that hardcore 163x fans, like me, will continue to buy them as long as they write them.
Thande
Donor
There are so many reasons why I shouldn't like the 163x series and yet there's something strangely more-ish about them. Unfortunately, it's very hard to get hold of anything in the UK apart from 1632, 1633, the Grantville Gazette I and Ring of Fire. I haven't seen 1634: The Galileo Affair anywhere; in the end I bought it on a recent trip to the US.
Kidblast said:
A lot of them are solo works. David Weber wrote the entire Honorverse books by himself (excpet for Shadow of Saganami and Crown of Slaves) and John Ringo wrote the Posleen books solo. Some series (such as what 163x is coming too, the Raj Whitehall series, and the Belisarius sieres) were all collaborations.
joatsimeon@aol.com
Banned
Grimm Reaper said:However, might I be so bold as to jest that the time spent here might also be used in getting more books finished and into the stores for my perusal?
-- working on it...
.Archangel Michael said:
Äh no Shadow of Saganami is a Solo of David Weber only Crown of Slaver was with Eric Flint.
Gustav Anderman said:
Sorry 'bout that. I just realized it today.
Well, there are about four anthology books, and IIRC, Stirling had a story in one.
joatsimeon@aol.com said:
Perhaps but I did enjoy Raymond Feist's and Janny Wurts' collaboration on the Empire Trilogy that TL wise ran somewhat concurrent to his Rift War saga and several of the follow on books.
From what I understand the Galileo Affair, the Ram's Rebellion and several others are written by other authors and Eric is just the editor for consistency. Just as the Grantville Gazette's are really just approved fan fiction cleaned up by Eric.
Also if you go to Baen's Bar you can read most of his books for free (not all of it roughly 3/4 of each book) as he posts roughly a few pages worth every couple of days (supposedly he is going to automate the process now so they should come out every Mon., Wed., and Fri.).
I just got 1634: The Ram Rebellion. Basically, it's just ninteen short stories and a novella that are strung together by a simple thread: a peasent rebellion in Franconia.