So I go to the bookstore on the day after Christmas, with gift certificates in my hot little hands. On a rack of “New Releases” I notice a book titled 1633 . The cover has an odd picture of a knight on horseback with an armored ship in the background.
OK. I pick it up and start reading the blurb and it seems it is a sequel to a novel titled(suprise) 1632 . So I go buy that one, leaving the newer one for later.
It’s one of those transposed in time/alternate history novels. Most of these have just one person, or very few, with limited resources, being transported. This has a whole town, with all it’s paraphenalia and technology, being plunked down into the middle of Germany during the Thirty Year’s War. Sounds wild, but to me it’s been great. Always did like history, and this one is extremely detailed. Great basis for a "What *would * you do sort of discussion.
The author of 1632 is Eric Flint, and he co-wrote 1633 with David Weber. And there will be more books in the series, and an anthology of short stories that take place within the main plotlines of the books. I love it when I find a great new(to me) series! These books are great and I highly recommend them.
Me, if I could keep just one luxury from “uptime” in the past that the town goes to, it would be an unlimited supply of toilet paper!
I read the first one, which was great. Haven’t read the second one yet. After Weber’s disappointing The Shiva Option and the reports of the poor quality of the latest Honor Harrington book (which I still haven’t read), I’m a little gunshy about putting up the dough for a new Weber hardback. The only other Eric Flint I’ve read, his Belisaurius series, started out strong, but stumbled badly by the third book. I didn’t finish the series. Yeah, I think I’ll wait for paperback for 1633.
I’ve read both books and be warned the overall tone of the series changes noticably between the first and second books. 1632 was fairly light and action packed while 1633 seemed to be taking itself more seriously. I have to assume this is Weber’s influence as co-author. I’m not saying that either book is better or worse, but you might find you don’t enjoy both equally.
If you like the idea of a modern American town being sent back into the past, I’d very highly recommend S.M. Stirling’s Nantucket trilogy.
I liked 1632, but haven’t read 1633 yet. When I heard that a sequel was being worked on, I was hoping they would go forward a generation or two and explore the long-term historical and political results of the first book, like Harry Turtledove does with the How Few Remain/Great War/American Empire series. I haven’t kept up with that series either. I’m not saying it’s bad, I just don’t have the inclination to plow through stories that span multiple novels anymore. I would have liked to have seen something like a 1685 instead.
And while I do think 1685 would be a good book I really want to see what the short story anthology does. It will be able to deal with the supporting stories that the main novels don’t have space for. For example, what does a Catholic priest from uptime do, or to whom does he owe allegiance, in a world where the Inquisition is still in operation?
One minor character in the second book(named Stoner, tee hee) has a greenhouse in which he has been growing all kinds of interesting plants. Now he is popular with the two doctors and the pharmacist because of course they have run out of anesthetics and antibiotics, and some of what he has will help them out. They’ve even managed to “cook up” one of the older antibiotics, chloramphenicol.
Yes, the tone did change some between the two books, but so did the situation of the people, as time passed. I took it as more of an adjustment they were making to really living in a different world. Still liked them both.
