Science fiction author Eric Flint has died. Probably best known for his alternative history series and shared world that started with 1632. I did enjoy the series quite a lot but it got so big it got away from me.
This is sad.
Well fuck.
RIP Eric. I wonder how many novels he had in the pipeline?
I had thought he was a lot younger than that.
With as much as he collaborated and co-authored, probably a lot. Some of them might still be finishable by his co-authors, some not.
Yeah, I didn’t think he was that old either. I hope Baen can find somebody to take over the ropes of wrangling the 163X Universe. They have some good authors in the mix, but it will need a firm hand moving forward, especially with the Main Line characters. Who were in a bit of a pickle, last we heard of them.
Well damn. Between Flint’s death and David Drake’s retirement, there’s not a lot of new stuff I care about coming from Baen.
i really enjoyed the 16xx stories. so sad to read this.
This may be a modest hijack, but I can’t think of a better place to ask this question…
I read 1632 and enjoyed it. I haven’t read any of the followups in part because it looks like the number of books and the various sub-series that contain them is substantial, and I tend to avoid that kind of thing as my backlog of unread books is… embarrassingly large.
Anyone have any thoughts on how to tackle this universe without getting bogged down?
I’ve met Eric a few times; he had family in the area and often came to Albacon. Very interesting fellow.
Easy. Just stick to the books where Eric is listed as a primary (or sole) author. Those follow the Main Line cast, with references to the outlying novels/stories. Also read the “Ring of Fire” short story collections. If you read them in In-Universe chronological order, you should be fine.
My suggested order:
1632
1633
Ring of Fire
1634: The Baltic War
1635: The Eastern Front
Ring of Fire 2
1636: The Saxon Uprising
1637: The Ottoman Onslaught
1638: The Polish Maelstrom
That’s it for the Main Line. The others authored by Eric that are quite good are the Naval novels:
1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies
1636: The Atlantic Encounter
1637: No Peace Beyond the Line.
Always thought that 1632 could make a decent movie. Sequel potential obviously built in.
The underlying concept may be far out, but his series could be the next Game of Thrones.
One nice thing about the 1632 series is that it’s really easy to see at a glance what order they’re in.
I think I got as far as “The Galileo Affair”, or whatever one followed on from that, before drifting away… That one, I found much less interesting, because the uptimers were almost completely irrelevant: All of the important events could just as well have happened in our timeline.
the scene of 1632 men seeing cheerleaders in the high school had me laughing for days. he portrayed the culture shock of both sides so very well.
Not to mention the search for “the Jew - Lee McCoy.”
That, and how the uptimers were shocked at how casually downtimers used obscenities, while at the same time, downtimers were shocked at how casually uptimers used profanities.
(I’m just the sort of pedant who distinguishes between obscenities, profanities, curses, and swears, even today)
I’m with you there.
Really a great series a books that will keep mr flint’s memory alive.
I went from reading several books a week to not having the attention span to read at all. In the middle of this series is when that happened (not because of). Jumping back in seems daunting.
OH, that’s sad news. 1632 was a great book, though he did rather let the series ramble out of control as sequels by other authors went on…
Some of the later books have an afterword in which Flint breaks down the series into groups and gives his recommended reading order. From now on, if more books are written, I’ll be concentrating on the naval, American, and British threads.