1632 (novel)
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| 1632 | |
_-_cover-_0671578499.jpg/200px-N01-1632_(novel)_-_cover-_0671578499.jpg) First edition cover |
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| Author | Eric Flint |
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| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Series | 1632 series |
| Genre(s) | Alternate History, Novel |
| Publisher | Baen Books |
| Publication date | February 1, 2000 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) & ebook |
| Pages | 512 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-671-57849-9 (first edition, hardback) |
| Followed by | 1633 |
1632 is the initial novel in the best-selling alternate history 1632 book series written by historian, writer and editor Eric Flint. The flagship novel kicked off a remarkable collaborative writing effort that has involved hundreds of contributors, dozens of authors, and has published works now numbered well into the double digits—and if anything—is adding new titles at an increasingly fast pace (see: the two main articles). The premise involves a small American town of three thousand 'Hillbillies' sent back to April 1631, in an alternate Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
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[edit] About the series
The book generated an unusual amount of fannish involvement. e-ARCs generated early internet "buzz" and quickly sufficient disruption of other Baen's Bar discussion forums occurred that the publisher quickly spun-off the 1632 Tech Manual forum, dedicated solely to the series, (which aside from Weber's "BuShips" forum, is the most active on the site). When first contemplating a sequel, Flint decided to throw open the universe—perhaps instigated by reception of fan-fiction on 1632 Tech Manual—and invited other authors to help shape the series milieu and fictional canon and began putting together the anthology Ring of Fire .
Unfortunately, the market for anthologies in fiction is but a small percentage of the market for novels, and the alternate history genre is a smallish niche to begin with—leading to the interesting economically driven decision that publisher Jim Baen "held up" the Ring of Fire collection to see if the nascent series would get a boost from repeat NYT best selling author David Weber, who had just contracted to do five novels in the emerging series with Flint, a very new Baen writer at the time. Flint had to set aside several planned projects (See Assiti Shards, those novels were in outline form at the time) and do some additional co-writing with Weber as Ring of Fire gestated.
The anthology stories leaned on the large novels 1632 and 1633 and vice versa, creating the characteristic interdependence of short fiction in the series (now numbering twenty-six canonical works of all kinds—and now consisting of twenty including e-books (available either individually or by subscription), of which only five have been released in traditional print published books and eight, with thirteen Grantville Gazettes.
[edit] Plot summary
The fictional town of Grantville, WV (modeled on the real town of Mannington, West Virginia) and its power plant are displaced in space-time, through a side effect (An Assiti Shard—a sort of multidimensional "debris" accidentally generated by carelessness, in truth) of a mysterious alien technological "artform"[1].
A hemispherical section of land about three miles in radius measured from the town center is transported back in time from April of 2000 (our time line 'OTL') into the middle of the Thirty Years' War, in the German province of Thuringia in the Thuringer Wald in May of 1631, near the fictional German free city of Badenburg. This Assiti event occurs during a wedding reception, accounting for the presence of a few characters not native to the town, including an extra doctor and his daughter, a paramedic. Real Thuringian municipalities located close to Grantville are posited as Weimar, Jena, Saalfeld and the more remote Erfurt, Arnstadt, and Eisenach; all located in the valley of the Saale River East of the Palatinate (Rhine) well to the south of Halle and Leipzig.
Grantville, led by Mike Stearns, president of the local United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), and a supporting cast of characters widely diverse in background and viewpoint, cope with the town's space-time dislocation, the surrounding raging war, language barriers, and numerous social and political issues, including class conflict, witchcraft, feminism, the reformation and the counter-reformation, among many other factors. One complication is a compounding of the town's food shortage when the town is flooded by refugees from the war. Flint also addresses the culture shock experienced by the 1631 locals exposed to the mores of contemporary society, including modern dress, sexual liberation, and boisterous American-style politics.
In a more practical vein, the plot covers short-term survival of the town, as well as the long-term question of how to maintain technology sundered from twenty-first century resources. Throughout 1631, Grantville manages to establish itself locally forming the nascent New United States of Europe (NUS) with several local free cities (and a couple which aren't) while the war-clouds dog the northern German plain. But once Count Tilly falls during the Battle of Breitenfeld outside of Leipzig (see also Battle of Breitenfeld), King Gustavus Adolphus rapidly moves the war theater to Grantville's south into Franconia and Bavaria, both of which are on Grantville's doorstep. The events of 1632 thereafter qualify as interesting times leading up to the creation of an awkward Confederated Principalities of Europe (CPoE) and some measure of security for Grantville's up-timer and down-timer populations.
[edit] Characters in "1632"
The character set in the now nearly twenty sequels is so rich and divergent that a separate article has been created to cover the historical and major fictional characters. In list form, 1632 characters gives a brief synopses of each character covered as the neohistory evolves. In general, the entries for any given character will be out of date as the role of any individual character in any particular sequel may be supporting or of central importance. Many appearances, particularly in shorter fiction may not be detailed at all, save where such is important to the synopses of a given short story, thus only viewable in that context. In the same manner, this page will list mainly only those characters introduced and important to the plot sequences of the initial novel, for that is what this article is about. Where a link is given below to an (real) historical character, it generally will be to the neohistorical character coverage of the person within the series. Such article segments all link to non-fiction articles within the encyclopedia from there.
[edit] Historical figures in the book
Several historical figures occupy prominent or supporting roles in the novel including King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Lennart Torstensson, Count Tilly, and Albrecht von Wallenstein, all general officers of note and fame. Cardinal Richelieu takes on the role of the villain in the later third of the work.
[edit] Characters of more than minor note
To the historical personalities, Flint adds fictional characters of local origin (down-timers) including some with a real historical basis like the various members of the Abrabanel family (composite characters), or the holder of this or that office. He then creates action by introducing up-time Americans (i.e. those caught by the Ring of Fire from the future) in conversations large and small:
- Balthazar Abrabanel – Jewish Doctor, Spy, Financier to Kings
[edit] Release details
- 2000, USA, Baen Books (ISBN 0-671-57849-9), Pub date ? February 2000, hardcover (First edition)
- 2001, USA, Baen Books (ISBN 0-671-31972-8), ? February 2001, paperback
- 2001, ?, Rebound by Sagebrush (ISBN 0-613-36671-9), ? October 2001, hardback (Library binding)
- 2006, USA, Baen Books (ISBN 1-4165-3281-1), 30 June 2006, paperback
- The full text of the novel is available from the Baen Free Library as an e-book: February 2000, DOI:0671578499
For publishing data on all books in the series, see 1632 series.
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[edit] Miscellaneous
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[edit] References
- ^ Eric Flint (2000). 1632.
