Grantville Gazette VII

Grantville Gazette #7

by Eric Flint (Editor)

NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING SERIES. The seventh anthology of tales set in Eric Flint’s phenomenal Ring of Fire universe—all selected and edited by Flint.

A cosmic accident sets the modern West Virginia town of Grantville down in war-torn seventeenth century Europe. It will take all the gumption of the resourceful, freedom-loving up-timers to find a way to flourish in the mad and bloody beginning of the Renaissance. Are they up for it? You bet they are.

Edited by Eric Flint, and inspired by his now-legendary 1632, this is the fun stuff that fills in the pieces of the Ring of Fire political, social and cultural puzzle as supporting characters we meet in the novels get their own lives, loves and life-changing stories. The future and democracy have arrived with a bang.

About Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire series:

“[Eric] Flint's1632 universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop of gifted alternate historians.”—Booklist

“[Eric Flint] can entertain and edify in equal, and major, measure.”—Publishers Weekly

Genres: Alternate History, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Anthologies, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

432 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 2011

About the author

Eric Flint was a New York Times bestselling American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his main works were alternate history science fiction, but he also wrote humorous fantasy adventures.

Reviews

[BJ Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a general rule, the Grantville Gazette short story collections are quite a bit weaker than the full length novels in the Ring of Fire series. But at the same time, a good number of these stories are not just slice of life filler but actually the foundation for key plot points that will bring even more enjoyment to those longer novels. For the first time, I don't think any of these made any real contributions with two possible exceptions. The first of these is mentioned right in the introduction. It was mentioned in a previous book that Richelaeu had hemorrhoids. But in the book soon to be published he doesn't. Obviously, this plot hole needs to be fixed so Eric Flint writes a story about how they are taken care of (and Melissa Mailey makes it a personal mission to bring ice cream to Paris). Clearly, these are both *very* important plot points. The other is the hint in Nobody Wants to be a Pirate that the USE has developed Gatling Guns.

The first only matters if you are reading all the books in publication order. Since I am doing the recommended reading order, the "upcoming" book was already read and considering [spoiler] those hemorrhoids don't really matter much. The second would be a decent story, but I always hate it when genuinely evil people are propped up as heroes. The same problem can also be said for what I view the absolute worst short story yet written: Venus and Mercury. Not only was the story not the least bit interesting, but its desire to create heroes of genuine evil kicked in my gag reflex more than once.

[Topher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been a long time since I had read this series, and am glad I decided to make the drive out to the library that owned a copy of this book so I could get back into it. While some of the other books left me with some mixed feelings, I've generally enjoyed the story of a modern WV town sent back to Germany during the 30 years war and the ripples it causes. This book brought me joy.

For my next trick, I need to see if I can get through a kindle-only collection of short stories that are a prequel to the next novel, also sitting by chair, so that I can finish the physical book before this one and that one are due on Saturday (2 days). Magic eight ball says... check back later.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again, these are short stories set in the ROF universe and have varied authors and quality. Some of them expand on already known up-time characters while others give us a glimpse into the daily lives of downtimers.

As an avid fan of the ROF series, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire book.

[Randy Pursley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this set of short stories a good bit. 2 or 3 were real gems of how knowledge of the future would impact even minor aspects of the present (the present being the 1630s).

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally don't like short stories, but I am a fan of the 1632 series so I generally love the short stories from the Grantville Gazette.

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories set in Eric Flint's Ring of Fire universe, in which modern Grantville, WV has been displaced to Germany in 1632.

[Ronald Spitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories from the electronic magazine. All are well written and several I read previous in other anthologies. They were well worth reading again.

[Daniel Shellenbarger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grantville Gazette VII is well... it's a disappointment. It's a disappointment on several counts. First, Eric Flint's contributions to the anthology are among his least interesting and least universe-expanding to date (a story about the "murder" of a great auk at the Magdeburg Zoo ("An Aukward Situation" (groan)) and a second story about treating Cardinal Richelieu for hemorrhoids as part of peace treaty negotiations between the USE and France ("A Cardinal Relief")). Second, none of these stories really expand the universe in meaningful ways (well, except for "Nobody Wants to be A Pirate in the Baltic" revealing that the USE has apparently managed to produce Gatling guns (that'll be a nasty surprise for the Bavarians (and Turks?) in the next book (insert maniacal laughter))) and almost all of these stories are slice of life human interest tales with little in the way of political developments, main character cameos, or technological progress (apart from the aforementioned Gatling gun bomb (metaphorical, a literal Gatling gun bomb would be kind of pointless), a story about road paving ("Yes, Dear" by Terry Howard and James Copley), and a story about creating new gyroscopes and radio navigation for the Air Force (Which Way is Up by John F. Harvell)). It all comes down to the fact that the series is in desperate need of the next main series book. If you've been reading the various side novels (and I have), you'll notice that everything that comes out in the past couple years has taken the timeline up to mid-1636 (and if it's sufficiently removed from Europe early 1637) and then abruptly stopped, undoubtedly so that none of the world-shaking events of the next major book (titled "1636: The Ottoman Onslaught," what could that possibly portend... (duh duh DA!)) will affect their stories (case in point, 1636: Commander Cantrell (etc), where the book ends mid-story after they regain radio contact with the USE and hints are dropped that expected reinforcements will not be available because of events in Europe). What this means is that in narrative terms we're treading water, leaving us with a collection of short stories that doesn't really have anything of importance to say or do to advance universe development. This wouldn't be a big problem if this was as good a collection as some of the earlier editions, but apart from a handful of superior entries ("Homecomings" by the late Karen Bergstrahl and "The Royal and Ancient Game" by Mark Huston come to mind), most of the material was mediocre (even David Carrico's story let me down as it was only 6 pages long and didn't even feature Franz and Marla, but I guess he's been working on the forthcoming Span of Empire so I can't complain too much). I won't say that I wasn't entertained by this collection because I certainly chuckled here and there, but even as a huge Ring of Fire fan, I really didn't see much of a point to this collection as it adds very little to the universe and most of its stories are pretty forgettable (if only a couple are outright bad), so I'd say this is purely for Ring of Fire completionists (you know who you are, you probably have copies of the Virginia de Marce books on your shelves (and may have actually read them more than once)). Mostly, this collection just makes it clear how badly the series needs to bump its timeline forward again.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent mix of Ring of Fire short stories: some humorous, some grim, some focused on a particular piece of technology, some introducing new characters and others featuring characters from the main books of the series. Generally enjoyable - some forgettable and a couple a bit heavy handed with the puns - but none tedious.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of stories set in the 1632/Ring of Fire universe. Some contain familiar characters from the books and from other stories, and some are just stories set during the Ring of Fire; all show a slice of life and events during the period.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Working my way though the Ring of Fire material that I have missed.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent addition to the Grantville story. The standard of stories continue to be excellent with a wide variety of areas coverec.

[Randy Pursley · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books are a group of short stories set in the 1632 universe. Several were good and many humorous. A fun read.

[Jeanne Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good collection

Great collection. I had read all the individual volumes last year thru 55. It seemed I had missed a couple of stories that were great

[Michael Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

More bits and pieces from the e-series Grantville gazette. Some good short stories, some stupid ones. Fills in more background for the longer novels.

[Donovan Ackley · Rating 5 out of 5]

really good collection if you are familiar with the series

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good 'best-of' collection of short fiction from the Grantville Gazette Volumes 20-30.

[James King · Rating 4 out of 5]

More fun with the West Virginians in the 17th century. Biplanes, bustrains and an Archbishops hemmiroids, what more could you want?

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I wanted. Great stories.

[Ken Kugler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Grantville Gazette VII, Edited by Eric Flint was mostly wonderful, as expected. The one big disappointment as a story called, “Nobody Wants to Be a Pirate in the Baltic.” To be honest, I would never expect this story to have passed Eric Flint and get into print. I stopped reading this right after a conversation by Tat’yana and Viktor. Tat’yana just walked into Viktor’s room and saw a young, very young, girl who Tat’yana refered to as a child.
Tat’yana said, “She looked young even for you Viktor.” “Yes, the sweet little flower has barely started to bud”, Viktor answered, “but I wanted to celebrate with a virgin.”
I could not go any further with this story. There was no excuse for having this in the story whatsoever.
The rest of the book and the stories before were up to what I expect from this series and so I was pretty happy. I just could not get the opening to the story above and had to put that in this review.

[Luci · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly thought this was a stronger group of stories than in previous Gazettes. They moved faster and the characters were far more interesting than in books past.