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1632 Universe/Ring of Fire #29
1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz (21)
A sparkling addition to the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire alternate history series created by Eric Flint. An alchemist of the 17th century confronts modern science with often amusing results.
Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the world's greatest alchemist and a great-grandson of Paracelsus—and a Bombast on his mother's side—was a man history had forgotten. But when the town of Grantville was transported by a cosmic accident from modern West Virginia to central Germany in the early seventeenth century, he got a second chance at fame and fortune.
The world's greatest alchemist does not make household goods. But with suitable enticements Gribbleflotz is persuaded to make baking soda and then baking powder so that the time-displaced Americans can continue to enjoy such culinary classics as biscuits and gravy. Applying his superb grasp of the principles of alchemy to the muddled and confused notions the Americans have concerning what they call “chemistry,” Gribbleflotz leaves obscurity behind.
In his relentless search for a way to invigorate the quinta essential of the human humors, Gribbleflotz plays a central role in jump-starting the seventeenth century’s new chemical and marital aids industries—and pioneering such critical fields of human knowledge as pyramidology and aura imaging. These are his chronicles.
Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the world's greatest alchemist and a great-grandson of Paracelsus—and a Bombast on his mother's side—was a man history had forgotten. But when the town of Grantville was transported by a cosmic accident from modern West Virginia to central Germany in the early seventeenth century, he got a second chance at fame and fortune.
The world's greatest alchemist does not make household goods. But with suitable enticements Gribbleflotz is persuaded to make baking soda and then baking powder so that the time-displaced Americans can continue to enjoy such culinary classics as biscuits and gravy. Applying his superb grasp of the principles of alchemy to the muddled and confused notions the Americans have concerning what they call “chemistry,” Gribbleflotz leaves obscurity behind.
In his relentless search for a way to invigorate the quinta essential of the human humors, Gribbleflotz plays a central role in jump-starting the seventeenth century’s new chemical and marital aids industries—and pioneering such critical fields of human knowledge as pyramidology and aura imaging. These are his chronicles.
528 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
November 17, 2016
The editor of this book needs a spanking.
The first few chapters allow the reader to follow young Phillip as he grows his education and shows promise of a great future. He excels in observing and minding the small details. His quest for greater knowledge is only kept on check by the bad luck of his patrons...at least until the Up-timers come into the picture. Then it seems like the book got a new author.
The Afterward describes how the book came about, how new ideas and problems were postulated and debated. This "second part" of the book, post up-timers, basically swept up all the random ideas that even remotely involved chemistry and dumped them in the book with little regard to a cohesive story and almost complete disregard for the time line.
New characters were introduced solely to propel a singular action and then discarded. I'd like to give the benefit of doubt and believe that the authors had a nice, tidy story shredded by a bad editor.
Even with this benefit, of my sampling of this series I'm reminded of those Frankensteinian photo callages [image:![]()
] that combine the "best" parts of famous people to show the ultimate beauty but ultimately create a hideous monster. So goes this series: cram in knowledge, distorting and overflowing to the detriment of its vessel.
The first few chapters allow the reader to follow young Phillip as he grows his education and shows promise of a great future. He excels in observing and minding the small details. His quest for greater knowledge is only kept on check by the bad luck of his patrons...at least until the Up-timers come into the picture. Then it seems like the book got a new author.
The Afterward describes how the book came about, how new ideas and problems were postulated and debated. This "second part" of the book, post up-timers, basically swept up all the random ideas that even remotely involved chemistry and dumped them in the book with little regard to a cohesive story and almost complete disregard for the time line.
New characters were introduced solely to propel a singular action and then discarded. I'd like to give the benefit of doubt and believe that the authors had a nice, tidy story shredded by a bad editor.
Even with this benefit, of my sampling of this series I'm reminded of those Frankensteinian photo callages [image:
October 26, 2016
For the followers of 1631 universe:
True, this is not just another pastiche of already published stories from Grantville Gazette. All of the Dr. Phil stories are incorporated in the book, but they fill only the small part around the middle of the book. At the beginning, we are given the opportunity to follow Philip at the beginning of his career, through all the wanderings, in an attempt to justify the character he has become. But his faux latin is still as irritating as his alchemical essences.
True, this is not just another pastiche of already published stories from Grantville Gazette. All of the Dr. Phil stories are incorporated in the book, but they fill only the small part around the middle of the book. At the beginning, we are given the opportunity to follow Philip at the beginning of his career, through all the wanderings, in an attempt to justify the character he has become. But his faux latin is still as irritating as his alchemical essences.
August 22, 2016
First, the disclaimer: I thought the initial books in Eric Flint's Ring of Fire (R0F) series were brilliant, genius, wonderful. Then, like many alternate history series (which it rapidly became), it just gradually got too complex for me to recall which "down-time" 1630s-native character was who, and which "up-time" character from the future had done what.
I mostly stopped buying the novels, but I made an exception for the RoF Chronicles books, which are collections of short stories.
Usually these are anthologies of tales written by authors playing in the RoF universe. A couple of them included stories featuring the Aspergerian Dr. Gribbleflotz, a 1630s alchemist dabbling in the fringes of science, that stood out as particularly enjoyable, so when I spotted this book, I grabbed it.
I was not disappointed. The novel begins with the back-story of the sometimes-arrogant, peacockish "iatrochemist" with a social deaf ear. It isn't until we're a third of the way through that Gribbleflotz has his first encounter with the Grantville up-timers. (It's the most enjoyable part of a really delicious story, too!)
Much of the fun, as always, comes from the unexpected way down-timers react to the "modern" Grantville up-timers and their attitudes. And vice versa; his up-timer partners refer to "Herr Dr. Phillip Theophrastus Bombast Gribbleflotz" as "Doctor Phil," especially after his little blue aspirin tablets are such a success. The Doctor calls them "Gribbleflotz' Sal Vin Betula"; the up-timers market them as "Dr. Gribbleflotz' Little Blue Pills of Happiness."
One of the most delightful observations in the various Chronicles is the eager and ingenious way the down-timer natives seize on up-timer knowledge as a source of business innovation, making scads of money from the things they learn from the Grantville newcomers. Here, I was even more excited to see the ways the good Doctor's experimentation trumped the book-data of the up-timers to make him wealthy.
Couple that with multiple romances that weave through the book, and the sense of the complex background and history of even the most widespread "modern technologies" (like baking powder), and it's a superb book to while away a pleasant afternoon reading.
Liner Notes:
I enjoyed chasing down the dog-Latin names the Doctor gave his creations. For example, Sal Vin Betula is Latin for "salt of wine of birch." Aspirin was developed by steeping and precipitating the salicylic acid salts from willow-bark tea, even though at the time, birch-bark tea was also used as a folk medicine. This may have been deliberate misdirection by Dr. Gribbleflotz to prevent his enemies from making and selling their own aspirin tablets.
The Doctor's ongoing obsession with the "human Quinta Essentia" may be a slight mockery of homeopathy. Read the initial discussion of the topic in this novel or in Quinta-essentia - The Five Elements first before you disagree.
One of my spouse's favorite "up-time" reads is the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. We have several editions, including an inherited version from 1 9 36 that includes a number of "cheat-sheets" for productive reactions like those that feature in the story. Alas, most of this instructive material has been eliminated from the later editions.
I mostly stopped buying the novels, but I made an exception for the RoF Chronicles books, which are collections of short stories.
Usually these are anthologies of tales written by authors playing in the RoF universe. A couple of them included stories featuring the Aspergerian Dr. Gribbleflotz, a 1630s alchemist dabbling in the fringes of science, that stood out as particularly enjoyable, so when I spotted this book, I grabbed it.
I was not disappointed. The novel begins with the back-story of the sometimes-arrogant, peacockish "iatrochemist" with a social deaf ear. It isn't until we're a third of the way through that Gribbleflotz has his first encounter with the Grantville up-timers. (It's the most enjoyable part of a really delicious story, too!)
Much of the fun, as always, comes from the unexpected way down-timers react to the "modern" Grantville up-timers and their attitudes. And vice versa; his up-timer partners refer to "Herr Dr. Phillip Theophrastus Bombast Gribbleflotz" as "Doctor Phil," especially after his little blue aspirin tablets are such a success. The Doctor calls them "Gribbleflotz' Sal Vin Betula"; the up-timers market them as "Dr. Gribbleflotz' Little Blue Pills of Happiness."
One of the most delightful observations in the various Chronicles is the eager and ingenious way the down-timer natives seize on up-timer knowledge as a source of business innovation, making scads of money from the things they learn from the Grantville newcomers. Here, I was even more excited to see the ways the good Doctor's experimentation trumped the book-data of the up-timers to make him wealthy.
Couple that with multiple romances that weave through the book, and the sense of the complex background and history of even the most widespread "modern technologies" (like baking powder), and it's a superb book to while away a pleasant afternoon reading.
Liner Notes:
I enjoyed chasing down the dog-Latin names the Doctor gave his creations. For example, Sal Vin Betula is Latin for "salt of wine of birch." Aspirin was developed by steeping and precipitating the salicylic acid salts from willow-bark tea, even though at the time, birch-bark tea was also used as a folk medicine. This may have been deliberate misdirection by Dr. Gribbleflotz to prevent his enemies from making and selling their own aspirin tablets.
The Doctor's ongoing obsession with the "human Quinta Essentia" may be a slight mockery of homeopathy. Read the initial discussion of the topic in this novel or in Quinta-essentia - The Five Elements first before you disagree.
One of my spouse's favorite "up-time" reads is the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. We have several editions, including an inherited version from 1 9 36 that includes a number of "cheat-sheets" for productive reactions like those that feature in the story. Alas, most of this instructive material has been eliminated from the later editions.
September 11, 2016
Even amongst the bizarre alt-history niche that is the Ring of Fire side-story novel, the Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz is a bit of an anomaly (eugh, the grammar of that sentence will haunt me). The strangest thing about this book is that the first half of it is straight up historical fiction, telling the very believable story of a fictional alchemist-in-training who runs up against academic factionalism, medieval superstition, and his own over-sized ego (not to mention his questionable fashion sense). There's nothing science fiction about it (apart from the Aristotelian view of the universe that formed the basis of the alchemical "arts") as it takes place prior to the events of the Ring of Fire (time-space transposition of Grantville, WV, U.S.A. ca. 2000 A.D. to Middle-of-Nowhere, Thuringia, Holy Roman Empire ca. 1631 A.D.). Of course, since this IS a Ring of Fire novel, after the Ring of Fire, "Doctor" Gribbleflotz has the fortune (both good and bad) to end up being the go-to local alchemist to make the things the newly arrived Americans can't make for themselves, like baking soda, while pursuing his eccentric interest in holistic "sciences" like pyramid power and kirlian imagery. That may sound rather... well, lame, but Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright have put together a solid book, and I found myself surprisingly interested in the events of Doctor Gribbleflotz's strange adventures even before the Ring of Fire upped the ante as they did some solid research of alchemical terms and techniques and the cutthroat world of early post-renaissance academia while also fleshing out a character who has served as a sort of deus ex machina for the Ring of Fire series as a whole. In fact, the only real critique I have of this volume is that the ending is anticlimactic: no real end-point, the book just comes to a close at what seems to be a wholly arbitrary point.
July 12, 2021
If only this book were true to its title! The first one-third, which would have made a nice book by itself, was indeed the chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz, and it is engrossing to read his coming of age story combined with his travelogue and scientific problem-solving. Unfortunately, when he meets the Americans, his personality changes for no apparent reason. He becomes stuffy and incurious. Meanwhile, the authors introduce one character after another, many of them indistinguishable, and each chapter is a vigniette in itself rather than a part of an ongoing narrative.
February 1, 2020
A good addition to the Ring of fire universe. I was interested enough that I would like to see more about the characters introduced here. The story seems unfinished. Plus Herr Dr Gribbleflotz has a new viewpoint that I find interesting.
October 18, 2018
I enjoyed this story even tho it included unknown characters! A good addition to the Ring of Fire series!
August 4, 2016
This is a side story in the Ring of Fire series. The main character is Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the world's greatest alchemist. He has a history before he meets some of the up-timers who came back when Grantsville was transported to the 1630's. He has tried very hard to make a name for himself but his first big success is making baking soda and baking powder so the women of Grantsville can continue to have biscuits. From there we follow him as he becomes a household name with other products. It is a fun story for anyone to read and a must read for fans of the series. Some of the main characters have cameo roles in the story but most of the characters are new or side characters from other stories.
July 1, 2018
Despite the lack of a full plot, it is an interesting look at the background of the Ring of Fire universe.
Worth a read even if you are not up to date with the actual series.
Worth a read even if you are not up to date with the actual series.
April 8, 2024
Dr. Gribbleflotz is half scientific genius and half used car salesman with a good dose of a new-age quack thrown in for good measure. While many parts of this book already found their way into previous Grantville Gazette anthologies, more short stories were thrown in to fill out his life story beginning with him as a young boy about to start an apprenticeship and moving us right up to the present time (1636? 1637?) in the Ring of Fire timeline.
Dr. Gribbleflotz is the one who first figured out how to make uptime aspirin with downtime technology... Then made a killing on it while also dying it blue because "everybody knows" that the blue creates a soothing aura that will "aid in the healing process." He is also the first one to start mass-producing baking powder and baking soda. He also invents nitrous oxide (laughing gas), blends it with whipped cream, and then markets it as an aphrodisiac since creating Viagra is still too complicated to be done with downtime technology. Of course, everything Dr. Gribbleflotz (and this is just a small sampling) is then marketed with his name.
Sometimes humorous, sometimes tedious, this is a fun light offering to the ever-expanding Ring of Fire Universe, but not by any stretch one of the best books or an essential read.
Dr. Gribbleflotz is the one who first figured out how to make uptime aspirin with downtime technology... Then made a killing on it while also dying it blue because "everybody knows" that the blue creates a soothing aura that will "aid in the healing process." He is also the first one to start mass-producing baking powder and baking soda. He also invents nitrous oxide (laughing gas), blends it with whipped cream, and then markets it as an aphrodisiac since creating Viagra is still too complicated to be done with downtime technology. Of course, everything Dr. Gribbleflotz (and this is just a small sampling) is then marketed with his name.
Sometimes humorous, sometimes tedious, this is a fun light offering to the ever-expanding Ring of Fire Universe, but not by any stretch one of the best books or an essential read.
August 26, 2017
1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz, by Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright, was so much fun. I was very surprised by this book because it starts off many years before the 1632 series starts. The first chapter is called, “The Beginning 1606.
Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the main character of this amazing book is found at the start of this book as an apprentice. It takes him from a serious young lad through his training as an alchemist, to the “Doctor” I found so entertaining. His one really strange foible is his wanting to name everything he invents or reinvents, with the help of the up timers books, after himself. One of the endearing things about him is his not taking those around him for granted nor belittling them as inferior. He appreciates all his workers and rewards them. In return he gets loyalty from them all.
I cannot tell all the inter-related stories in this book. I can tell you that it was thoroughly entertaining and I am looking forward to more of the good Doctor.
Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the main character of this amazing book is found at the start of this book as an apprentice. It takes him from a serious young lad through his training as an alchemist, to the “Doctor” I found so entertaining. His one really strange foible is his wanting to name everything he invents or reinvents, with the help of the up timers books, after himself. One of the endearing things about him is his not taking those around him for granted nor belittling them as inferior. He appreciates all his workers and rewards them. In return he gets loyalty from them all.
I cannot tell all the inter-related stories in this book. I can tell you that it was thoroughly entertaining and I am looking forward to more of the good Doctor.
October 21, 2017
I was fearful of this book in the ROF series as I knew parts had been previously published online in various issues of the Grantville Gazette, and I also wasn't sure about the main character as he was depicted in snippets in several other volumes.
I shouldn't have worried. Although this certainly isn't a main volume in the overarching storyline, it was very enjoyable. Herr Doctor Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz (his mother was a Bombast) is the "great-grandson of Paracelsus" as he frequently reminds his skeptics. Some consider him a snake-oil salesman while he proclaims himself the "World's Greatest Alchemist" although he does seem to be quite successful with his scientific experimentation.
No war or politics here, and Grantville plays only a minor role in spots, but it was still well worth my reading time. Kerryn Offord takes Rick Boatright's character and weaves a storyline that fits the 1632 universe very well.
I shouldn't have worried. Although this certainly isn't a main volume in the overarching storyline, it was very enjoyable. Herr Doctor Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz (his mother was a Bombast) is the "great-grandson of Paracelsus" as he frequently reminds his skeptics. Some consider him a snake-oil salesman while he proclaims himself the "World's Greatest Alchemist" although he does seem to be quite successful with his scientific experimentation.
No war or politics here, and Grantville plays only a minor role in spots, but it was still well worth my reading time. Kerryn Offord takes Rick Boatright's character and weaves a storyline that fits the 1632 universe very well.
September 1, 2025
Gribbleflotz was an interesting character and it was interesting for the story to be told almost exclusively from a downtimer's perspective. However, given how much background was included about Gribbleflotz, and the fact he was a man of science, I was looking forward to his initial reaction to the Ring of Fire and the arrival of people from the future. Sadly, that was completely skipped over. Suddenly uptimer's are knocking at his door and want to do business with him. For a man who was curious about the world and loved to study it, he was surprisingly disinterested about the people from the future. I was also expecting a bit more of a storyline. I guess I should have realized from the title of The Chronicles of.." meant it was just a chronical of the daily life. No climax. No main events. No conclusion.
March 9, 2022
I looked at the length of this book and initially thought it was going to be a struggle, but I found myself welcoming each new story. The character arc for Dr. Phil was great and the cast of characters link into the main Ring of Fire storyline well with crossover characters validating this storyline. It is another example of a story that left me wanting more of this character and the Grantville Gazettes are my next objective to get more of this character and his interesting involvement in the advancement of science for the USE
January 7, 2018
I wanted to not like this...I almost walked away.
I enjoy when the 1632 [Ring of Fire] books deal with the original 17th century cast.....
I missed our American cast members.
WELL-LET-ME-TELL-YOU.
This got better really quickly.
"Little Blue Pills" indeed.
I liked this story very much.
We see a lot of folks ....read this.
I enjoy when the 1632 [Ring of Fire] books deal with the original 17th century cast.....
I missed our American cast members.
WELL-LET-ME-TELL-YOU.
This got better really quickly.
"Little Blue Pills" indeed.
I liked this story very much.
We see a lot of folks ....read this.
July 12, 2017
Better than I feared
After encountering the character in an earlier novel I was not eager to invest in Dr. Phil. The book's description did not help, and drove me away for many years. What a disservice.
The characters are living and breathing people. The writing rivals the best the 1632 universe has to offer. I look forward to more.
After encountering the character in an earlier novel I was not eager to invest in Dr. Phil. The book's description did not help, and drove me away for many years. What a disservice.
The characters are living and breathing people. The writing rivals the best the 1632 universe has to offer. I look forward to more.
January 22, 2017
This was a very enjoyable book. Humorous and interesting at the same time. The title character, who is non-existent in Grantville historical texts, becomes wealthy and famous due to his precise nature and luck. A good addition to the 1632 universe.
May 27, 2018
This one was pretty entertaining. It fills in some plot gaps but doesn’t really move the entire 1631 story further. It also deals with the uptimers in a more roundabout way, which was fine as Dr. Phil takes center stage.
July 1, 2020
I didn't realize this was a series and had all different authors. It was an excellent account of ancient alchemists and their practices and vocabulary. This gave me a lot of back story and fodder for my LARP character
November 15, 2017
Good ring of fire tale
By the title I thought I
would not like it. I found it is a good read with lots of engaging characterd
By the title I thought I
would not like it. I found it is a good read with lots of engaging characterd
February 10, 2018
Wonderful read - as someone very interested in medical history, I really loved the depth of research that went into this story. Great characters and a really good fit into the canon of the series.
August 31, 2018
I hadn't read any of the others in this series, which would probably have helped a lot, though this is a stand-alone. It was mildly amusing, but I got very bored with it towards the end.
June 19, 2020
A more entertaining read than I expected. However, it seemed that several chapters were repeated? I need to inspect that.
March 12, 2025
RECOMMENDED
December 30, 2020
A good addition to the ring of fire series, especially for those who enjoy chemistry. I liked that it spanned many years, so we were able to see character growth.
March 4, 2017
A fun romp in the ring of fire universe
May 6, 2024
This book could also be called the Novelized Biography of Dr. Phillip Gribbleflotz. It starts with the boy being sent off to an apprenticeship by his widowed mother. Phillip is the great-grandson of the famous alchemist Paracelsius and works hard to make his ancestor's ghost proud. But life does not go as planned for young Phillip even though he is a genius. Three times his famous university mentors die just short of Phillip being granted a medical degree, leaving him in the lurch. But does Phillip give up? Not Phillip Gibbleflotz! A generous man he is able to gain the loyalty and even love from those he tended and worked beside as a healer and surgeon- spending time as a army doctor and surgeon and tending those without the money to hire a professional, degreed "doctor". His workers and apprentices are fiercely loyal to the man they call Herr Doctor Gibbleflotz. He was called Dr. Gibbleflotz so often that he gave up trying to correct people that he wasn't a "real" doctor. The academic world was not happy with his "fraud".
Then the Ring of Fire happens and the people from Grantville are in need of the skills of a chemist. Running out of Baking Powder was a really big thing for the cooks of Grantville. In a tough spot the self styled "World's Greatest Alchemist" makes a "devil's bargain" to make baking soda and a new chapter in the life of Dr.Gribbleflotz opens.
The first half of the book is new material, with the latter part's adventures showing up in earlier books. The book is a delightful read, the story of a delightful, talented boy, then man, who the universe sorely tested again and again but who never gave up.
Buy a copy, if you can, because it is a book worth reading more than once.
Then the Ring of Fire happens and the people from Grantville are in need of the skills of a chemist. Running out of Baking Powder was a really big thing for the cooks of Grantville. In a tough spot the self styled "World's Greatest Alchemist" makes a "devil's bargain" to make baking soda and a new chapter in the life of Dr.Gribbleflotz opens.
The first half of the book is new material, with the latter part's adventures showing up in earlier books. The book is a delightful read, the story of a delightful, talented boy, then man, who the universe sorely tested again and again but who never gave up.
Buy a copy, if you can, because it is a book worth reading more than once.
June 18, 2025
I liked this one better the second time around. The book follows the life and career of "downtimer" Dr. Gribbleflotz, beginning with his placement as an apprentice with the Fugger's assaying lab. Almost half of the book actually occurs prior to the Ring of Fire. The story contains less intrigue and politics (except, of course, university politics) than a lot of the other RoF books (and no real warfare - except in the doctor's stint as a army surgeon prior to the RoF). Focus is on science, medicine and technology (and, unlike many of the other books of the series, a lot of that deals with "straight" 17th Century levels, as opposed to the usual 20th Century-influenced 17th Century. Excellent character development. There is a certain amount of pseudoscience (and not just 17th Century "Galenist" medical theory), including Kirlin photography, chakras, and psychic surgery, as the good doctor may be brilliant but can also prove quite credulous. A good mix of uptime and downtime characters. Warning, this book was essentially put together from a number of earlier stories and ideas so at points it feels a little disjointed and suffers from the occasional continuity error. 4 stars.
August 2, 2017
I found this an interesting, fun addition to the series, with the focus on a downtimer who has appeared in small parts but here is shown as someone I would expect in this timeline -- a thoughtful man who was trying to gather knowledge all his life, and is both enhanced and confused as he tries to combine uptimer chemistry with his alchemical studies. I've always liked the Granville stories that combine scientific ideas with downtimer experience, and this has much of that. But devoting the first third of the book to the character's life before the Ring of Fire -- a decision I groaned at when I picked up the book -- was a wonderful way to let me see enough to understand what he could and could not accept from modern science. And, as usual with good 163X books, much of this worked because I came to like the new characters. A book almost as good as The Ram Rebellion, and like that book, a reminder that you cannot tell in advance the strange path that an idea will create.
May 9, 2023
A new favorite
I have been a long time fan of the 1632verse with its multiple threads of stories woven into a wonderful, comprehensive tapestry. In this novel we get the biographically rounded account of one of the most interesting 1632 series life and interactions with others from youth through the beginning of his career heading the company which plays a crucial role in the 1632verse. While so many of the stories concentrate on modern people struggling to adapt to 1631-1637 this novel is about a professional Alchemist who is recruited, and then does things the modern folks never expected by applying the scientific method to the challenges they provide him. As a result he surprises them repeatedly by developing things the thought impossible. This novel is now in my top 5 books from this series of over 60 volumes. Highly recommended!
I have been a long time fan of the 1632verse with its multiple threads of stories woven into a wonderful, comprehensive tapestry. In this novel we get the biographically rounded account of one of the most interesting 1632 series life and interactions with others from youth through the beginning of his career heading the company which plays a crucial role in the 1632verse. While so many of the stories concentrate on modern people struggling to adapt to 1631-1637 this novel is about a professional Alchemist who is recruited, and then does things the modern folks never expected by applying the scientific method to the challenges they provide him. As a result he surprises them repeatedly by developing things the thought impossible. This novel is now in my top 5 books from this series of over 60 volumes. Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews