Product Description
Grantville, formerly in West Virginia in the 20th century, now in Germany in the 17th century, is the most unusual town in the world-and probably in any century. The mysterious cosmic phenomena which the former West Virginians call the "Ring of Fire" hurled the town back through time into the middle of the Thirty Years War. In spite of their advanced technology, the men and women of Grantville are greatly outnumbered and must deal carefully with the squabbling local tyrants-but they have no shortage of American courage and ingenuity. Eric Flint, a bright new star of science fiction and creator of the Ring of Fire universe, now presents a book of new fiction about the heroes of Grantville, as well as articles examining the problems of maintaining 20th century technology in the 17th century. (Can you make penicillin from bread mold? To conserve your limited supply of gasoline, can you use literal horsepower to run a dynamo? Can you make a radio using 17th century glassware and metallurgy?) The Grantville Gazette is a fascinating exercise in alternate history and imagination and will be a must-buy for everyone who read 1632 and 1633.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 17 reviews)

Good anthology to a good series

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I have to say that my favorite story has to be "Anna's Story" it had a very touching ending that I really liked and was quite memorable.
September 06, 2008

Good thing I didn't buy this in hardback...

This anthology of five short stories and three factual articles based upon Eric Flint's Assisti Shards series (which begins with 1632), was less than pleasing. Besides not adding to the overall story, this book also generally fails to entertain. While the first three stories are all quite good, they are also very short and probably aren't worth the $6.99 cover price of the paperback unless you're completely obsessed with this alternative universe or a collector of anything with Flint's name on the cover.

The last two fictional stories, 'The Sewing Circle' and 'The Rudolsadt Colloquy', are slow going and forgettable. Unfortunately, they also make up about 3/4 of the book's volume. It is my understanding that they were included in their full lengths because they introduce characters and plot lines of future 163x books. For the purposes of THE GRANTVILLE GAZETTE, however, they fall way short of the mark set by the rest of the series. Ending this book with those two stories and the factual articles certainly contributed to the less than enthusiastic manner in which I finished the book, and may have led to my more negative review.

I'll continue on with the 163x series, but can't say I'm particularly glad I troubled myself with this volume. It certainly isn't necessary.
January 07, 2008

Good read!

If you are as addicted to this series of books as I am this is a must read. Emerging authors with unique stories set around Flint's initial premise.
December 14, 2007

Good but reeks of US propaganda

Great story but the constant super American hillbillies is very draining if you don't live in the fantasy world which is the current USA.
November 06, 2006

All the news that fits in print?

This is the earliest of the Grantville Gazette sub-series (= I). You have no reason to read it before Eric Flint's original novel, "1632" (the year), that opens the whole mega-series. Actually, the Grantville Gazette is not a mock up of a fictional 17th century newspaper. Rather, it is an anthology of fiction and fact, like the old Analog SF magazine, that complements the world of "1632," the pathbreaking novel by Eric Flint that follows the arduous development of a West Virginian town that inexplicably finds itself alone in 17th century Germany, caught in the miserable Thirty Year War. This single episode of time travel is the only SF in the series, and so far remains unexplained, indeed unexamined. The series stemming from "1632" is rather an extremely ambitious example of Alternate History, or "What if..." (although its authors appear to come from SF, Speculative Fiction). The writing level is suitable for intelligent teenagers. Everyone has to wade through the historical background paragraphs and "speeches" that are essential because of the unfamiliarity to most of us of the remote period.

This book is the first in a series of occasional short story/article collections that mainly derive from authors drawn into an online community fascinated by the exploration of suddenly-17th century Americans abroad, as initiated by Flint. This is a remarkably constructed series, comprising short stories as well as novels, all directly contributing IN TO the main story line: how modern Americans might adapt to dangerously primitive Europe. The Gazette stories are not sequels, throw-aways, or spin-offs. Therefore, these gazettes are almost as important to understanding the overall story as the big novels (where one chiefly finds the famous events and real people, like politician Cardinal Richelieu and king-general Gustavus Adolphus). It is promised, for example, that a group of teenage capitalist inventors in one of the stories here will appear again in a more important role.

The three "factual" articles on modern technologies applied to the 17th century are something new and informative. Articles by different authors on the immense obstacles to effective radio, and why you don't "just make up some more penicillin" are terrific backgrounds to understanding the objective conditions the Grantville time-travelers encountered. The article on "Horse Power" describes the main types of horse breeds, but includes a list of antique horse breeds that is forgettably more than I ever, ever wanted to know. None of these is essential to enjoying the fictional series, but will enhance the enjoyment for those inclined toward technologies or fuller context. The factual articles don't seem to be appearing in any logical order (i.e., none so far on fundamentals like contemporary agriculture, heating, storage, kinship terminology, education, etc.). Their addition to the series points up the remarkably collaborative nature of this enterprise. A genealogy of the American characters has been fixed, and no rocket scientists can appear. Nevertheless, a lot of basic and vital skills seem to emerge from among the people of Grantville. Some technologies suddenly blossom in the novels (like aircraft!), but these short stories will tend to make them look less arbitrary as we are given the backstories.

The one illustration, on the cover of Grantville Gazette (I), belongs to an amusing story on Peter Paul Rubens, a real Dutch painter of the day. Another "Rubens" is the cover picture for "1634: The Ram Rebellion." These stories, and more, can be found via a website subscription at Baen Books, for a bit less. Since some of these short stories began as emails, I guess this is appropriate. One finds historical portraits of the real personnages there as well.
October 18, 2006

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Grantville Gazette II (The Assiti Shards)
by Eric Flint

1633
by Eric Flint, David Weber
by James Baen

1634: The Galileo Affair (The Assiti Shards)
by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis

1634: The Ram Rebellion (The Assiti Shards)
by Eric Flint, Virginia DeMarce

Ring of Fire (Assiti Shards)
by Eric Flint