1632

By Flint, Eric

Book Id: WPLBN0000635272
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 1.78 MB
Reproduction Date: 2004

Title:	1632
Author:	Flint, Eric
Volume:	Ring of Fire Series
Language:	English
Subject:	Science fiction, Fantasy & science fiction, Pulp literature
Collections:	Science Fiction Collection, Baen Library Collection
Historic Publication Date:	2000
Publisher:	Baen Publishing Enterprises


Citation APA MLA Chicago Flint, B. E. (2000). 1632. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Description
Description: 1632 In the year 1632 in northern Germany a reasonable person might conclude that things couldn't get much worse. There was no food. Disease was rampant. For over a decade religious war had ravaged the land and the people. Catholic and Protestant armies marched and countermarched across the northern plains, laying waste the cities and slaughtering everywhere. In many rural areas population plummeted toward zero. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy. The mystery would never be solved. It would simply join others, like the Tunguska event or the Square Crater on Callisto, in the catalogue of unexplained occurrences. The initial worldwide excitement waned within a few months, as it became clear that no quick answers would be found. For a few years grieving relatives would, with some success, press officialdom to maintain the studies and inquiries. But there were no lawyers to keep the fires stoked. The courts ruled soon enough that the Grantville Disaster was an Act of God, for which insurance companies were not liable. Within ten years, the Disaster had devolved into another domain of fanatics and enthusiasts, like the Kennedy Assassination. Thereafter, of course, it enjoyed a near-eternal half-life. But few if any reputable scientists in the world held out any hope for a final explanation.

Summary
Summary: 2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia. The mines are working, the buck are plentiful (it's deer season) and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire membership of the local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time. Then everything changed... When the dust settles, Mike leads a small group of armed miners to find out what's going on. Out past the edge of town Grantville's asphalt road is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell; a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter Iying screaming in muck at the center of a ring of attentive men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of The Thirty Years War.

Excerpt
Excerpt: Prologue the mystery would never be solved. It would simply join others, like the tunguska event or the square crater on callisto, in the catalogue of unexplained occurrences. The initial worldwide excitement waned within a few months, as it became clear that no quick answers would be found. For a few years grieving relatives would, with some success, press officialdom to maintain the studies and inquiries. But there were no lawyers to keep the fires stoked. The courts ruled soon enough that the Grantville disaster was an act of god, for which insurance companies were not liable. Within ten years, the disaster had devolved into another domain of fanatics and enthusiasts, like the Kennedy assassination. Thereafter, of course, it enjoyed a near-eternal half-life. But few if any reputable scientists in the world held out any hope for a final explanation.