1632 / Eric Flint

 

1632 by Eric Flint
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars?

I felt like I was reading a rerun of the Nantucket series by S.M. Stirling. In that series, the island of Nantucket is somehow transported thousands of years into the past. The community must somehow keep themselves alive without the support systems that modern society has come to rely on and they obviously want to maintain a somewhat modern lifestyle. Eric Flint has a very similar idea, transporting a West Virginia town back to the time of the 30 Years War in Germany. They not only translocate in time, but also in space.

The similarities don't end there. Both series have a prominent black character with an important role. (A female naval officer in Nantucket and a male surgeon and former Marine in this novel.) Also, there seem to be people with needed skills in both communities who can swoop in to recreate needed technologies. Very handy, that coincidence. How many people do you know who build steam engines as a hobby? (None. I know none.) Both series highlight people with manual skills, something that Flint states in his afterword was very important to him as a former union organizer.

In this book's foreword, there's an explanation of why the translocation event happened (a careless intergalactic artist, accidentally creating an alternate universe.) But the characters don't know that and there is absolutely no philosophizing about whether they are changing history or whether they are wiping out their home country/culture. It seems odd to me that intelligent people wouldn't even consider the possibility.

Checking the copyright dates of both series, I note that they were both published before September 11th, 2001. That probably goes some way toward explaining their “Rah, rah, America" attitudes. I was very struck by the assumptions in both series that American culture and values were superior to all others. (I also noted the cover art on both series which features prominent American flags.)

The big weakness of this kind of tale is the inevitable info dumps that litter their pages. The author has to do a lot of research and when they have chosen a less well known period of history, they may feel the need to fill in the reading audience. I confess to ignorance of this time period and place, but I can't help feeling that there must be a less clunky way to share that knowledge than all the mini lectures (there was one that lasted 10 pages.) There is a definite leaning on battles to provide plot momentum, but there are only token obstacles for the Americans to overcome, so there is very little character development. Additionally, Flint seems to think that matching everyone up into couples is characterization. But even those relationships are anemic compared to the love of guns and ammunition! If there's a real romance in this novel, it's the author and weapons. At the end, the book just kind of bumps to a halt with no real wrap up or hook to lead the reader on to the next installment.

I know there are lots more books in the series, but one is enough for me.

Book number 413 of my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project.



View all my reviews