The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint & others

I liked this, but only just. This isn't one of the better entries into the Ring of Fire series, but it is still interesting. The stories were of variable quality. As a farmer's daughter, I was very interested in the farming stories; though I think most people would have found Birdie's efforts to combine American and German farming and Flo's worries about wool quality interesting. The ballet story was fun too.

The Brillo fables need not have been printed, or not so many, in my opinion. Parts 3 & 4 had interesting moments, but were a bit laboured. I liked the accounts of the Mormons in the new world - I like the way religion is taken seriously as a motivating factor in this series - and I thought Johnnie F.'s sense of when to get involved and when to pretend he hadn't noticed a thing was great.

Flint's refusal to take the easy plot path of winning a few big battles and assuming that will then automatically win hearts and minds is the most interesting part of this series. Parts 3 & 4 are set in Franconia, a nearby area that the Americans are trying to administrate and make more democratic, or at least have less witch burning and disease, and more religious tolerance and voting. The path to revolution, especially when you are trying to have a low death toll, but know you can't help breaking some eggs, is always problematic, and the difficulties aren't made small and palatable. Worth reading just for the consideration of the problems of changing a society.

Grantville Gazette II edited by Eric Flint

I thought Grantville Gazette II didn't have as many fun stories as Gazettes I or III. Weber's The Company Men was a lot of fun, and so was Clark's alchemical style factual treatise on zinc. Several other stories were quite good. I have friends with firsthand experience in doing medical training and practice in countries without the hygiene/science beliefs we are used to, and thought Ewings's story on the problems of cross cultural medical training had an excellent and realistic grasp of the likely situation. But as an actual story it was a bit too long without a clear climax.

Grantville Gazette II published 2006

Grantville Gazette III & Clifford Simak

I like the 1632 series a lot, especially the way that the main novels set up a world and cover the important events, and then you have the Grantville Gazette short story collections showing what else was happening to some other people at the same time. These stories are of variable literary quality - a definite thumbs down to Hobson's Choice, written in imitation seventeenth century prose - but really increase the richness of the world as a whole. People who like every loose end tied up eventually, this is your series! I don't myself, but still love the way that you can spend time with people not important enough for even a mention in the main books.

I particularly enjoyed Pastor Kastenmayer's Revenge, all about finding husbands for a group of refugee girls - and increasing the number of Lutherans. Also Hell Fighters and If the Demons Will Sleep, where we see librarians and nurses and monks dealing with a changing world, and meet a family living around Post Traumatic Stress Disorder quite successfully - if you accept their definition of success, of course, which at least one nurse is not willing to do.

I read some science fiction short stories by Clifford Simak collected in The Civilisation Game - though an excellent writer, he mostly doesn't read all that well now as his SF future had changes in technology, but no changes to society. This reads very oddly when there are women in his stories, and just as much so when you read a whole story with a large cast of male only characters in a workplace.

Grantville Gazette III first published 2007; stories in The Civilisation Game first published 1939 to 1961.

Other, Luckett, and Flint

I borrowed a book called The Delaney Christmas Carol from the library, thinking it would be an updated version of Dickens. It was three novellas by three authors, each story being a romance; unfortunately the boring sort where at least one person is very rich, both people are exceptionally beautiful, and an overwhelming feeling of mutual lust is a sure sign you are soul mates. The past, present and future were all astonishingly similar. I tried each story but didn't manage to finish any. Avoid this book.

More fun was a re-reading of Dave Luckett's The Truth About Magic and The Return of Rathalorn, fantasy books for children with a good story and good characterisation - both the heroes and the villains have entirely understandable motivations. You can see a whole workable, even if not always admirable, society in the background. An excellent introduction to class, prejudice, and standing up for the right without wrecking your society or yourself. I also thoroughly recommend his Tenabran trilogy for adults.

I also read An Oblique Approach (free in Baen's online library) by David Drake and Eric Flint, which is an alternate history, Byzantium sixth century. A couple of "computers" have popped back in time to change history. A fun light read, and I enjoyed looking up to see which characters were historical (answer lots, who'd have thought we know so much about the sixth century), though way too many people are excellent at their jobs and repartee as well. Style is a bit variable.


A Delaney Christmas Carol first published 2004, The Truth About Magic 2005, The Return of Rathalorn 2005, An Oblique Approach 1998

Stories by Ted Chiang & Eric Flint

Reading short stories lately - Ted Chiang's Stories of My Life and Others is from the library, and while I'm not sure I'd want to own the whole lot I am glad to have read them. The title story is excellent, as are several others, but some are depressing - Chiang is better read as part of an anthology with other writers, in spite of his gift for memorable and absorbing stories.


I didn't find Towers of Babylon, his take on the Tower of Babel, depressing, though probably that is a matter of taste. It was fascinating, even though Egan's description of it as SF for Babylonians is quite accurate! Seventy-Two Letters is also highly recommended.

I have also been re-reading stories from the Ring of Fire anthology, notably The Wallenstein Gambit. The Ring of Fire/1632 series have a lot of charm, and are fun to read. My husband and daughter are both reading as many as I own currently. Unusually for a People-Dumped-Back-Into-The-Past plot line, what can be done and what can't has been thought out very carefully. Also religion (Judaism, Protestant & Catholic Christianity) is being covered seriously as a part of society and a motive for people's actions; not in every book or story, but it is one of the continuing threads.

Ring of Fire first published 2005, all stories first publication; Stories of your Life and Others first published 2002, stories first published 1990 to 2000

Roma Eternal by Robert Silverberg

This is an alternate history, as a set of linked short stories. The Roman Empire did not fall, Jesus & Muhammad did not found religions. The stories can be read individually, which is good as a couple are not very interesting, and some are merely OK.

Some are very good - Silverberg mostly does better with the stories about people on the edge of great events than the people in the centre; I think because the characterisation is better in those stories. Several stories are concerned with people's choices, some admirable and some not, and in others people have very few choices they can make.

Silverberg is good on world building - Majipoor the world in the Majipoor series was very memorable - and he has no trouble making this changed world believable. There is also the interest of working out which historical event he is mining in some cases.

Roma Eterna first published 2003, stories in it first published 1989 to 2003