[ADemocratNoMore]

> For those who might be interested, the 2 book series 1632 and 1633 are both available to read for free from the Baen Free Library.

Just spent most of the day reading 1632 - excellent read.

Thanks for the heads-up!

[knews_hound]

Not bad for the price eh?

[zeugma]

Just spent most of the day reading 1632 - excellent read.

I agree. Like any good drug dealer, Baen lets you have the first couple of doses for free. If you get hooked in though, there is tonsof material there in the 1632 universe.

One of my favorite scenes is where Julie Sims demonstrates her shooting abilities to the king of Sweden.  "Challenging the monarch to a duel just isn't done."

The nonfiction articles in the Gazettes really can make you think a bit about what we do, and do not know about the technology that surrounds us.

[tanknetter]

Just spent most of the day reading 1632 - excellent read.

I've been reading the series ever since I picked up 1632 on a whim when it was first out.

With the exception of the Virginia Demarce books (which are tedious to the point of me actually throwing down "Tangled Web" several times because she wouldnt. get. to. the. point.) they're all great, fund reads.

The problem I see with them now is that Flint and Co are trying to do too much in too short of a time span. I think what's happening is he's being swayed by the hairbrained schemes of folks out on the 1632 Tech forum on Baen's Bar. The Uptimers would not be able to advance technology as fast as they are, and in some of the directions they are. Aircraft for instance. He and the other writers did a great job of showing that basic homebuilt aircraft could be built using certain types of surplus automobile engines. But they're now building hybrid fixed-wing/air cushion (ie hovercraft landing gear) aircraft. And it looks like the decidedly down-time Poles are going to be able to reverse-engineer a captured uptime APC (basically an up-armored mining truck) ?!?

It's still not as bad as what John Birmingham did with the Axis of Time trilogy. First book was ok, second book was great (Eric Flint had a substantial influence on it, and it shows) but the third fell to pieces when the US was flying laser-designator-equipped A-4 and B-52 analogues within 18-24 months of the 21c battlegroup showing up. I was pretty much ignored on Birmingham's blog when I tried to point out at the time that, sure, they could engineer and construct the airframes ... but the materials sciences for thing like the jet engines would need about 5-7 years to mature. The best fighters, for instance, they could get into production in an 18-24 month timeframe would be an optimized P-80 style aircraft using engineering tricks like swept wings, leading-edge slats, area-ruled fuselage and flying tail to compensate for what they couldn't do with the engines. Which would still be enough to completely OWN the Me-262 and effectively counter the Japanese Kamikazes.