50 in '08: 22
Oct. 25th, 2008 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Title: 1632
Authors: Eric Flint
Length: 500 pages
Right, so I admit that while I'd passingly heard of this series, it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drharper's enthusiastic review of the first one that got me off my duff and checking them out of the library.
I'll say it here: the premise is laughable. Cosmic accident by mentioned-only-in-passing alien race of the future results in Grantsville, West Virginia, USA, circa 2000, being transposed with a similar six to seven mile diameter patch of dirt from Germany, circa 1632. This is not high art; it's basically someone saying "ooh, that would be neat--I wonder what would happen?" and running with it.
That said, while the premise is flimsy, the storytelling is not. It's actually a pretty good study on what would happen if American technology and, more importantly, American values, were plopped in the middle of the Thirty Year's War. The characters are believable, they don't all think or act the same way, things like language differences aren't magically forgotten, and what unfolds makes sense. My main quibble is that Gustav II Adolph, the King of Sweden, gets his own storyline separate from Grantsville. Reading it, I knew the two storylines were going to eventually meet up and they did... but it was very jarring to have to switch mental gears from "Americans in a strange new land" to "generals at war."
Verdict: Recommended.
Authors: Eric Flint
Length: 500 pages
Right, so I admit that while I'd passingly heard of this series, it was
drharper's enthusiastic review of the first one that got me off my duff and checking them out of the library.I'll say it here: the premise is laughable. Cosmic accident by mentioned-only-in-passing alien race of the future results in Grantsville, West Virginia, USA, circa 2000, being transposed with a similar six to seven mile diameter patch of dirt from Germany, circa 1632. This is not high art; it's basically someone saying "ooh, that would be neat--I wonder what would happen?" and running with it.
That said, while the premise is flimsy, the storytelling is not. It's actually a pretty good study on what would happen if American technology and, more importantly, American values, were plopped in the middle of the Thirty Year's War. The characters are believable, they don't all think or act the same way, things like language differences aren't magically forgotten, and what unfolds makes sense. My main quibble is that Gustav II Adolph, the King of Sweden, gets his own storyline separate from Grantsville. Reading it, I knew the two storylines were going to eventually meet up and they did... but it was very jarring to have to switch mental gears from "Americans in a strange new land" to "generals at war."
Verdict: Recommended.
