1632: Difference between revisions

{{work|wppage=1632 (novel)}}

''[[1632]]'' by Eric Flint, and its many sequels makingmake up the ''Ring of Fire'' series -- AKA the ''1632'' series.

Most of the novels in this series are collaborations, often drawn from the large pool of officially canon short stories written by other authors found in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20071014013014/http://www.grantvillegazette.com/ Grantville Gazette].

The first novel can be found, completely free of [[Copy Protection]] schemes and at no charge, [http://www.baenebooks.com/p-379-1632.aspx here].{{dead link}} Its direct sequel ''1633'' and the first ''Ring of Fire'' anthology can also be found, for free, along with paid copies of all the other books on [http://www.baenebooks.com/c-10-ring-of-fire-series-by-eric-flint.aspx the series page on Baen Ebooks].{{dead link}}

'''Published Works in the Series:''' (unless otherwise stated, all are by Eric Flint, in most cases ''with'' another author or two)

* ''1635: [[Incredibly Lame Pun|The Cannon Law]]''<ref>[[Don't Explain the Joke|"Canon law" is law made by and governing a church]]. "Cannon law" is "whoever has the cannon makes the law."</ref> with Andrew Dennis

* ''1635: The Tangled Web'' '''by''' Virginia DeMarce (structured short story collection)

* ''1636: The Kremlin Games'' with GeorgGorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

* ''1635: [[A Worldwide Punomenon|The Papal Stakes]]''<ref>[[Don't Explain the Joke|The Papal '''States''' were parts of Italy directly ruled by the Church.]]</ref> with Charles Gannon

* ''1636: The KremlinViennese GamesWaltz'' with Paula Goodlett and GeorgGorg Huff

{{tropelistfranchisetropes}}

* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]: Sometimes upheld -— this is the [[Thirty Years' War]]. However, often subverted, as many -— from Gustav Adolf on down -— are portrayed as quite decent people, even if they hold notions of class and human rights which are normal for the day but repugnant to uptimer sensibilities. (A key theme running through the series is that people and issues are much more complex, close-up and on the scene, than can be seen at the remove of several centuries.)

** Upheld, at least to some extent, in the novels ''1635: The Eastern Front'' and ''1636: The Saxon Uprising'' with {{spoiler|Axel Oxenstierna}} and the other reactionary nobles who attempt to launch a coup during {{spoiler|Gustav Adolf's incapacity}}. The leader, at least, is --— as befits the pattern of the 1632verse --— a more complex, indeed tragic case, as he honestly believes, or at least has talked himself into honestly believing, that he is protecting his old friend while ignoring that his actions are downright opposed to what {{spoiler|the king}} would actually want. See [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] below.

** The Swedes are depicted very unrealistically. In particular, the Finnish "Hackapells," depicted as heroes in ''1632'', were notorious even by the standards of their period for how cruelly they treated civilians. Although Finns under Mike's command are later shown going on a plundering and raping spree in ''The Eastern Front'', forcing Mike to take . . . ''[[More Dakka|serious]]'' measures to discipline them.

*** The Finns show no mercy to {{spoiler|the Croatian cavalrymen attacking Grantville}}, at the very least. They aren't exactly portrayed as your friendly neighborhood soldier.

* [[Boisterous Bruiser]]: Gustavus Adolphus,; apparently he was like this in [[Real Life]] too. And he ain't the only one in the series.

* [[Defector From Decadence]]: In ''The Papal Stakes'', {{spoiler|Spanish Captain Castro y Papas}} finally decides {{spoiler|his country's leadership}} is being entirely too dishonorable.

** Gretchen's introduction to the Americans at the Battle of the Crapper captures this perfectly. It's more of a shock to her that this new army ''does not'' rape camp followers and execute prisoners than most pieces of technology she observes. To say nothing of the lack of noble class structure where she would automatically rank as dirt ... or men caring about her emotions and pleasure.

*** They also think that there is nothing shameful about a noble impregnating a commoner but there is in him marrying her instead of abandoning her. In fact they think Jeff was an insult to the nobility even though he had behaved in a perfectly upright manner--andmanner—and had even waited until the wedding night to obtain his reward. They considered the dishonor to lie not in having relations with a desperate camp-girl but in refusing to discard her afterwards.

** Downtimers and child raising. The way they use violence and the rod can (and had) come quite jarring to many uptimers. One of the downtimer protagonists wanted to study psychology --— but without all the "nonsense of the downs of violence in children".

** ''1634: The Bavarian Crisis'' showed one of the most horrible realities of the war: enemies who torture/slaughter can not only go with impunity but become allies, as happened with Captain Raudegen after he crippled a blacksmith to get information regarding Maria Anna and Mary Simpson.<ref> Raudegen's [[Karma Houdini]] status is revoked in a later story by Virginia DeMarce, when {{spoiler|his right hand is mangled in an accident — and the medic's [[Oblivious Guilt Slinging]] reminds him that it isn't as if he were someone like a '''blacksmith''' who '''needs''' both hands}} to do his work....</ref>

*** Captain Raudegen is a particularly unnerving case, since ''until'' he tortured that blacksmith he came across as a highly admirable soldier --— intelligent, observant, careful, professional in the best sense --— who just happened to be on the other side --— in short, a [[Worthy Opponent]].

** There's a character in ''1634: The Ram Rebellion'' who's shown coldbloodedly gunning down an eight-year-old boy --— taking another shot to make '''sure''' the kid's dead --— because the little boy is the son of aristocrats, and this ensures he won't grow up to come back for revenge. The killer is hinted to be a right-hand man of rising political figure Constantin Ableidinger, and [[Karma Houdini|there's no indication that he'll ever be put on trial for murdering the child]]. He is, in fact, treated later in that story as a valuable ally.

** In ''1634: The Ram Rebellion'', "The Suhl Incident" develops because gunsmiths in new USE member town Suhl are selling improved firearms to the USE's '''enemies''', and the local Committees of Correspondence members object to this and are making threatening remarks about how it's treason. At the end, Gretchen Richter arrives, chews out the local CoC for making these threats, and orders them to apologize to the gunsmiths. And '''then''', she tells the gunsmiths that if her husband gets killed by one of those improved guns in the hands of the enemy, she'll hunt the smiths down and kill them. So what makes it justifiable for '''her''' to say such things when it wasn't for the others? Is it that she's talking about personal vengeance, rather than treason to the state (the state being a fuzzy concept to most people of the time)? Or is it that she's Gretchen Richter and they're one-story characters?

* [[Evil Jesuit]]: Averted. The Jesuit order, as a whole, are allies to the Pope, who eventually becomes allied with the uptimers. Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld is portrayed in ''Ring of Fire'' as a decent man, and an uptimer encyclopedia listing his virtues and good works nearly brings him to tears. There are some bigoted Jesuits, and a Jesuit serves as a minor antagonist in ''The Bavarian Crisis'', but they are no more bigoted than many of their time --— some non-Jesuit uptime allies are even more intolerant.

** After the Spanish Cardinal Borja {{spoiler|usurps Pope Urban VIII, tries to murder him, and murders several of his allies}}, the Jesuits begin to suffer a schism. One faction {{spoiler|remains loyal to to Pope Urban VIII}} and are thus friendly to the uptimers; the other --— mostly composed of Spanish Inquisitors and witch-hunters -- become outright hostile.

{{quote|"And just exactly ''who'' is this--this—''the Umwa''? Sounds Polish. Is there a Polish baron somewhere in this area?" }}

*** The problem continues when Thuringia is joined with Franconia --— they opt for "State of Thuringia-Franconia" as the new name on the grounds that SoTF beats SoFT.

** One of the town girls has her mother play this trope straight and is actually nearly brought to tears upon this realization since even the Stones--whoStones—who many in town, including her, considered a family of losers before the Ring of Fire--actuallyFire—actually had a better, more supportive family life than she ever had.

* [[Improvised Umbrella]]: In ''1635: The Eastern Front'', Jeff Higgins resorts to using a wooden plank, and Prince Ulrik and Princess Kristina use a dining table.

* [[Just the Way You Are]]: Invoked in a kind of backwards way in ''1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies''. Eddie's gorgeous wife suddenly becomes very anxious about her hair, always keeping it covered. When he asks why, she finally admits that she's been using hair-curling treatments since before they met, to be in style --— but her maid forgot to bring along the equipment, and now her hair has straightened out. She seems to think this almost literally counts as disfiguring. Getting a good look, Eddie is so paralyzed by how even-more-gorgeous-than-before that shining, silky straight hair is that it takes him a while to tell her so. "I didn't think hair like this was ever ''not'' in style," or words to that effect. Besides, he fell in love with a ''woman'', not her hair.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: Intentional --— Flint wanted to avoid the "Great Man" theory of history and used as many characters as reasonable in the original novel. Add in the size of the series and it's shared universe nature and this trope just goes crazy.

* [[Name's the Same]]: Hilariously, one of the uptimer judges shares a name with a ''[[Harry Potter]]'' character--Tomcharacter—Tom Riddle!

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Through a quirk of fate, regiments in the USE army have names as well as numbers. In ''1635: The Eastern Front'', an elite regiment is formed in the Third Division to deal with problems of discipline --— The Hangman.

** Mike Stearns. A retired boxer, he calls upon the training this gave him in keeping his cool many times --— most explicitly after being made a general in the USE army. (Of course, anyone who watched him standing out in the open in ''1632'' to draw fire away from the Abrabanel carriage would know this.)

** Jeff Higgins. Starting in ''1632'' --— first, when he rescues {{spoiler|Rebecca Stearns}} from an ambush, and second, when he takes down a dozen professional cavalrymen in the [[Last Stand]] at the {{spoiler|high-school gymnasium}}.

** Gretchen --— as demonstrated quite early on at the eponymous incident during the Battle of the Crapper.

* [[No Communities Were Harmed]]: While [[wikipedia:Mannington, West Virginia|Mannington, West Virginia]] circa late 1999 does not have a power plant and ''does'' have oil wells, the town of Grantville is specified to be otherwise analogous. This simplifies worldbuilding when asking questions like "How many ham radio operators would there be in a town that size?"<ref>According to the article in the first Grantville Gazette, there were eighteen -— three Extra (the highest class), two Advanced, five General, one Tech-plus (making eleven people fluent in Morse Code), five Technician (sixteen, generally knowledgeable about radio operation), and two Novices.</ref> Some of the fan authors have even taken tours of Mannington (guided by Flint) to help improve the accuracy of their depictions of Grantville.

* [[Non-Indicative Name]]: Some of the book titles are this, because the year given in the title doesn't always match the year in which most of the action takes place. ''1632'' itself begins in 163'''''1'''''; the title year is when Grantville holds the new constitutional convention. Possibly the most extreme example is ''1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies''. Of [[Doorstopper|well over 800 pages]], all but the last not-quite-30-page section is set in 1635. ''1636: The Kremlin Games'' is similarly badtroublesome in a variant way, as its narrative begins in 1631 and devotes something like 80 percent of the book to the years '''between''' then and '36.

** Despite the disparity in their ages. (he is in his fifties, she is 19), Ludwig Guenther and Emilie are consistently presented as loving, mutually supportive, and politically on much the same page.

* [[The Posse]]: When the Grantvillers first see wandering soldiers pillaging the area, they get one up to hunt down and shoot the perpetrators.

They had no radio. They wouldn’twouldn't receive the news for days yet. }}

* [[Shipping]]: Of [[Historical Domain Character|Historical Domain Characters]]s, no less! Eric Flint admitted that part of the reason for the plot behind ''The Bavarian Crisis'' was that he and co-author Virginia DeMarce were "firmly convinced that this sprightly lass (Maria Anna of Austria) can do a lot better for herself than Maximillian (of Bavaria)".

** In one scene, the aforementioned [[Cool Old Guy]] tells his enemies, "My name is Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz. Prepare to die." An American witness realizes Ruy '''isn't''' quoting ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]''; Inigo Montoya was a "comic twist on an ancient and [[Badass Spaniard|very real model]]. ''Meet Ruy Sanchez --— the original''." In a sense, ''The Princess Bride'' was quoting '''him'''.

** ''1634: The Ram Rebellion'' contains an [[In-Universe]] example with Constantin Ableidinger, who at one point introduces himself as "[[Lensman|Helmut]], speaking for the Ram." The first up-timer to recognize the reference breaks down in giggles.

** ''16361635: A Parcel of Rogues'' has a brief appearance by a Scottish soldier who has very poor hygiene, as anyone with a functioning nose can tell when within ten feet or so of him. His name, as might be expected, is [[McAuslan]]. Based on his superior's comments, though, he's rather more competent than his twentieth-century namesake.

** Some [[Diesel PunkDieselpunk]] as well since the Americans have also started petroleum-drilling operations and have made planes and ironclad warship using repurposed land vehicle engines.

*** On the other hand, ''1636: The Devil's Opera'' includes an "accident" (sabotage) showing, with (in-story) lose-your-lunch gruesomeness, just how horrific the casualties can be if a large steam boiler explodes: thirty-nine men scalded to death almost instantly<ref>Death by scalding in this sense results in '''huge''' blisters all over their face, hands, and any other exposed skin ... and that's just a side effect. What really killed them, aside from pure shock from the pain, was being suffocated by the [[Nightmare Fuel|blistering '''inside their lungs''']].</ref>, and anyone who tried to rescue them (not that they could've been saved) would either be likewise scalded or suffocate because the steam drove out all the oxygen in the area. Two uptimers, one of them James Nichols, mention that they've long felt it's best to have nothing to do with steam.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: One character's prior love interest, a highschoolhigh-school jock with no particular weapons skills, picks a fight with her current love interest. Her current love interest is a veteran mercenary [[Violent Glaswegian]] who happens to come from a culture where dueling to the death is common and accepted, has just come from a dental appointment without painkillers, ''and is wearing a battle-grade saber at the time.''

* [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Jeff. A [[Dungeons and& Dragons]] nerd before the Ring of Fire, but within a year, he's a [[Badass Biker]] soldier.

* [[Wire Dilemma]]: Subverted in one of the later books --— a downtimer finds a '''large''' quantity of explosives with a clock-and-battery arrangement to set it off. He sends a friend to look for someone familiar with electrical devices (while '''he''' stays with the bomb, ready to try something based on desperate guessing if he doesn't get expert advice in time). But when a guy who knows enough arrives, he {{spoiler|merely pulls one wire loose, explaining that this bomb was clearly too simple to have anti-tampering devices, so there '''wasn't''' a real dilemma.}} On the other hand, the desperate measure the first fellow had been about to try [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|would've set it off at once]].<ref>He hadn't yet learned about electrical conductivity, and was planning to keep two bare copper wires apart with a steel knifeblade. Oops.</ref> He faints when the more knowledgeable man explains this.

** In ''Commander Cantrell in the West Indies'', Eddie's sister-in-law, king's daughter Leonora of Denmark, is another such. She's fourteen now, but yes, she was already fascinated by science at seven.

* [[You Have Failed Me...]]: Mike Stearns has this to say about Wallenstein.

[[Category:1632Literature of the 2000s]]