1632

This book was recommended to me by a middle school student of mine, so I wasn't exactly expecting total brilliance. I'm going to find that child tomorrow and thank him for telling me about it. This is a wonderful alternate history, up there with Harry Turtledove for me. It is well written with good characters and the action is great. I think my favorite part is that the Americans in the past don't just slid into the ancient world like a lot of time travellers do, they actively take a role in making a better world. And they don't do it for their own gain, but to eliminate some of the worst of modern history Nazis. Highly recommended.

So, I finished reading Eric Flint's 1632 recently. The premise of the book is a modern-day West Virginia miner town is thrown backward in time to the middle of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years War. The Good: It's established in the introduction to the book that when the town is sent back......more

Flint self-identifies with the Left; but his is an old- fashioned, Jeffersonian sort of populist liberalism, which embraces democracy, human rights, religious freedom (as opposed to "freedom from religion"), personal moral responsibility, retributive justice, and widespread gun ownership. When their......more

America, F**k yeah! In the 17th century! This book manages to combine really deeply disturbing elements with kinda fun stuff and some surprising insight on psychology: The good: -There's some instances where the author really manages to get into a character's head and to present some really good insig......more

About a quarter of the way through this book, I got the same unpleasant, slightly dirty feeling you get when you suddenly realize you've been groovin' along to Christian rock. This story of a small West Virginian town suddenly transported to 17th century Europe is the worst kind of pro-American rhet......more

This one was a lot of fun years ago.......more