Grantville Gazette, Volume I

Ring of Fire - Gazette Editions Series, Book 1

De: Eric Flint - editor

Narrado por: P.J. Ochlan

The new United States in central Germany launches a one-plane Doolittle Raid on Paris, France. The target: their arch-enemy, Cardinal Richelieu. Meanwhile, an ambassador from the Mughal Empire of northern India is being held captive in Austria by the Habsburg dynasty. Mike Stearns decides to send a mercenary company to rescue him, led by two 17th-century mercenary officers: an Englishman and a Irishman, who seem to spend as much time fighting each other as they do the enemy. Mike Spehar's "Collateral Damage" and Chris Weber's "The Company Men" are just two of the stories contained in this second volume of the Grantville Gazette. In other stories:

• a prominent Italian musician decides to travel to Grantville to investigate the music of the future;
• an American archer and a Finnish cavalryman become friends in the middle of a battlefield;
• a Lutheran pastor begins a theological challenge to the establishment based on his interpretation of the Ring of Fire;
• and American and German detectives become partners to investigate a murder.

Contains mature themes.

©2004 Eric Flint (P)2020 Tantor

Seriously, 4 hours of stupid shite?

I honestly don't need four hours of stupid shite regarding radio waves, antibiotics, or how much better horses are at pulling heavy loads than humans.

world building gone wonderfully insane!

If your are in this far, you are probably, already, irretrievably, too far gone. Congratulations!

The legendary Gazette is now in audio

If you are a casual fan of 1632 you may not be aware that there is a quarterly that is up to over 80 volumes that is written to fill in the postulated world of the story arc. Professionally edited with writers who are not established beyound these volumes, getting into intimate details of the idea of 1632 with short stories, essays, serials and fact based articles. It is a treasure for wonks but is not light entertainment or fine literature. If you really like ROF and can't wait for the next main book in the series, this and the other 80+ volumes of trhe GG are a real treat.

Solid Anthology for Series Fans

Like all anthologies, this volume has stories (and nonfiction) that vary in quality and interest. In general, this is a collection that is unified only by its time in the storyline of the series.

Portraits

3-star short story
A short story set during the siege of Amsterdam, starring Peter Paul Rubens. Mildly interesting, but very light.

Anna's Story

4-star novelette
George Blanton, an old man whose wife and son had both died before the Ring of Fire event, finds a young German refugee hiding in his barn in the immediate aftermath of the event. This story is mostly a character sketch of Blanton shown through the lens of his interaction with that German girl (Anna) and her family. Excellent character work carries this piece; plot and setting are largely utilitarian. But the character work is very good.

Curio and Relic

3.5-star short novelette
The story of former SFC Santee (a Vietnam tunnel rat and weapons dealer) in the immediate aftermath of the Ring of Fire. Santee is irascible, insubordinate, and very good at what he does. The writing here isn't especially strong, but the character work is interesting. Had this been long enough, it could easily have been higher rated.

The Sewing Circle

5-star novella
How does one start a money-making manufacturing business in a 17th century society? Well, in this case, one starts by selling dolls to make sewing machines.

This story combines a fascinating combination of excellent character work with a very strong primer on corporate capitalism and entrepreneurship. When added to a solid understanding of the way that the industrial revolution affected society, this story is stellar.

This story and "Anna's Story" alone would give this volume a 4-star rating.

The Rudolstadt Colloquy

3.5-star novelette
Wherein it is shown that the Lutheran church is just as capable of counting angels on pinheads and disputatious and "energetic" discussion as the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

This is an interesting view of the clash of theological doctrines in the world of the 30 Years War, but as a story, it succeeds largely in the margins. Entertaining largely for the history.

Radio in the 1632 Universe

5-star nonfiction
This is an example of the best of the research done at Baen's Bar to increase the verisimilitude of the alternate history in the series. It's likely of interest only to tech geeks, but fortunately, I are one.

They've Got Bread Mold, Why Can't They Make Penicillin?

4-star nonfiction
A moderately in-depth discussion of the important diseases of the 17th century, the means of prevention and treatment, and the technology of antibiotic production. Another excellent technical discussion.

Horse Power

3-star nonfiction
While this is a good (as far as I can tell) discussion of horse breeding and a nice overview of modern horse breeds, its discussion of horses in 17th century Europe is weaker. Still worth reading, but less interesting overall.

Overall, this collection is definitely worth reading, but it isn't as compelling as the main fiction volumes in the series. If you like the series, you'll probably be interested, but this would not be a good place to start.

Love the stories. One of the best voices!

The stories may partially be for the big fans. For those who loves very-low-profile sci-fi, and are absolutely hooked on history, science, practical engineering in a lower-resource world with positve attitude inhabitants (not overblown hype), and how culturally related people can interface with each other. (The non-results of culturally removed people we have seen enough of to have any inspiring or facinating aspects for me anymore.)
But the really, really great thing here is the voice of P.J. Ochlan. Too many readers sound amazing for the first seconds, then they are mostly sleep inducing; or are grating from the start. P.J. Ochland is great. From this audio book I have replayed stories at least two or three times even before I have finshed them all. (I guess I'm saving the best story for a really long road trip.) (I have the book too. I read that first, and bought the audiobook as an addition a month later.)

Publisher Summary = False for content!

Nothing stated in the Publisher's Summary that is appended to this.. this audiobook, is contained in the actual audio that got downloaded to my PC's audible app.

The actual short stories contained in the audio I dl'd, while not actually interesting to me to any great extent, were on par with most of everything else in the Ring of Fire universe in terms of quality story telling.
However it was not even close, to being as interesting as I figured that mentioned in the Publisher's summary would or could have been. Not to mention that parts if not even all of at least two of the shorts where regurgitations of prior books..

So I find myself rather annoyed having listened through 11 hours+ of stuff waiting for several stories that never came along so to say.. When horses started getting listed and described I figured I would skip that part getting on with the next short.. To my dismay there was less then 45 minutes left of the whole audiobook by then. Well at least I got a nice long nap in during the piece about Piatza going to some religious conference.