1637: The French Correction
Eric Flint & Walter Hunt
NEW RING OF FIRE SERIES ENTRY FROM THE LATE ERIC FLINT AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR WALTER HUNT: The King is dead: Long Live the King. But which one? Gaston sits on the throne in Paris, but the dead king’s infant son has powerful forces on his side, ready to place him where he belongs. Who will prevail?
Tensions build in France following the ascension of Gaston to the throne of his murdered brother, but there are factions supporting the claim of King Louis’ surviving infant son. As France moves toward civil war, other parties, both visible and invisible, maneuver to take advantage of the increased tension. Who will survive to reign over France—King Gaston, the exiled child and his regents, or the King of Spain?
https://www.baen.com/1637-the-french-correction.html
1637: The Pacific Initiative
Iver P. Cooper
NEW RING OF FIRE SERIES ENTRY FROM IVER P. COOPER
A cosmic catastrophe, the Ring of Fire, strands the West Virginia town of Grantville back in time in the middle of the Thirty Years War. One of its ripple effects is that Japan has pulled back from a policy of isolation and staked out its own claims on the west coast of North America. But it is not the only power interested in that part of the New World, and the native Americans have also responded, in different ways, to the unexpected colonists. And there are conflicts among the colonists themselves.
In settling the fate of this part of the New World, a few remarkable individuals have an outsize role to play: Oyamada Isamu, a samurai on his first independent command; Yells-at-Bears, a young native woman of Vancouver Island; Father Blanco, a Jesuit priest and former missionary; and Iroha Date-hime, the daughter of the Grand Governor of New Nippon.
https://www.baen.com/1637-the-pacific-initiative.html
Magdeburg Noir
David Carrico
Magdeburg, the capital of the newly-formed United States of Europe, has a dark and bloody history. Most of the city and its population were destroyed when the imperialist army ran amok after capturing the city in May of 1631. The ancient Gothic cathedral was one of the few structures that survived more-or-less intact.
Once the Swedish king Gustav Adolf drove out the imperialists and established the USE, Magdeburg began to recover—and then grow at an astonishing rate. New industries inspired by the technology of the time-transplanted Americans of Grantville are turning the city into a boom town, with immigrants from all over central Europe pouring in.
A boom town is full of hope and aspiration—but it’s also a place that generates its own darkness and chaos. The city’s fledgling police force is scrambling to get control over the growing crime and violence. Sometimes it succeeds—but often it doesn’t. And such failures bring down the might of the city’s powerful revolutionary Committees of Correspondence, whose leader Gunther Achterhof can match any criminal’s ruthlessness.
Musicians murdered, new and brutal religious cults arising, bombings and arson, spies and informers and those hunting them—these are only some of the ingredients in the reborn city of light and darkness.
https://www.baen.com/magdeburg-noir2.html
Letters from Gronow
David Carrico
What happens when the seventeenth century encounters Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep? What happens when the Elder Gods descend upon Magdeburg? When literary entrepreneur Johann Gronow discovers the stories of H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe in the libraries and book collections of Grantville, he launches a magazine for the purpose of publishing translations of their stories. Der Schwarze Kater—The Black Tomcat—begins attracting attention immediately. From his very first reading of the first issue of the magazine, a young bookkeeper named Philip Fröhlich develops a passion to write those kinds of stories. And so begins the quest of every author—to satisfy the requirements of an editor and make that first elusive sale. As have millions of aspiring authors, Philip discovers it’s not as easy as it looks. Time after time his submissions receive a rejection letter from Gronow. But Philip stubbornly keeps submitting, along the way discovering things about himself and the people around him that he never would have learned any other way.
https://www.baen.com/letters-from-gronow2.html
1635: Music and Murder
David Carrico
Music . . .
It’s been said that musicians live for the next new sound. Well, the musicians of Europe were presented with the biggest new sound ever when the Ring of Fire brought the future back to 1631. What will the court musicians think when they hear Bach, Stravinsky, and the Beatles? What will the street and tavern musicians think when faced with Johnny Cash, Metallica, and Nirvana? Things don’t go smoothly for Marla Linder and her friends.
And Murder . . .
The Thirty Years War was an ‘interesting’ time to be alive, in the proverbial Chinese curse sense of the word. Then Grantville arrived from the future, bringing technology and philosophies that set European civilization on its ear. But that’s not all that came back with Grantville. Imagine trying to establish modern police procedures in a time where neither the powers-that-be nor the people underneath them provide much support. Up-timer Byron Chieske and his down-timer partner Gotthilf Hoch walk some mean streets and lonely roads.
This is an updated edition with “Canticle de Noël.” This was originally published in A 1632 Christmas and has been moved here so that all the Marla and Franz stories are in one place. This edition also contains an Author’s Afterward.
https://www.baen.com/1635-music-and-murder.html
The Muse of Music
David Carrico
When Italian musician Giacomo Carissimi hears about Up-time music in Grantville he sets off across the Alps to see and hear these wonders. Nothing will keep him from his dream of learning the new music and seeing new instruments, not even warring militias and the threats of plague. He shares the trek and what he finds in a series of heartfelt letters and several short stories.
https://www.baen.com/the-muse-of-music-2.html
Essen Steel
Kim Mackey
Who is Colette du Bois, why does Louis de Geer care about her, and what is her connection to Crucibellus? As the ripples of the Ring of Fire event continue to spread through Europe, new opportunities are created, new possibilities arise, and new destinies appear. Louis has a vision of one of those destinies, one that will change the Rhineland forever, but it will take some of the knowledge brought back from the future in Grantville to make it possible. And the perception, strength, and skill of Colette and her new up-timer husband may be the most critical piece of his plans. Soldiers gather, spies engage in espionage, and merchants wager fortunes on the slimmest of odds, in the hopes of bringing about a new future.
Published: 5/6/2025
