Previous / Next Bathing With CoalWritten by Russ RittgersFall, 1633“Barnabas Kitchner! Wake up! It’s Tuesday morning and you have to buy wood for the bathhouse fire.”The thirty-eight year-old man rolled over in bed and opened one eye. His wife, Margarete Lutsch, was already dressed and standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips.Tuesday. […]

Previous / Next Fiddling StrangerBy Russ RittgersAugust 1633Dolf was the first in his farming village to notice the stranger. Not that strangers walking or riding past on their way to or from Aschersleben were unusual. He was ten, old enough to have finished his formal schooling, or so his father said. “Got your letters and […]

Previous / Next Three Innocuous Wordsby Russ RittgersWhite vapor was blowing out of Hudson’s nostrils that frosty mid-morning in late December. Chip Jenkins rode his horse around the small snow-covered copse of trees and saw the von Ruppersdorf manor that Katerina had finally finished building this year. He’d been looking forward to this day for […]

Previous / NextVon GrantvilleBy Russ RittgersChad sat on the front porch swing staring blankly ahead. He held a tumbler of Kentucky’s smoothest bourbon and water. It was like a cruel joke. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, those thirty-five new cars you have on your lot? You won’t […]

Previous / NextGrantville is DifferentRuss RittgersIt was late August, 1632, when Georg Bauer climbed out of the ditch he’d been digging for Jena’s new sewer line. Sweat was still pouring off him when he first heard about Grantville.Almost twenty-two, with dark hair and a strong build, Georg was the fourth son of a farmer who […]

Previous / NextChip’s Christmas GiftRuss RittgersChip and Joachim had just finished working out with quarterstaffs, six-foot-long hardwood sticks, at the von Thierbach estate manor, absorbing a new collection of bruises to join those of the previous two days. Chip wanted to practice techniques he’d previously learned in the army and Joachim simply wanted to gain […]