Next

Table of Contents

PREFACE (combined with AFTERWORD)

FICTION

1. Steps in the Dance Eric Flint

2. Collateral Damage Mike Spehar

3. EUTERPE, Episode 1 Enrico M. Toro

4. The Company Men Christopher James Weber

5. Just one of Those Days by Leonard Hollar

6. God’s Gifts Gorg Huff

7. Bottom-Feeders John Zeek

8. An Invisible War Danita Lee Ewing

FACT

9. A Quick and Dirty Treatise on Historical Fencing by Enrico M. Toro

10. So You Want to Do Telecommunications in 1633? Rick Boatright

11. Mente Et Malleo: Practical Mineralogy and Minerals Exploration in 1632 by Laura Runkle

12. The Book of Zink Andrew Clark

AFTERWORD (Combined with PREFACE)

Grantville Gazette

Introduction

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 seventeenth-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; — American and German detectives become partners to investigate a murder; — and, in the first part of Danita Ewing’s serialized short novel, An Invisible War, the new United States founds a medical school in Jena despite resistance from up-timers and down-timers alike. The second volume of Grantville Gazette also contains factual articles which explain some of the technical background for the 1632 series, including articles on practical geology, telecommunications, and seventeenth-century swordsmanship. Cover art by Tom Kidd.

Images
Note from Editor:

There are various images, mostly portraits from the time, that illustrate different aspects of the 1632 universe. In the first issue of the Grantville Gazette, I included those with the volume itself. Since that created downloading problems for some people, however, I’ve separated all the images and they will be maintained and expanded on their own schedule.

If you’re interested, you can look at the images and my accompanying commentary at no extra cost. They are set up in the Baen Free Library. You can find them as follows: 
1) Go to www.baen.com.
2) Select “Free Library” from the blue menu at the top.
3) Once in the Library, select “The Authors” from the yellow menu on the left.
4) Once in “The Authors,” select “Eric Flint.”
5) Then select “Images from the Grantville Gazette.

Submissions to the Magazine

If anyone is interested in submitting stories or articles for future issues of the Grantville Gazette, you are welcome to do so. But you must follow a certain procedure:

1) All stories and articles must first be posted in a conference in Baen’s Bar set aside for the purpose, called “1632 Slush.” Do not send them to me directly, because I won’t read them.

It’s good idea to submit a sketch of your story to the conference first, since people there will likely spot any major problems that you overlooked. That can wind up saving you a lot of wasted work.

2) Your story/article will then be subjected to discussion and commentary by participants in the 1632 discussion. In essence, it will get chewed on by what amounts to a very large, virtual writers’ group.

You do not need to wait until you’ve finished the story to start posting it in “1632 Slush.” In fact, it’s a good idea not to wait, because you will often find that problems can be spotted early in the game, before you’ve put all the work into completing the piece.

3) While this is happening, the assistant editor of the Grantville Gazette—Paula Goodlett—will be keeping an eye on the discussion. She will alert me whenever a story or article seems to be gaining general approval from the participants in the discussion.

4) At that point—and only at that point—do I take a look at a story or article.

I insist that people follow this procedure for two reasons:

First, as I said, I’m very busy and I just don’t have time to read everything submitted until I have some reason to think it’s gotten past a certain preliminary screening.

Secondly, and even more importantly, the setting and “established canon” in this series is quite extensive by now. If anyone tries to write a story without first taking the time to become familiar with the setting, they will almost invariably write something that—even if it’s otherwise well written—I simply can’t accept.

In short, the procedure outlined above will save you a lot of wasted time and effort also.

One point in particular: I have gotten extremely hard-nosed about the way in which people use American characters in their stories (so-called “up-timers”). That’s because I began discovering that my small and realistically portrayed coal-mining town of thirty-five hundred people was being willy-nilly transformed into a “town” with a population of something like twenty thousand people—half of whom were Navy SEALs who just happened to be in town at the Ring of Fire, half of whom were rocket scientists (ibid), half of whom were brain surgeons (ibid), half of whom had a personal library the size of the Library of Congress, half of whom . . .

Not to mention the F-16s that “just happened” to be flying through the area, the army convoys (ibid), the trains full of vital industrial supplies (ibid), the FBI agents in hot pursuit of master criminals (ibid), the . . .

NOT A CHANCE. If you want to use an up-time character, you must use one of the “authorized” characters. Those are the characters created by Virginia DeMarce using genealogical software and embodied in what is called “the grid.”

You can obtain the current edition of the grid at: www.1632.org .

Look on the menu to the right for the item titled “Virginia’s Up-timer Grid.” While you’re at it, I recommend you read at least the two following items in the menu, “Dead Horses” and “The Many Halves of Grantville.” That might save you some wasted effort.

The “Dead Horses” section goes over the many issues that have been thoroughly thrashed out in the discussion in Baen’s Bar in the “1632 Tech Manual” conference that has been going on for six years now. I should stress that it is not impossible that someone new to the discussion might resurrect one of these dead horses and bring it to life. That has happened in the past, although not often. But you should still look at this to see what’s considered a dead horse in the first place, and why.

Yes, you might have a new angle on, for instance, the use of ultralights or lighter-than-air craft. But, frankly, it’s not likely. And you for sure and certain won’t if you don’t take the time to examine what has already been discussed at great length.

“The Many Halves of Grantville” is a short and, um, rather sarcastic essay by me. It’s worth reading for two reasons. First, hopefully, you may be amused by it. Secondly, it will give you a good sense of the things to avoid if you decide to write a story for the magazine.

You will be paid for any story or factual article that is published. The rates that I can afford for the magazine at the moment fall into the category of “semipro.” I hope to be able to raise those rates in the future to make them fall clearly within professional rates, but . . . That will obviously depend on whether the magazine starts selling enough copies to generate the needed income. In the meantime, the rates and terms that I can offer are posted below in the standard letter of agreement accepted by all the contributors to the magazine.

In the event that Baen Books decides to issue a volume of the magazine in a paper edition, as they have now done for the first two volumes, you will be paid additional money for your story or article which brings the total advance up to professional rates. In addition, you will be entitled to a pro rata share of the authors’ royalties, based on the length of your piece.

Standard letter of agreement

Below are the terms for the purchase of a story or factual article (hereafter “the work”) to be included in an issue of the online magazine Grantville Gazette, edited by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books.

Payment will be sent upon acceptance of the work at the following rates:

1) a rate of 2.5 cents per word for any story or article up to 15,000 words;

2) a rate of 2 cents a word for any story or article after 15,000 words but before 30,000 words;

3) a rate of 1.5 cents a word for any story or article after 30,000 words.

The rates are cumulative, not retroactive to the beginning of the story or article. (E.g., a story 40,000 words long would earn the higher rates for the first 30,000 words.) Word counts will be rounded to the nearest hundred and calculated by Word for Windows XP.

In the event a story has a payment that exceeds $200, the money will be paid in two installments: half on acceptance, and the remaining half two months after publication of the story.

You agree to sell exclusive first world rights for the story, including exclusive first electronic rights for five years following publication, and subsequent nonexclusive world rights. Should Baen Books select your story for a paper edition, you will not receive a second advance but will be paid whatever the differential might be between what you originally received and the advance for different length stories established for the paper edition. You will also be entitled to a proportionate share of any royalties earned by the authors of a paper edition. If the work is reissued in a paper edition, then the standard reversion rights as stipulated in the Baen contract would supercede the reversion rights contained here.

Eric Flint retains the rights to the 1632 universe setting, as well as the characters in it, so you will need to obtain his permission if you wish to publish the story or use the setting and characters through anyone other than Baen Books even after the rights have reverted to you. You, the author, will retain copyright and all other rights except as listed above. Baen will copyright the story on first publication.

You warrant and represent that you have the right to grant the rights above; that these rights are free and clear; that your story will not violate any copyright or any other right of a third party, nor be contrary to law. You agree to indemnify Baen for any loss, damage, or expense arising out of any claim inconsistent with any of the above warranties and representations.

Copyright

Hardcover This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. First printing, March 2006 Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020 Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-10: 1-4165-2051-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-4165-2051-1 Copyright 2006 by Eric Flint All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
http://www.baen.com Electronic version by WebWrights
http://www.webwrights.com

Next