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Table of Contents

PREFACE Eric Flint

FICTION

1. Postage Due Eric Flint

2. Pastor Kastenmayer’s Revenge Virginia DeMarce

3. The Sound of Music David Carrico

4. Other People’s Money Gorg Huff

5. If the Demons Will Sleep Eva Musch

6. Hobson’s Choice Francis Turner

7. Hell Fighters Wood Hughes

CONTINUING SERIALS

8. Euterpe, Episode 2 Enrico M. Toro

FACT

9. Iron Rick Boatright

10. The Impact of Mechanization on German Farms Karen Bergstrahl

11. Flint’s Lock Leonard Hollar, Bob Hollingsworth, Tom Van Natta, and John Zeek

12. Alchemical Distillation Andrew Clark

IMAGES

SUBMISSIONS TO THE MAGAZINE

GRANTVILLE GAZETTE

PREFACE

Eric Flint

Jim Baen died a month ago. I suppose that’s a strange way to begin a preface for a collection of stories from my 1632 series, but it seems appropriate nonetheless. Jim was the founder and publisher of Baen Books. He was not only the publisher who bought my first novel, Mother of Demons, and twenty-two out of the twenty-four novels that followed. He was also the man who published 1632 and was enthusiastically supportive of the series that emerged from it—which includes the Grantville Gazettes.

Jim was willing to take chances that few publishers would. When I first approached him with the idea of producing an electronic magazine devoted to the 1632 series, and distributing it through Baen Books’ Webscriptions service, he agreed immediately. And, after the first few issues of that magazine indicated there might be a substantial readership for such stories, he agreed to start producing the volumes in a paper edition.

“Let’s see what happens,” he said to me at the time.

What happened was a success that surprised both of us. We had decided to hedge our bets with the first volume, which only came out in a paperback edition. Coming out in a time when the market for mass market paperbacks has generally been terrible, we expected the book would sell perhaps ten thousand copies. Instead, it sold over three times that many, with an excellent 77 percent sell-through.

(Sell-through is a term in the publishing industry that refers to the number of books actually sold, of the total number shipped. The average for the industry is about 50 percent. To put it another way, most books sell only half the copies shipped. The first volume of the Gazette sold better than three copies out of four.)

Once he saw those results, Jim decided to issue the second volume in hardcover first, with a later mass market reissue. Hardcover editions have a much better profit margin for publishers than paperback editions, and they bring a lot more in the way of royalties to authors. But, of course, they’re also chancier, since they’re more expensive to produce and it’s always possible that customers will shy away from the price tag.

“Let’s see what happens,” he said.

What happened with that volume, which came out in March of this year, is still uncertain. Not enough time has elapsed for net sales and sell-through to be solidly established. However, the shipping order was very good—about fifteen thousand copies. That’s probably twice the average shipping order for novels, and three times the average shipping order for anthologies.

That was good enough for Jim to decide to produce the third volume in the series in hardcover also. That’s the volume you’re holding in your hand right now.

At the beginning of June, I called Jim on the phone and asked him if he’d be willing to commit to a fourth volume of the Gazette in paper edition. He was, and we made the deal right then and there. That volume hasn’t been scheduled for publication yet, but it’ll appear sometime either late this year or early in 2008.

Grantville Gazette IV was the last book I ever sold Jim, or ever would. On June 12th, he suffered a massive stroke from which he never recovered consciousness. He died on June 28th.

All things considered, I’m glad the last book I ever sold my friend and publisher Jim Baen was one of these.

Eric Flint
July 29, 2006

Introduction

In Virginia DeMarce’s witty and touching “Pastor Kastenmayers Revenge”, a Lutheran pastor gets even with the American who eloped with his daughter by scheming to gain new adherents through eight separate arranged marriages between Lutheran down-timers and American up-timers.In other stories:The same teenagers who launched the sewing machine industry in Volume 1 move on to conquer the financial world, in Gorg Huffs “Other Peoples Money”; Francis Turners “Hobsons Choice” tells the tale of the personal and theological impact of the Ring of Fire on rambunctious students and barmaids in the university town of Cambridge, England; in Eva Muschs “If the Demons Will Sleep”, a woman terrorized by the notorious Hungarian countess Bartholdy finds peace and sanctuary in Grantville;in Wood Hughes “Hell Fighters”, a Benedictine monk confronts an inferno and finds his orders new calling; in David Carricos “The Sound of Music” and Enrico Toros continuing “Euterpe”, Grantville becomes a magnet drawing Europes most ambitious young musicians; and Danita Ewing concludes the short novel An Invisible War, which began in Volume 2.

The third volume of the Gazette also contain factual articles exploring such topics as the centrality of iron to the industrial revolution, the prospects for the mechanization of agriculture in the 17th century, and the logic behind the adoption of the Struve-Reardon Gun as the basic weapon of the USEs infantry.

Cover Art by Tom Kidd

IMAGES

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 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.”
6. SUBMISSIONS TO THE MAGAZINE
8. 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:
9. 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.
10. You can get to that conference by going to Baen Books’ Web site www.baen.com. Then select “Baen’s Bar.” If it’s your first visit, you will need to register. (That’s quick and easy.) Once you’re in the Bar, the three conferences devoted to the 1632 universe are “1632 Slush,” “1632 Slush Comments,” and “1632 Tech Manual.” You should post your sketch, outline, or story in “1632 Slush.” Any discussion of it should take place in “1632 Slush Comments.” The “1632 Tech Manual” is for any general discussion not specifically related to a specific story.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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. There’s also an editorial board to which Paula and I belong that does much the same thing. The other members of the board are Karen Bergstralh, Rick Boatright, and Laura Runkle. In addition, authors who publish regularly in the 1632 setting participate on the board as ex officio members. My point is that plenty of people will be looking over the various stories being submitted, so you needn’t worry that your story will just get lost in the shuffle.
14. 4) At that point—and only at that point—do I take a look at a story or article.
15. I insist that people follow this procedure, for two reasons:
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. In short, the procedure outlined above will save you a lot of wasted time and effort also.
19. 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 3,500 people was being willy-nilly transformed into a “town” with a population of something like 20,000 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 . . . 
20. 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 . . . 
21. 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.”
22. You can obtain a copy of the grid from the Web site, which collects and presents the by-now voluminous material concerning the series, www.1632.org. Look on the right for the link to “Virginia’s Up-timer Grid.” While you’re at it, you should also look further down at the links under the title “Author’s Manual.”
23. You will be paid for any story or factual article which 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 I can offer are posted below in the standard letter of agreement accepted by all the contributors to this issue.
24. Standard letter of agreement
26. 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.
27. Payment will be sent upon acceptance of the work at the following rates:
28. a rate of 2.5 cents per word for any story or article up to 15,000 words;
29. a rate of 2 cents a word for any story or article after 15,000 words but before 30,000 words;
30. a rate of 1.5 cents a word for any story or article after 30,000 words.
32. The rates are cumulative, not retroactive to the beginning of the story or article. (A story of 40,000 words 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.
33. 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.
34. 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.

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