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1634: The Ram Rebellion

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1634: The Ram Rebellion is the seventh published work in the 1632 series, and is the third work to establish what is best considered as the third mainline thread of historical speculative focus in the 1632 alternative-history universe (colloquially, the 1632-verse, or first 'Assiti Shards Universe'). It is an anthology with several longer Novelettes and one of five planned works set in the year 1634 in the parallel universe 'world' created in the first novel, 1632 (novel). Historians Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce are the editors, as well as contributors of the essential story thread that begins in this work (See below: Authors Foreword).

As of this writing, the 1632 lead novel article contains a (draft) detailed discription of the underlying history before the Assiti Shard event plunged the contemporary fictional town of Grantville, WV into heart of the conflict known as the Thirty Years' War. While in most of the works in this series where much of the story impact and attraction takes place in the halls of power inhabited by real historical figures, and their likely machiavellian realpolitik as the ideas and knowledge of Grantvilles residents impact the actions of historical figures— The first third of this book is written from the standpoint of the common man in the street, some of it Germans trying to cope with Grantville, WV, some of it from up-timers trying to cope with their new world around Grantville, and some of it a mix of both where the story focuses on the problems of two widely different cultures trying to adapt to each other in the new United States of Europe. These merging dynamics are the milieu shaping stories Flint felt necessary to include despite the fact they are all in the period 1631–1632, but their impact extends to the second two sections of the book and thus into 1634.

Story Line Premise

The reader engaging premise posed in the book series by historian/author Flint is what might happen in one of history's most turbulently vile and machiavellian periods if modern political thought backed by some modern knowledge and technology (rapid fire firearms, power plant, computers, modern library, internal combustion, flight... et. al.) were to land smack in the middle of the most troubled region during what might be aptly called 'The Real First World War'.

Flint creates the fictional town of Grantville, West Virginia (modeled on the real town of Mannington) and drops it and its powerplant abruptly into the new time-space, through a side effect of an alien technology ( The Assiti Shards), transported back in time into the middle of the Thirty Years' War, in the German province of Thuringia during the middle of a wedding (accounting for the presence of a few characters not native to the town). Action, conflict, reaction, humor, and extremely interesting character development quickly follow in the fast paced tale as Grantville led by Mike Stearns, president of the local United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) suddenly have to cope with the raging war, its armies, language barriers, religious suppression (A pretext for the less noble machiavellian affairs of state by the eras superpowers that killed millions)

There are many actaul historical figures occupying prominent or supporting roles in the novels as they react to the ripples of change as they radiate from Grantville, WV. The main article covering this aspect is currently List of Fictional Characters .

1634: The Ram Rebellion

1634: The Ram Rebellion is a book in the popular 1632 alternative-history timeline that is currently available as an ebook and which will reach mass publication as a hardcover in the month of May, 2006. Wikipedia asked for permission to temporarily quote the authors forward to relieve the demands necessitated by advancing the related articles that are currently of a higher priority to bring to a better state of completeness. This article will in turn be upgraded with a better in depth article.

Authors Foreword

This material which is outside the work proper is quoted from the eBook2 with permission of the milieu owner editor-author Eric Flint, and under the fair use guidelines concerning copyrights.
PREFACE

This is something of an oddball volume, so it's perhaps fitting that it has an oddball history. Many of the stories contained herein first saw life as stories intended to be published in the electronic magazine devoted to the 1632 series, the Grantville Gazette. (Of which, seven volumes are now published, and the first two in a paper edition as well.)

As I watched these stories being written, however—originally with no overarching framework—it occurred to me that, willy-nilly, the writers were in fact shaping the way in which the revolution begun by the Ring of Fire was starting to have an impact on central Germany.

Once I realized that, this volume was born. I had long intended to write a companion volume to 1632, 1633 and 1634: The Baltic War, that would depict the same events covered in those novels but with a focus that you might call closer to ground level. (1632 and 1633 are already in print. David Weber and I are now close to finishing 1634: The Baltic War.)

It's in the nature of fictional narrative that an author tends, whether he agrees with the Great Man theory of history or not—-and I happen to despise it-—to write stories that focus on "great heroes." It's simply hard to avoid that, given the dramatic imperatives of story-telling.

But such stories give a skewed view of the way human events unfold. People in their great numbers are creators of their own history, not simply the passive material from which history is shaped. The purpose of this book, more than any other, is to depict that in the form of fiction.

It's an oddball volume, as I said, something of cross between a traditional anthology and a novel. There are many different stories in these pages, written by many different authors. At the same time, all the stories share not only a common setting but a common story arch and a common plot thread—as obscure as that may seem to the reader in the first two parts of the book.

Virginia DeMarce and I provided that, partly in stories we wrote separately, but especially in the short novel we co-authored that concludes the volume and shares the same title: The Ram Rebellion. All the separate threads that are first introduced in Parts I and II begin to come together in Part III, and reach their final culmination in Part IV.

So what to call it? I don't know, to be honest. Let's just settle for "a 1632 book," and I hope you enjoy it.

Eric Flint
Copyright 2006 by Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

The Ram Rebellion Theme

With the example of future Grantsville, U.S.A., a peasant revolt becomes a revolutionary movement in the fractured Holy Roman Empire south and east of Thuringia while the Machievillian manevers in the neohistorical governments and various field armies now dance to counter-act those aimed at the Americans' new heartland. Up-timers, from the original USA space-time want the serfs to succeed and liberate themselves--but also know what a bloodbath the French Revolution became and various individuals act to help one and prevent the others. Avoiding that path will take all sorts of resources and efforts, and Americans from both uptime and down-time act resolutely to mitigate the problems, diplomacy to head off wars headed by authoritarians threated by the new American ideals, and a deft appreciation of when not to fight and dangle an irresistible carrot instead.

1632 Launches a new era in writing

1632 the lead novel in the complex series now numbering ten works in less than five years is a thought provoking, educational, and extremely successful upbeat science fiction alternate history novel originally available only as a paperback written by Eric Flint that has spawned worldwide interest and an almost cult-like following in less than four years. While initially not a best seller, it has far eclipsed many such works in sustained sales as it continues in print and sales. Originally intended to be a single story, the novel is now the first of an open-ended series wherein there are at least five books under advanced contract beyond the seven books already published in print media (over half available in pricey hard cover editions), plus an additional three related ebooks that are likely to follow later in print, and the popularity of the series continues to grow by word of mouth. It is likely that the seven book series is establishing a new publishing record for sales and growth as is inferable from the simply astonishing rate of progression and development in the short time since the first book was released in 2001— seven books in print in five (four) years or less would be remarkable for half as many releases.

This explosive rate of growth is likely fueled by two extraordinary factors:

  1. Alternate history novels set in the past do not read like hard science fiction, but instead share settings with more in common to classics and mainline novels, thus appeal to a wider readership.
  2. Conceived as a stand-alone novel published about the same time Baen Books launched an author to fan forum (Baen's Bar), the buzz thereon among Sci-Fi fans, quickly lead to discussions of likely subsequent events. These in turn removed the burden upon Flint to research the likely outcome and limiting circumstances within the timeframe. This in turn lead to the author to invite other authors to 'play in his milieu', and most unusually, to help define it; The initial result is the novel 1633 co-written with best selling author David Weber and the anthology Ring of Fire of which all material within was written in the same time period and modified to be consistant across all the storylines within both. Thus each helped shape the other and matured the early development of the milieu.

Such milieu-visiting efforts are usually side stories careful to not complicate the main storyline of the hosting author. Flint, who likes to co-write, decided to take the uniquely bold step of inviting not only other authors but his fans to participate. This resulted in the explosive synergy resulting in 10 book-length works (ebooks included) in less than four years published before April 2006. With a firmly established and outlined milieu, the storyline expanded into many threads as change ripples out from Grantvilles influence like wavelets from a stone. This rich interwoven complexity is perhaps the heart of the reason 1632 succeeded in garnering so much attention, and its continuation (like real history) is readily appreciated by considering the series promises no less than five novels set in the year 1634 alone.

Added to this rich promise is the canvas of short stories that have developed under the benevolently generous editorship of Flint, anthologies collected (again uniquely) as integral parts of the milieu development, bricks in its growing wall and involving a wondrous in-depth look at the milieu from the viewpoint of Flint's interesting but complex minor characters with thought-provoking points of view of their own from movers and shakers of the main storyline (i.e. the Novels). Flint has promised that some of these will grow into major characters (promoted!) in their own right in follow-on novels. The resultant body of work is beyond the scope of a single man, and engaging enough to be called enchanting. How could it be otherwise in a diverse plotline with the Spanish Inquisitors chasing 'witches' for its infamous inquisition. It was first published in New York by Baen Books in 2001 with ISBN 0671319728 . The full text of the novel is available from the Baen Free Library (see below).


The Series Thus Far

1633 continues the story first in print; one of two co-developed and closely related sequels in the best selling science fiction series the other jointly developed work is an anthology called The Ring of Fire. The whole series will interleave anthologies with novels, where the former generally provide a richer background to the latter, which may be thought of as carrying the main story threads, of which there will be many. That is, the storyline therein is entangled with the central themes and characters, but some characters have little or no appearances in other threads, the action being carried by other former 'minor' characters in one of the other works. These introductions and momentus behind a given mainline thread will frequently be seen in the anthology that set the table for the follow-on feast.

For main article and in depth discussion of series wide matters, see: 1632 series.

This material is organized in order of print publication, with no consideration herein until an ebook release reaches actual print publication. Such ebook cases are currently covered only in the blanket Wikipedia article The Grantville Gazettes — (Anthologies) ed. by Eric Flint; all available as eBooks, Volume I as PB edition, Volume II as Hardcover, Volume III scheduled release December 2006 as Hardcover, as well. Similar to the Ring of Fire, these stories are also shaping the general development of the mileau and future stories of same. The difference is ROF is a compilation of stories by established authors invited to contribute by Mr. Flint, while the GG-I—GG-VII anthologies are primarily written by new authors with occasional contributions by established writers. As noted by the authors forward quoted in full above, they are germane to the series of the whole as there publication by ebook establishes canon for the milieu and is incorporated into the copious 250+ page writers guide 'Virginia's Grid[1]' thereafter.

See also

NOTE: All the below listed eBooks are produced in multiple unencrypted formats on Webscription.net, including RTF suitable for most word processor  applications software.
Free reading but partial version of the Ring of Fire (anthology), the co-sequel to the novel 1633.
Web page links: Comments and Content notes
http://bar.baen.com/ Baen's Bar is an official forum with several sections (sub-forums) dedicated to the 1632 universe: 1632 Tech Manual, 1632 Slush (Slushpile in publishing: Stack of manuscripts for vetting) and Comments.
http://ericflint.net/ Eric Flint's website, which has much about his work currently in progress or upcoming (in publication, in planning, under contract, in process) matters in the publication cycle.
http://www.1632.org by 1632.org The official fan site about 1632 universe run in conjunction with Eric Flint and the 1632 Research Committee, including the book series canonical references' available for download and reference by any participating in the collaborative writing process in the series. If you want to write a contribution to The Grantville Gazettes, this is necessarily a must site.
http://www.klaus-leiss.de/1632Tech/ 1632 universe dedicated German Wikiproject organized to cross reference and encyclopediatize matters and characters pertaining to the 1632verse. Another must browse for would be contributors to The Grantville Gazettes and students of Collabortative writing projects.
Fan Page collecting 1632 research 1632verse Commonwealth of Two Nations Resource Page - a webpage about Polish-Lthuanian Commonwealth in the 1632 universe, but especially valuable for 1632 fans for it's many period maps and links to other resources.



 

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