1632 (novel)

1632 (2000) is an alternate history novel by American author Eric Flint, the initial novel in the best-selling^[1] series of the same name.^[2]

The flagship novel kicked off a collaborative writing effort that has involved hundreds of contributors and dozens of authors. The premise involves a small American town of three thousand, sent back to May 1631, in an alternate Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.

Plot summary

The

Grantville, led by Mike Stearns, president of the local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), must cope with the town's space-time dislocation, the surrounding raging war, language barriers, and numerous social and political issues, including class conflict, witchcraft, feminism, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, among many other factors. One complication is a compounding of the food shortage when the town is flooded by refugees from the war. The 1631 locals experience a culture shock when exposed to the mores of contemporary American society, including modern dress, sexual egalitarianism, and boisterous American-style politics.

Grantville struggles to survive while trying to maintain technology sundered from 21st century resources. Throughout 1631, Grantville manages to establish itself locally by forming the nascent New United States of Europe (NUS) with several local cities even as war rages around them. But once

Kirkus Reviews called the book a "[s]inewy shoot-'em-up, with pikes and muzzle-loaders squared off against modern automatics and 20th-century tactics: a rollicking, good-natured, fact-based flight of fancy that should appeal to alternate-history buffs as well as military-fantasy fans."^[5]

A reviewer for the

Library Journal praised the author, saying he "convincingly re-creates the military and political tenor of the times in this imaginative and unabashedly positive approach to alternative history."^[8]

A reviewer for SFRevu wrote "1632 is a fun read and marks Flint as an author to watch for".^[9]

In contrast to the other reviews, the reviewer for The New York Review of Science Fiction criticized the book for being "almost pure mind candy" by appearing to be a comedy at times and later appearing to be very serious work by "seriously explore anachronism shock by injecting highly dramatic, life-altering decisions filled with much introspection" at other times.^[10]

1632 was listed on the Locus Hardcovers Bestsellers List for two months in a row during 2000, topping at number 4,^[11][12] and also later on the Paperbacks Bestsellers List for a single month in 2001 at number 3.^[13]

As of February 2020, twenty years after it was first released, the book has remained in print while still generating small annual royalty payments to the author for print copies sold even though free electronic copies have also been available directly from the publisher for most of that time.^[14]

Legacy

The book generated an unusual amount of fan involvement. When first contemplating a sequel, Flint decided to

The market for anthologies in fiction is but a small percentage of the market for novels, and the alternate history genre is a smallish niche to begin with—leading publisher Jim Baen to "hold up" the Ring of Fire collection to see if the series would get a boost from New York Times best selling author David Weber, who had just contracted to do five novels with Flint. Flint had to set aside several planned projects (the Assiti Shards novels were in outline form at the time) and do some additional co-writing with Weber as Ring of Fire gestated.

Release details

• 2000, USA, Baen Books (
  ISBN 0-671-57849-9
  ), February 2000, hardcover (First edition)
• 2001, USA, Baen Books (
  ISBN 0-671-31972-8
  ), February 2001, paperback
• 2001, ?, Rebound by Sagebrush (
  ISBN 0-613-36671-9
  ), October 2001, hardback (library binding)
• 2006, USA, Baen Books (
  ISBN 1-4165-3281-1
  ), 30 June 2006, paperback
• 2014, USA, Baen Books (
  ISBN 978-1-4767-3641-9), February 2014, hardcover (Leatherbound Edition)^[15]
• 2012, USA, Baen Books (
  ISBN 978-1-62579-070-5), February 2013, electronic (Second edition), includes major rewrite of prologue to include more information about the world that the disappearance of both Grantville and Alexander Correctional (from Time Spike) had left behind, a new afterword that explained the changes since the first edition, plus very minor changes in the novel itself to correct minor discrepancies that were uncovered when the stand-alone novel involved into a larger series.^[16]