Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond #11, May/June 2025
“Waving Goodbye” by George McClennan Grant
“The Play’s The Thing” by Virginia DeMarce
“Clan MacDonald” by Terry Howard
“Cittadino in Villa or the Economy of the Citizen in the Country”
by Lancelot Schaubert
“A Troubled Journey” by Mark Roth-Whitworth
“Johan and the Purple Pencil” by Bethanne Kim
Reviewed by Geoff Houghton
[Editor’s note: The following is offered by Tangent reviewer Mike Bickerdike as a guide for those not familiar with this magazine’s concept.] Eric Flint’s 1632 and Beyond is a magazine comprising stories set in the late Eric Flint’s “Ring of Fire” or 1632 alternate-history universe. For those unfamiliar with the books, the essential concept is that the town of Grantville in West Virginia became transported (by cosmic accident) from our present day to northern Germany in 1632 during the 30 Years War. The book series extends to dozens of novels. The short stories in this magazine are set within that framework.
The opening story in this issue is “Waving Goodbye” by George McClennan Grant. It is set at an unstable point in the division between 17th Century Germany and Grantville. A collapse of the towering cliff created by the discontinuity into the Ring Lake below it creates a deadly Tsunami that alters the lives of five of the individuals dwelling on the banks of the lake. The author follows the unsuspecting thoughts of these five players up to the sudden realisation that their demise could be upon them and then beyond that to the impact on the survivors of that near-death experience. This could easily have been written about a conventional Tsunami, although the histories of the five individuals would have required minor modification. In that case, the author would score well for descriptive prose and adequate for characterisation.
“The Play’s The Thing” by Virginia DeMarce occupies second place. It is the story of a travelling theatre group operating out of the time-shifted town of Grantville. In addition to the up-timers from Grantville, the company also includes two 17th century grandsons of playwright William Shakespeare.
During the period covered by this long and mainly passive-descriptive story, the touring company is hosted by a middle ranking lord in a small German province. The insights into the internal operation of a travelling theatre and the necessity of the mainly liberal and egalitarian company to adapt to the patronage system of 17th century Europe are both explored by the author and may fascinate any reader. However, the whole piece is filled with detailed references to events that occurred only in the alternative post-1632 Europe after the time-shift. This is a minor issue in several of these stories, but is considerably more marked in this particular work. That fact makes this story a particularly complicated and difficult read for any reader who is not already familiar with the military and political changes that the time-shift event triggered in this alternative history.
The third offering is “Clan MacDonald” by Terry Howard. This story returns to Grantville where the town’s principal entrepreneur discovers that one of his manifold schemes has delivered some extremely unexpected consequences. A party of impecunious warriors of Clan MacDonald have responded to an apparent offer of land in exchange for their mercenary services. The exact detail of why that offer was made is not revealed, but that is not particularly relevant to this stand-alone story whose purpose appears to be to re-explore the impact that 20th Century technology can have on those to whom it appears indistinguishable from magic.
The next story is “Cittadino in Villa or the Economy of the Citizen in the Country” by Lancelot Schaubert. This tale sprawls across several years and most of mainland Europe as it follows the rise of a young agronomist from a (sometimes unauthorised) collector of rare plants to a major wheeler-dealer in their distribution and usage. The protagonist is clearly designed to be a lovable rogue and the majority of his crimes do appear either to be victimless or inadvertent but in the gruesome 17th Century world of the 30 Years’ War it is more likely that he would have ended up dead in a ditch than as a multi-millionaire.
“A Troubled Journey” by Mark Roth-Whitworth follows the fortunes of a young lace-maker from 17th Century Paris to Rheims and back again. The author’s underlying hypothesis is that the arrival of Grantville in 17th century Europe would have had as massive an impact on political thinking as the Enlightenment and the French revolution combined. Our protagonist, Marianne, is a proto-revolutionary with distinctly republican leanings almost two centuries ahead of the historic French revolution, and although the King’s Musketeers are still maintaining the status quo for now, she is not alone.
Whether or not you accept this optimistic view of the impact of 20th century thinking on the more primitive despotic countries of Europe, this is a well-written story. Not only Marianne but also many of the lesser supporting cast are well-constructed and believable historical characters in this engaging tale.
The last offering is “Johan and the Purple Pencil” by Bethanne Kim. This story returns to Grantville. A young Pioneer Scout must find a suitable project for his Golden Eagle award. Our teenaged hero initially plans a simple project that may free up the girl whom he would like to date from onerous baby-minding chores, but his efforts develop a life of their own. When the newly introduced media of radio is mixed in with 20th Century books and printing techniques, the Scout Badge project soon becomes a major endeavour with a significant impact on childcare across much of the 17th century European continent.
These six stories are all competently written in their own right, but they are set in a common milieu which has a rich background history of its own. That background enriches and deepens the stories themselves if you are a devotee of this fictional universe.
Geoff Houghton lives in a leafy village in rural England. He is a retired Healthcare Professional with a love of SF and a jackdaw-like appetite for gibbets of medical, scientific and historical knowledge.