1634: The Baltic War (The Assiti Shards) by David Weber, Eric Flint
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Book Reviews of 1634: The Baltic War (The Assiti Shards)
Book Review: Good details-- terrible characters.
Summary: 3 Stars
I've been following this series for quite some time-- and I love how fun, how interesting, these alternate histories can be.
That said, I'm dead sick of how interchangable these characters are.
You have two types of bad guys: real bad guys and competent bad guys.
You have only ONE type of woman: screamingly strongwilled (a nice way to say overbearing), the female version of the archetypal omnicompetent man.
And the heroes are all of the "I'm savage but smart" variety.
Seriously, Weber and Flint, how many times can you use the word "Grin" in a single book? How many goofy placements of modern phrases into the mouths of 16 century-- non "uptime"-- characters?
I love this series but I want to stop right here, if only because I can only tell the characters apart by their names and-- besides Melissa, the Richter woman and Abranel (sp?) I literally can not tell these women apart! And the men? Forget it! There's Mike Stearns, there's Admiral Simpson and there's a thousand other characters who act and talk the exact same way-- sometimes even characters who aren't American.
PLEASE gentleman, learn something about complexity!
Book Review: Flint is a Commie
Summary: 2 Stars
Yes, Eric Flint is a communist. This isn't in any real dispute. He doesn't deny it although in the dust jacket blurb he is euphemistically termed an "activist". That much is certainly true. He wasn't an arm chair lefty. He left the main stream bourgeois world to try to organize the proletariat for the coming revolution. Alas revolution failed to come in America and the Soviet Union crumbled. Flint turned to writing.
This is a rather atypical background for a Sci-Fi author - many of whom from Campbell and Heinlein to Niven and Pournelle have been predominately oriented toward the right. The question is then, does Flint's unusual personal politics color his message? The answer I think must be yes.
Notice I didn't say plot. I said message. The 1632 books are very preachy. They are all didactic and this one - The Balkan War - is no different. In some ways its worse. The heros have always been proletarians, minorities or women.
Mike Sterns who is called "the Prince of Europe" in this book is a coal miner and a local labor union organizer. I once was a local labor union organizer. Maybe I should put in for the "Prince of Europe" job. The US President (GWB) has had an MBA from a Yale. He ran most recently against another Yalie with a law degree. But in Flint's world the only person with similar credentials (Simpson) is shown in the first book to be a total fool. In subsequent books this cartoonish portrait of a corporate "suit" is molified and the rigid and wrong headed Simpson is allowed to contribute in a technocratic role but he is kept from any kind of political leadership. Only proletarians need apply.
The working man hero portrait of Stearns is pretty heavy handed but it is subtle compared with with the Richter character. She is a big busted, vigorous revolutionry woman of the people. You can imagine what she looks like by recalling the "social realism" murals painted in the Stalin era. In this and earlier novels she starts communist cells everywhever she goes. It isn't modern technology that trasforms 17th century europe so much as it is her revoluntionary ground swell.
Notice that it isn't the doctors that bring about change so much as it is the nurses. The two doctors who are praised are a black and a jew. Otherwise to be a progressive in Flint's world you must be a nurse. Doctors are part of the ruling class.
The best shot in the world must be a woman too. She is supposed to be an Olympic Biathlete and deadly with an M-1 at incredible distances. Of course woman biathletes only shoot a .22 at 50 meters and females don't compete directly with males in the strenuous skiing competition. The Julie character was probably based on Lyudmila Pavlichenko a heroine of the Great War and well known to most communists.
What does all this mean? In the real world our western civilization was built by white men. Sorry about that. The positions of authority and/or acheivement were generally held by those men who were the best educated. In the Matrix movies all the bad guys are white men in business suits. There are many black guys and gals in the movies and all of them are "good guys". The 1632 novels are similar. There are no evil or even foolish female characters. All the blacks are portrayed as noble. This isn't characterization its just a lefty agenda painted in broad strokes.
I feel sorry for Flint. I Sci-Fi author is supposed to be a kind of a prophet. He's supposed to write about how the world to come will be. But if you are a communist your world crumbled in the nineties. Everything you believed in was shown to be at best nonsense and more typically dangeous and evil. Communists like Flint believed that they knew how history would play out and they were wrong. Flint then took up writing about "alternate" history where he could continue to expand on his discredited ideas.
Poor little commie.
Book Review: Interesting Times in Denmark
Summary: 5 Stars
1634: The Baltic War (2007) is the seventh SF novel in the Assiti Shards series, following 1635: The Cannon Law. Obviously, this novel actually precedes the previous volume by internal chronology.
The League of Ostend has King and Emperor Gustav Adolf surrounded in the fortified town of Luebeck. However, League attacks have been repelled several times by artillery, scuba divers and warplanes. The United States of Europe is not likely to lose Luebeck any time soon.
Also, USE forces are gathering to relieve Luebeck. Ironclads are being constructed in the Magdeburg naval shipyards. The USE Army in being equipped with new types of weapons. By next spring, the League forces around Luebeck will be under heavy attack from sea and land.
In this novel, Thorsten Engler is night foreman at the coal gas plant in Magdeburg. He was hired as a repairman and his training had focused on those duties. After the previous foreman died from influenza, Engler had been promoted to the position, but has not yet received additional training.
Unfortunately, few people know much about the overall operation of the plant. Engler notices that the gas lights outside the plant are going out. He immediately starts looking for reasons for the loss of gas pressure, beginning with the coal loading operation. There he finds that a grate had been removed from the coal chute and the opening covered with wood.
Engler also noticed that the main pipe was red hot at the top, but not at the bottom. He visualizes what he knows of the operation and deduces that the coal dust had been converted to coal tar, which has plugged the pipe. He immediately sends someone to the fire station.
Mike Stearns hears the fire wagon arrive at the scene and soon becomes involved in limiting the damage. The firemen try cooling the exhaust chimney, but the structure erodes and collapses from the effects of the water on the very hot bricks. This releases hydrogen gas, which mixes with the outside air and causes an explosion. Burning coal and hot metal are thrown everywhere, starting additional fires.
As an uptimer -- and former coal miner -- Mike is more aware of the possibilities than the narrowly trained downtimers. He is particularly concerned about the light benzoils -- effectively gasoline -- and has the collapsing storage tank dumped into the river.
The fires are eventually put out, but the coal gas plant is now in ruins. High level management fires Engler, since he is the only non-union employee involved. Now Engler has to find another job.
Manual labor jobs are readily available in Magdeburg, but Engler has become used to using his mind to solve problems. He doesn't want to have to accept some repetitive -- and boring -- job. Then Gunther Achterhof -- headman of the Magdeburg Committee of Correspondence -- suggests that he join the army. Frank Jackson shows up later and convinces Engler that he will not be bored as an army sergeant.
Gunther also talks Engler into approaching the social workers in the Department of Social Services. Despite Gunther's recommendation, Engler is reluctant to face the American social workers. He has heard many stories about American women and he hesitates for some time before entering the office.
The receptionist is amused by his hesitation, but Engler is filled with lust at the first sight of her. He somehow manages to inform Caroline Platzer of the nightmares and images that he has been having since the disaster. His manner also arouses Caroline's interest and she decides not to become his counselor in case their relationship should develop further. She does invite him to visit her at the Settlement House.
In this story, Tom Simpson learns of the industrial accident, but is alarmed at the burning river. He soon decides that the burning material is only a thin layer on the river and should soon burn out, but he hurries to the shipyard to inspect his ironclads. Fortunately, the fire doesn't present a danger to his ships.
Later, Jesse Wood attends a conference with Mike, Simpson, Jackson and Torstensson. The meeting concerns various military affairs, including the possibility of Jesse flying Mike to Luebeck. After they discuss certain necessities, Jesse agrees to take Mike there the next morning.
Mike goes to Luebeck primarily to get Gustav's permission to arrange a ceasefire with the Cardinal-Infante. Don Fernando is considering the establishment of a separate Habsburg dynasty in the Netherlands. Such a move would create major problems for his older brother, King Philip IV of Spain, and would weaken the League of Ostend.
This story eventually leads to major problems for King Christian IV of Denmark. His son Prince Ulrik is working behind his back to avoid these problems, but Christian is an energetic and meddlesome King. Unfortunately, he also tends to create multiple projects rather than concentrating on one or two at a time.
Eddie Cantrell is one of the problems facing Christian. King's daughter Anne Catherine has a crush on Eddie and he is seriously lusting for her. He wants to marry her, but she is a little too young for him. Anne Catherine and Danish customs don't agree with Eddie.
In England, Darryl McCarthy is having similar problems with Victoria Short. At least she is old enough to marry. Darryl is seriously in love with her, but she is always under observation by her family. She is the brother of Andrew Short, a Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London. Moreover, her uncle, Stephen Hamilton, is a man that nobody wants to antagonize.
This is another good war novel in an excellent series. Of course, it only covers a limited time frame, but it holds the readers interest throughout the story. Enjoy!
Highly recommended for Flint & Weber fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of military and naval action, political intrigue, and a bit of romance.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Book Review: Center of the Storm
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the keystone volume in the four "1634" books in the "Ring of Fire" series (begun with the amazing "1632" whose colossal success has inspired all the rest). It has been long promised and awaited. Although the books about "1634" are written as parallel, independent threads, rather than serially, Baltic War definitely should be read before "1634: The Bavarian Crisis." The latter gives away the concussive conclusions reached here (reducing such suspense as "Baltic" contains). While the other books deal with really interesting "peripheral" matters to the south, Baltic War features Emperor Gustav Adolf himself, deploying the new-formed United States of Europe Army and Navy in northwest Europe on a critical campaign to fend off the united enemies. Finally, it also resolves the USE embassy to England that has been, literally, hanging fire while imprisoned off-stage in the Tower of London. It is good to see many of the central characters from the earlier novels back again, even if some casualties result. This volume returns the series to technological aspects of the new machinery of war introduced by the up-time Americans who have been "frisbee-d" back into the 17th C past. And enemies, such as the likable Danes and the detested French, are beginning to wise up and innovate on their own. The question is whether the ancien regime will survive the inventions it needs to protect itself--I find this a fascinating question so will stay tuned for "1635."
This volume gets only 4* because: hardly any of the backstory (2+ volumes) is provided (I suspect making the first 35 chapters almost incomprehensible to a newcomer); the story drags a bit for 372 pages before critical confrontations finally burst into action; the love interests are implausible and sophomoric; there is very little anxiety over the fate of Americans, submerged by petty humor. Of course, without the attempt at manly humor the interminable diplomatic scene-setting would really drag (even then it's hard to understand what is going on in the Netherlands, like who is besieging whom). One thing missing is the element of irrationality or medieval superstition. Everything works so reasonably, and then characters actually list their reasons for doing so. Maybe the authors could apply a more subtle technique. But I shall continue to read these books for their brilliant extrapolation from the situation Flint created.
A remarkable addition to this (hardback) volume is a CD-ROM disc bound in. Nowhere is its purpose stated: it does not enhance the Baltic War with illustrations, say. Astonishingly, rather, it contains most all of Flint's Baen books! Several dozen! The full texts! They are suitable for several types of readers, although a few of the titles did not work on a Mac. Obviously, this is the ONE book/CD to buy if you haven't bought any of Flint's before, although "Baltic War" is certainly not the very book in the 1632 series with which to commence reading. So...this book gets 5* because of the disk, and of course because it is the essential centerpiece of the year 1634 in alternate Europe, and cannot be missed.
Book Review: Facinating, fun in short WONDERFUL
Summary: 4 Stars
In my humble opinion this was a great book. It had all the elements that kept it from being strictly speaking a hard core Military History Fiction novel. The balance of military, personal, and just a little touch of romance were just right. Almost like.....let me think........Life?