1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,176

DeMarce, 1635: The Dreeson Incident; Virginia DeMarce, “Or the Horse May Learn to Sing” (GG #28, electronic edition; and my 1635: The Eastern Front. In some of these stories she is simply mentioned, but even so her appearance is a matter of record.

People ask me rather frequently: “How do you keep track of all that?”

The answer is: I don’t.

I couldn’t possibly keep track of it. The 1632 series began with the publication of my novel 1632 in February of 2000. But years ago it became transformed into a collective enterprise. I remain the major author in the series, of course. All of the novels are either written or co-authored by me, and I have stories in all but one of the anthologies. (The one exception is 1635: The Tangled Web. The stories in that anthology are all written by Virginia DeMarce.) And I have the final say-so over anything that gets published as an editor, or as the publisher, in the case of the electronic magazine.

The analogy I tend to think of is that I’m the old-style conductor of a piano concerto, where I’m both the pianist and the conductor.

Still, there is no way I could possibly keep track of everything. I rely heavily on a group of people who consist of the editorial board of the Gazette—that’s the editor herself, Paula Goodlett, along with Karen Bergstralh, Laura Runkle and Rick Boatright—and many of the authors who have been published frequently in the series. Those include Virginia DeMarce, Iver Cooper, Kerryn Offord, Walt Boyes, Gorg Huff, David Carrico, Kim Mackey and Chuck Gannon.

I need to take the time here to thank all of them once again.

In addition, at any given time, many other people have helped me with specific issues. For this volume and the one which preceded it, 1635: The Eastern Front, I need to extend special thanks to two people:

Danita Ewing provided me with a great deal of help with the medical issues involved with Gustav Adolf’s head injury and the resulting symptoms.

Stanley Roberts has been a big help with Ottoman history, which is a particularly thorny and difficult one for authors of historical fiction. He also wrote the first draft of what became Chapter 30 of this novel. I rewrote that draft and expanded it, but most of Stanley’s prose remains in the text as he originally wrote it.

Whenever someone asks me “what’s the right order?” for reading the 1632 series, I’m always tempted to respond: “I have no idea. What’s the right order for studying the Thirty Years War? If you find it, apply that same method to the 1632 series.”

However, that would be a bit churlish—and when it comes down to it, authors depend upon the goodwill of their readers. So, as best I can, here goes.

The first book in the series, obviously, is 1632. That is the foundation novel for the entire series and the only one whose place in the sequence is definitely fixed.

Thereafter, you should read either the anthology titled Ring of Fire or the novel 1633, which I co-authored with David Weber. It really doesn’t matter that much which of these two volumes you read first, so long as you read them both before proceeding onward. That said, if I’m pinned against the wall and threatened with bodily harm, I’d recommend that you read Ring of Fire before you read 1633.

That’s because 1633 has a sequel which is so closely tied to it that the two volumes almost constitute one single huge novel. So, I suppose you’d do well to read them back to back.

That sequel is 1634: The Baltic War, which I also co-authored with David Weber. 1632, 1633, 1634: The Baltic War, 1635: The Eastern Front and this novel constitutes what can be considered the “main line” or even the spinal cord of the entire series. Why? First, because it’s in these five novels that I depict the major political and military developments which have a tremendous impact on the entire complex of stories. Secondly, because these “main line” volumes focus on certain key characters in the series—Mike Stearns and Rebecca Abrabanel, first and foremost, as well as Gretchen Richter and Jeff Higgins.

Once you’ve read 1632, Ring of Fire, 1633 and 1634: The Baltic War, you will have a firm grasp of the basic framework of the series. From there, you can go in one of two directions: either read 1634: The Ram Rebellion or 1634: The Galileo Affair.

There are advantages and disadvantages either way. 1634: The Ram Rebellion