This is definitely not a secret. Eric is writing fiction and, as writers, we create worlds and scenes that are fully for entertainment and not something we are wishing on the world. But at the same time, we are people and generally don’t want to create a thing that is anathema to our personal core beliefs. Thus, Eric Flint, avowed socialist, is not going to create an empire to take over the world in his succesful, sprawling universe.
Beyond that, if you are truly looking for a universe with everything planned in meticulous detail, this isn’t the universe for you. We have nearly 200 authors, each of whom has their own characters and story arcs and they kind of go where they will. And by “they,” I mostly mean the characters. Some authors can plot things out and have characters go where they want them to. I am not one of those authors.
When Eric finished reading my novel Mrs. Flannery’s Flowers, he commented that he could never have imagined her that way. And I think that’s what makes the 1632 universe amazing and unique, and utterly resistant to any kind of Grand Plan. Every single author makes their own contribution and everyone, including Eric, respects those other contributes and what they add to the tapestry of the 1632verse.
So while there are definitely plans for the future of the 1632verse, it’s not a GRAND Plan that involves “peace threatening to break out all over.”
– Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine)
26 February 2009 04:03
I figure that Eric’s plan is either one of two things: 1) Set up an “endless formula” (in this case, “When the Grantvillers make peace with one country, another country starts a war”) so that he can keep writing novels till he dies; or 2) his long-range fictional goal is for Gustav II Adolf and the Grantvillers to conquer all of Europe and North America and establish the “Pax Grantvillei.”
Genu-ine Grantville Freak
>>> Theory #1 is, um, within the ball park. (Actually, it’s dead accurate except that it implies a cheerful amorality and lack of scruple on the part of the author which, if true, would be deeply reprehensible.)
Theory #2 is not in the running. I am not, as a rule, a big fan of empires. There are a few exceptions, but not many, and this is certainly not one of them. I believe I could make a very good case that the principal reason the renaissance, the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution (and all the political changes that came with them) happened in Europe instead of China was because, unlike the overly-competent Chinese, the Europeans were too feckless and bumbling to ever create a stable empire following the collapse of the Roman Empire. Thus, despite the fact that in every important respect the Chinese were always ahead of Europeans until the 17th century — literacy, inventions, science, you name it and the Chinese were way ahead of dimwit Europeans — the really great advances were eventually done in Europe. Why? Because an empire is too powerful, and can easily suppress knowledge or social developments that its elite finds annoying.
In Europe, on the other hand, if a printer annoyed the local authorities by printing something (either political or scientific or theological), he could just pack up his printing press and haul it across the mountains or across a river into another ruler’s territory.
A good case in point is exploration. Despite the misleading name of “junks,” Chinese ocean-going ships of the Middle Ages were superior to anything possessed by Europeans. The Ming dynasty launched a huge exploration of the Indian Ocean, which got all the way to east Africa.
When it returned, however, the emperor decreed an end to all such exploration. Why? Purely as the outcome of faction fighting in the imperial court. And that was the end of Chinese overseas exploration.
A century and a half later, Columbus went from one European court to another until he finally raised the money from the Spanish to finance his proposed cross-Atlantic voyage. He could not have done that in China.
27 February 2009 05:51
Let’s just that while I am, in real life, a firm believer in the virtues of peace, international amity and concord, and so on and so forth, as a novelist whose works usually focus on political and military conflict, my vested interests run in exactly the opposite direction. For a scribbler of fiction, there are no more terrifying words than “peace is threatening to break out all over.”
Eric
