An interesting point many 1632 readers may not realize is that it has sister storylines. In the original novel, we find out that alien artists from a race called the Assiti caused the event by being careless with their artwork, allowing “shards” to fall randomly. One of those caused Granville to swap places with some land in 1631 Thuringia, but it was not the only event. We eventually learn that there were many micro-events that didn’t register with the public mind. No one would notice if a sphere of land in the middle of the ocean swapped with land pretty much anywhere in history, for example. It would just literally be swallowed by the ocean and disappear without a trace. But in addition to events that no one noticed, there were a few bigger events. Time Spike was the first of these to be published in 2008, with Marilyn Kosmatka. In 2017, The Alexander Inheritance with Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlet was published, followed by The Crossing in 2022 and An Angel Called Peterbilt in 2024. At the time Eric wrote the post below, it was the only additional shard to be written. Two sequels to it were printed by Ring of Fire Press and they are being re-released by Baen Books in early 2026. In Time Spike, an Illinois prison is sent back through time millions of years, landing them with the dinosaurs. But it’s not just dinosaurs. Along the way, they picked up native Americans, murderous conquistodors, and a few post-Civil War American soldiers. In addition to having a lot more people travel back, it’s a much larger amount of land and the land, like the people, represents multiple eras. Garrett W. Vance has taken this fertile landscape and written Time Spike: First Cavalry of the Cretaceous and Time Spike: The Mysteerious Mesa. There are also short stories set in the Time Spike shard in The Grantville Gazette…
From BaensBar
One of the things I love about the 1632verse is the way the same characters pop up in different stories by differen writers – the way they would pop up in different people’s lives in a real small town. This addresses the basics of asking to use someone else’s character. The short version is: ask nicely on BaensBar.net (1632 Tech forum) and you’ll probably get permission, unless the author with a claim has plans you might impact. Krystal Reed is one of my characters. Shortly after claiming her, someone else wanted to use her. I knew I was going to write a minimum of one novel with her but I didn’t really know where I was going, so I declined to share. Others on the Bar hopped into the thread and we provided several different options fo the writer that fit their parameters and they were good to go. She’s a good example of a character where you are likely to get very limited permission from the author with a claim. She’s one of my lead characters. I have written three novels that feature her, at this point, as well as short stories. I have one more novel planned. That’s not saying I won’t share. It IS saying there’s a lot more canon around her than most characters outside of the mainline novels. I have two other characters, sisters name Gude and Demuth. Another author needed a couple of nurses to send to the Three Leagues. They were both in training to be nurses and I no longer needed them at the point he needed nurses, so I modified what I was doing with them in my story a bit and handed them off. They are now mine up to a certain date, and his after that date. Then I have Irene Flannery. She appeared for one paragraph, about three lines, in 1632. I asked for, and received, permission to…
It’s easiest if you choose from the very beginning. Just go into the programming and toggle a button for your preference. Like most publishers, Eric Flint and the publications written in his name – Ring of Fire Press, the Grantville Gazette and now 1632 & Beyond – prefer straight. But if you go smart instead of straight, that’s okay (as long as you are consistent) because it’s pretty easy to change from one to the other. It’s when you mix smart and straight that it gets problematic. So please, if you are writing for us, turn on smart quotes and smart apostrophes. Wait. You didn’t realize I was talking punctutation? ((Shaking my head.)) We don’t care about that other stuff. Note: I didn’t copy the date, but I’m pretty positive this was adapted from something Eric wrote on Baen’s Bar.
Not every comment is going to be deep and original. Some are blunt and, well, kind of obvious. Like this one. But that doesn’t mean the thing doesn’t bear saying – and (re)publishing. Sometimes things are not spelled out for the simple reason that there is no dramatic issue (in the literal sense) that needs to be dealt with. There was a recent thread on the 1632 subReddit about education and why it’s not talked about more. Quite simply, it’s not dramatic. Are there new schools? You betcha. Are they spreading the up-time style of teaching and attitudes? Yupper. Are there places to learn the new teaching methods? Totally, and for sure. (Hey, they went back from 2000 – Valley Girls weren’t that far in the past!) Do these get mentioned in stories? Indeed, but mostly in passing. Why? When’s the last time you watched or attended a local school board meeting? Exactly. They are important, but boring. While it’s possible to write something interesting about such a boring topic (see “David Weber Orders a Pizza”), is it something you really want to read? There are just so many more interesting things to write about, even if they aren’t as important. Thus, Eric’s question: What IS the point? – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) This comes up fairly regularly. In short, sometimes slush readers (stories that haven’t been published, but might be) need to stop fussing about minor points and focus on whether it’s a good story. If not, what about THE STORY needs to be attended to and why? 03 January 2015 01:01 I have been following this thread with increasing exasperation. WHAT THE **** IS THE ISSUE HERE? Aside from a lot of what seems to me — pardon my English — pointless pettifoggery. When I say, “what is the issue?” I mean that in terms which are relevant to the 1632 series. I.e., terms…
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…
Question being answered: Is there any difference on what author is paid by how I buy the book? We know that fans genuinely want to buy in a place that supports their authors the most. Obviously, Amazon and other businesses take a share of anything sold on their site, but does the author get more if you buy it direct or does it somehow add a bunch of costs and they don’t really end up earning more? So, short answer is that yes, we earn a bit more if you buy directly from an author or our publisher, but the important part is that you actually buy what we are producing. (If you are paying for Kindle Unlimited, that counts – and pretty please, swipe through to the very end, even if it’s biographical and other material you’ve seen before because every page is paid.) For magazines including Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond, our subscription base through our website gives us a measure of financial stability. In other words, please subscribe! You can also give gift subscriptions. Based on his experience and knowledge of the publishing business, Eric is clear in his post that the difference in income between buying from a major book store or directly from an author isn’t significant. I will add one caveat to what he wrote because it was more than a decade ago. You can now borrow digital copies from libraries and authors do indeed get some income from that. I don’t know the details, but there is some income. What really matters is having people read, buy, and share. Authors need new readers. Publishers need new readers, and new authors. You undoubtedly already know this but it bears repeating, one of the best ways to help us find those new readers is to review what we publish. Even a simple star rating helps. Please and thank you. – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632…
It’s no secret that Grantville is based on the real town of Mannington. Eric explains how the name came about. – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) [I didn’t copy the date and time on the first posts I copied, which are generally the most recent.] Grantville is a composite of the names of two towns in the area: Grant Town and Barrackville. I had originally planned to model my fictional town on Grant Town, because that’s where the power plant in the area was located. (I needed both a power plant and a high school to make the plot work, and I knew I’d have to move one of them. Moving a high school seemed a lot simpler.) But when I came to the area in 1999 to do the research, I discovered that in the 20 years since I’d lived there in the late 70s, a lot had changed. A couple of big malls had opened up on I-79 between Morgantown and Fairmont, not far east of the various small towns along US 250. They’d sucked the life out of the downtowns and turned them into bedroom communities, which is not what I needed. So I drove west to see what might still work. Barrackville had suffered the same fate, but Mannington (which is the westernmost of that little string of towns) was far enough from the malls to have remaining a fully rounded town. The high school is located just outside of Mannington so I switched my plans and moved the power plant. Voila. Such were the origins of “Grantville.” It had nothing to do with Ulysses Grant or any other person named Grant so far as I know. (Don’t ask me who Grant Town is named after. I don’t have a clue.)
The British Isles remain a few years behind everything else in the main line in terms of politics and Baen novels. It’s just how things have ended up. The current most recent novel in the British Isles is the Dragon Award Finalist 1635: The Weaver’s Code by Eric Flint and Jody Lynn Nye. More than nine years after Eric’s post below, the British Isles are STILL in 1635. As a result, authors are still fairly constrained in what we can write in the British Isles. With that said, constrained doesn’t mean we can’t write anything. Tim Sayeau wrote the charming story “A Guest At The New Year” (Issue 6) and the sequel “Rose-Hip And Red Velvet” (Issue 9), which are set in England. (Personally, I’m hoping to read more of the story – hint, hint, Tim if you are reading this!) The story itself works without any reference to politics, but even within it, there were a few references that had to be removed because the political situation is still fluid. The basic rule is that the short stories in the magazines can’t muck about in anything that hits on high politics, as Eric explains in more detail below. Because everything is canon, all the writers have to be careful if we write anything that uses. – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) 13 January 2016 12:33 The problem mostly involves people trying to write stories that take place in the British Isles, if those stories either impinge upon so-called High Politics — or, and this is the trickier issue, presuppose that something already established is going to stay that way. This same issue exists everywhere in the series, of course, but most things happening on the continent are taking place within the context of story lines that are established through early/mid 1636. The problem with the British Isles is that that story line is lagging behind most…
Canon is really important to us here in the 1632 universe because even if you “just” look at the writers who are currently actively writing or planning stories and novels, that is still generally coordinating at least a couple of dozen authors with different backgrounds, knowledge bases, and goals for their story. Everyone wants the best for the universe, to be clear. But their character and story goals may vary wildly, as may their real-world knowledge and their knowledge of the 1632verse. So, canon matters, and defining what is canon matters. Our basic stance is that everything is canon, but to varying degreees. Primary, essentially unchangeable canon belongs to things published by Baen, with hardbacks having precedence over paperbacks which have precedence over ebook-only. Then Ring of Fire Press books, which at this point are mostly either being republished by Baen as ebook only publications or are no longer available. A small number have been self-published on Amazon. Magazine stories (Grantville Gazette and 1632 & Beyond) have been considered provisionally canon, meaning mainline Baen novels can contradict them. In reality, great effort has been made to ensure the two streams don’t cross in any meaningful way. With all of that said about how everything is canon, this is fiction, people are human, and sometimes mistakes happen or things are overlooked. Sometimes it’s a detail, like one Virginia notes below about a person being somewhere they shouldn’t be. Sometimes it provides an opportunity for a story. One of the driving forces for my novel Mrs. Flannery’s Flowers is my extreme irritation that in over 20 years of writing, not a single writer had mentioned stashes of crafting supplies! In West Virginia! Impossible! When I mentioned it to them, they all looked a bit sheepish and admitted they did remember seeing such things around. So, I wrote a whole novel to establish they existed and exactly why it was no one talked…
In this comment from BaensBar.net in 2015, Eric notes that because he is the author (sometimes overseer) of the 1632 alternate history, hegets to make the final decision on what is or isn’t plausible, and a big part of that is what makes the best, most interesting, most entertaining story. Since Eric has died, that mantle has passed. There are now a few who carry that mantle, but it starts with Bjorn Hasseler, editor-in-chief for Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond. If you disagree with Bjorn’s canon call, you can appeal above him – but I strongly suggest you have a really good reason if you do. You may know some specific subject matter area better than Bjorn, but you don’t know the 1632 universe better than he does. Seriously. You just don’t. And now, for Eric’s thoughts, which are what you are really interested in anyway. – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) 06 April 2015 12:39 There’s a lot of overlap between this discussion and the one under the thread title “Military guns in 1636 (the Ottomans)” and I’ve already made a couple of posts in that thread. I’m pressed for time because I’m trying to get a novel finished — well, most if it, anyway — before Lucille and I leave for a ten-day trip to the eastern Mediterranean in two and half weeks. And I have to go to LA for the Writers of the Future event this weekend, which will eat up a big chunk of that time. So I’ll keep this as brief as possible. I want to start by making a general comment. I am bemused by the ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY I KNOW WHAT’S POSSIBLE AND WHAT ISN’T!!!! attitude that’s being taken by some people in this discussion. My response is blunt: Bullshit. I am 68 years old. I have personally observed a number of wars and have a very good knowledge of…
Unfortunately I didn’t copy the date Eric wrote this, but he hadn’t published 1634: The Baltic War yet, so it’s been a while. With our writers looking toward Issue 15 of Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond, which has romance as a theme, and our next Salon call focused on romance, it’s timely content to share. In the many years since he wrote this, romance in all it’s glorious varieties has continued to be a strong part of 1632. Marla and Franz’ relationship is one of the most thoroughly fleshed out romances, but it’s far from the only one. In my own writing, my personal favorite relationship is between two octogenarians in my forthcoming Baen e-book release Red Shield. But I am looking forward to hearing more about Andrew Mackey and Julie Sims and their romance. And Eddie Cantrell and his bride. And… Well, you get the idea. The 1632verse isn’t just about battles and technological developments. It’s about people, and people have romances. We even dedicated the January 2026 issue of the magazine to romance, although, like most of romance itself, things didn’t go exactly as planned. Enjoy some insights on romance from Eric! – Bethanne (Publisher, Eric Flint’s 1632 & Beyond magazine) Romance RULE NUMBER ONE. What really keeps readers alert and on the qui vive, romance wise, are NEW romances. Old familiar ones are fine, of course, and you want to keep them simmering nicely on the pot or your fans will get grumpy. But you need a new romance to really liven things up. This can get tricky, mind you, in a long series, because after a while how many damn romances can you keep piling up? Still, while it’s a challenge, it can usually be done. One gimmick, of course, is to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwww out the romance across several books. I used this gimmick shamelessly in the Belisarius series, starting the Rao-Shakuntala romance in the first novel…