Product Description

The Thirty Years War continues to ravage 17th century Europe, but a new force is gathering power and influence: the Confederated Principalities of Europe, an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians from the 20th century led by Mike Stearns who were hurled centuries into the past by a mysterious cosmic accident.

The CPE has the know-how of 20th century technology, but needs iron and steel to make the machines. The iron mines of the upper Palatinate were rendered inoperable by wartime damage, and American know-how is needed on the spot to pump them out and get the metal flowing again—a mission that will prove more complicated than anyone expects. In the maelstrom that is Europe, even a 20th century copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica can precipitate a crisis, when readers learn of the 1640 Portuguese revolt, a crisis that will involve Naples as well. Another factor: Albanian exiles in Naples, inspired by the Americans, are plotting to recover lost Albanian turf, which will precipitate yet another crisis in the Balkans.

This troubled century was full of revolutions and plans for more revolutions before the Americans arrived, and gave every would-be revolutionary an example of a revolution that succeeded. Europe is a pot coming to a boil, and Mike Stearns will have his hands full seeing that it doesn't boil over on to Grantville and the CPE.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43862 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 1024 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781439132760
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The intricacies of Habsburg family relations make surprisingly fascinating reading in the latest episode in Flint's saga of a 20th-century West Virginia town transported mysteriously to 17th-century Europe. The recently widowed Duke Maximilian of Bavaria reluctantly assents to a dynastic marriage with his niece, Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, but her recent reading of an uptime encyclopedia and the American Constitution leads her to consider other, previously unimaginable options. Meanwhile, Don Fernando, the Spanish Cardinal-Infante, moves toward peace with the fledgling United States of Europe while laying siege to Amsterdam and searching for a suitable bride. Flint teams up once again with historian DeMarce (1634: The Ram Rebellion) to tell a complicated but coherent story. It is especially refreshing to read an alternate history that doesn't depend upon the clash of anachronistic arms, but rather on how modern ideas of human rights, education, sanitation and law might have affected the Europe of the 30 Years War. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Eric Flint is the author of the New York Times best seller 1634: The Galileo Affair (with Andrew Dennis)—a novel in his top-selling “Ring of Fire” alternate history series. His first novel for Baen, Mother of Demons, was picked by Science Fiction Chronicle as a best novel of the year. His 1632, which launched the ring of Fire series, won widespread critical praise, as from Publishers Weekly, which called him “an SF author of particular note, one who can entertain and edify in equal, and major, measure.” A longtime labor union activist with a Master’s Degree in history, he currently resides in northwest Indiana with his wife Lucille.

Virginia DeMarce, after jobs as peculiar as counting raisins for the Calif. Dept. of Agriculture, received her Ph.D. in Early Modern European History from Stanford University. She has published a book on German military settlers in Canada after the American Revolution and has served as president of the National Genealogical Society. She taught at Northwest Missouri State University and at George Mason University. She has had stories in the Ring of Fire anthology and Grantville Gazette (#1), and more stories in the online Grantville Gazettes. She has three grown children and five grandchildren, and lives in Arlington, VA, with her husband.

Customer Reviews

More of the Context
Bavarian Crisis is another novel about diplomacy in "1634", actually avoiding discussion of local military conflict. The main action of that year is covered in "The Baltic War," which could be read first (and, thankfully, has now been belatedly published). If newcomers start here (or with any of the "1634" books), they will miss too much of deeper import, and may find the story both incomprehensible and boring. This new volume takes us back to 1634, to one of the four crucial side-theaters for which longtime readers of this series have been waiting. The story develops in Thuringia, Bavaria, and Vienna, month by month, with chapter headings in Latin for no discernible reason. (You can play a little game, to find the phrase translated somewhere in the text.) Duke Maximilian of Bavaria is a study in religious madness as he loses control of his realm and makes others the scapegoats. He, and other potentates on the edges of the young United States of Europe, are under constant pressure and intrigue from its agents.

The book opens with three maps, showing places and contemporary political borders one won't find on a modern map. DeMare provides four genealogies so we can follow the intricate relations among characters and the ruling Hapsburg dynasty (the longest and therefore most complicated in all known history). There's much humor in these big books--not in dialogue so much as characters' thoughts, wordplay, anachronistic up-time jargon, manly jokes; nothing elaborate. Most everyone is very reasonable, that is, they make their reasons perfectly clear. In general, everybody acts so reasonably, with such little emotion, such wry humor, that the result is flat. One manifest flub--having a lead undercover character blurt out her identity when nobody had asked--is actually a setup for the final suspense. The pace has to be slowed by long digressions on historical and strategical matters (vital to alternative HISTORY, after all), while immediate tactics are concealed in the commanders' heads and cleverly sprung on the enemy (and the reader). That's about the only suspense, as the Adolf/Stearns USE juggernaut rolls on from success to success.

This West-Virginians-in-the-Thirty-Years-War saga is a thoroughly collaborative work in progress, with significant online input. Thus, the fact this book is "late" to the fray means little, because there is no single main line, many themes in parallel, and no single series "hero" (instead, many). That is what makes this alternative history series unique, yet frustrating to try to follow while it is being published. These later novels lack the shock and surprise of the first, truly novel. They also lack the sense of desperation that made "1632" and "1633" so powerful.

Genealogy first, novel second
Till this book, I have thoroughly enjoyed the entire Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint and his various co-authors. However, this edition of the saga was a difficult slog - at least the first half of the novel.
Any potential reader must question whether a story with a 10 page "Cast of Characters" and 4 genealogy charts could possibly be fast moving and fun.
Although I am now a semi-expert on the families of Bavaria, Bohemia and nearby areas in the early 1600s, I could have done with a bit less history of the several Hapsburg families and a bit more action. Put another way: a bit less Virginia DeMarce and a bit more Eric Flint. Note to Baen editors: I think they still make red pencils.

Information overload
If a good series of books is like a road leading you on a thousand-mile adventure, The Bavarian Crisis is the tar that holds the road together. It's sticky, messy, doesn't taste good, and stinks in hot weather. It's still necessary to keep the road together, and is just as important as the cobblestones, asphalt or bricks that also make up the road. It doesn't make it smell any better.

1634: The Bavarian Crisis is yet another volume in the increasingly mis-named 1632 series and takes place in the time period surrounding the events of 1634: The Baltic War. While the latter story takes place primarily in northern Germany and the Baltic Sea (hence the name), this book takes place in central and southern Germany. Readers unfamiliar with the series and reading this book first will be cast adrift and won't enjoy it at all. Even those who have read previous books may not get all the allusions and have difficulty.

Many major characters from the 163x series make appearances and the story revolves around two of them -- Veronica Dreeson (wife of Grantville's mayor and grandmother of Gretchen) and Mary Simpson (wife of Adm. Simpson). An enormous cast of new down-time characters also join these two well-known characters in the story, which revolves around a series of weddings.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this novel is a romance -- or as close to it as mainstream alternate history comes. Throughout the novel, several plots and subplots intertwine and affect each other, but the primary element can be considered to be Don Fernando (leader of the Spanish Netherlands) and his search for a wife to help him create a third branch of the Hapsburg Dynasty, ruling over a united Low Countries.

The story is full of rich historical detail and information, and while that's normally a fact to be applauded, it is more than a bit overwhelming in this case. Anyone who hacks his or her way through the novel will no doubt come away full of facts about European diplomacy, minor nobility, and royal customs of the 17th century. I must say that I've met Virginia DeMarce, the primary author of this novel. She's an enormously intelligent woman, extraordinarily knowledgeable about 17th Century Germany, and her Ph.D. is put to good use here. The problem is one of too much information. While background about the archduchess of such-and-such is nice in small doses, there is far, far, far too much of it here, particularly for readers new to the series or even readers with knowledge of previous books, but who have no formal historical background.

I could only work my way through the first half of this book with difficulty, and the last third is much the same. I'm happy to say that events move somewhat more quickly in the middle third, but it's a quickening only from geological speed to glacial. Adding to the problems of too much information is the fact that the plot simply isn't exciting.

It's a difficult task to make a royal marriage interesting, and Dr. DeMarce should be congratulated for attempting to tackle the subject. It's something that the 163x series really needed to address in order to be a complete representation of the 17th century, and DeMarce can't be faulted for failing in a difficult problem. Most of the (limited) military action that takes place during the course of the story happens off-stage, and as readers, we only get to see the after-effects of surrenders and confrontations. There's no blow-by blow descriptions of large-scale combat, and readers who require explosions to be entertained likely will not finish this book, let alone enjoy it.

There are frequent allusions to other books of the series, adding to the difficulty of the text. New readers may very well be turned off the 163x series for good. But for enthusiastic fans of the series, this book connects vital holes in the overall scope of developments in Europe. I simply wish it wasn't so boring in doing so. With limited action, virtually no suspense, the lack of the definable climax, and an overload of information, this book will likely find less approval, even among aficionados of the 163x series.