Before we went to WorldCon, I read Instapundit's comment about 1633 and followed the link to Bigwig's review. It sounded fascinating, so I ordered it and the previous book from Amazon. They arrived after we got back from the convention. Oh, goodie, what I need, more books!

Once I started these books, I haven't been able to put them down. The initial premise is a bit of 2000 West Virginia ends up in Germany during the Thirty Years War. I know more history than most of my compatriots, but I didn't know much about this war. I didn't know how bloody it was. The sack of Magdeburg killed maybe as many as 40,000 in one day. (Sort of puts 9/11 in a different light, though at least those civilians in Magdeburg knew there was a war on.) OK, Eric Flint dropped these Appalachian rural mine-workers into this melee, and then watched to see what would happen.

Bigwig mentions the patriotism in the books. I have noticed this. 1632 a very Pro-American book, written before 9/11. It's taken for granted that democracy is the best way, that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are inspired works, that once the locals get a taste of freedom that they'll never settle for tyranny again.

1633 goes on with the alternate history. The "uptimers" have now made enough of a change to be noted by the big players. Cardinal Richelieu and others have read their "future history" and then gone about changing it. I haven't finished this yet, but once again I'm on the edge of my seat to see what's going to happen next. WILL the American way win out? I believe the second book is post 9/11.

Eric Flint is one of the people who edited the James Schmitz stories and thanked "Gharlane of Eddore" in one of them. However, his co-author for the second book, David Webber, should be my ObGoe. Lord knows, I got rid of enough of his books. There were up to eight copies of some of the books. I had introduced Himself to the Honor Harrington books, but I must say he went overboard.

I followed links to Eric's page and found that he says that if you put up books for free it sells more books. Too bad the music companies don't realize this instead of all this copy-protection computer-eating palaver!