Eric Flint

1632

Bryan Alexander

A very curious, entertaining novel. I've seen 1632 on bookstore shelves for a while, and was dimly aware that it spawned sequels and a big fan base. But I didn't read into it until my son read and recommended it.

(Meta-question: how much reading does one do for family reasons?)

The conceit of 1632 is pretty straightforward: a contemporary West Virginia town gets suddenly transported to Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. The plot follows American characters as they struggle to survive, and some Europeans as they grapple with these weird intruders. The results are very interesting.

On the one hand I was fascinating by the book's politics. From its fan base I expected a rah-rah military adventure, and there is certainly a lot of fighting and gun gazing. There's a pro-life moment. But I was surprised by its pro-union base. Organized coal miners are the little republic's backbone, and the union boss becomes its de facto dictator, which Flint portrays as a very good thing. Racism and snobbery are what villains do, and the heroes oppose those practices. There's a lot of celebration of poor folk, especially hillbillies, and slams against the American financial elite. Occupy Thuringia!

On the other, the book's genre and tone were also not what I expected. Alongside the gunplay are many, many sustained marriage plots, which are always about manners (!). There's a survivalist aspect, but that turns into something quite different from post-apocalypse stories, become very optimistic. The bit of Appalachia unstuck in spacetime rapidly becomes a boomtown, making the world a better place. 

I enjoyed much of the history, although it ended up in some unlikely places.

1632 offers a very different politics from what America sees today, in the simple, often cartoonish Red Versus Blue of hyperpartisan fundraising and bad journalism. It almost feels like a transmission from another, alternate world.

1632

Reviews