1634: The Baltic War (The 1632 Universe)

by David Weber, Eric Flint

Overview

1. David Weber has written fifteen New York Times best sellers and has over six million books in print.

2. There are over three and a half million copies in print of his New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series, arguably the most popular series in science fiction today.

3. This alternate history series has over three-quarters of a million copies in print, and three novels in the series have been New York Times best sellers.

4. Best-selling author Eric Flint has a large and still growing audience. His 1632, the first book in the series, was a smash hit, with over 95,000 copies sold and an 89% sell through. Publishers Weekly called it "gripping and expertly detailed." Everyone who read 1632 will be anxiously awaiting the arrival of this sequel.

5. Full-color series brochure

6. Special kit mailing

7. BookSense mailing

8. Co-op available

9. Teaser for 1635: The Dreeson Incident

10. Special backlist discounts

11. Trade advertising with new hardcover

The Baltic War which began in the novel 1633 is still raging, and the time-lost Americans of Grantville—the West Virginia town hurled back into the seventeenth century by a mysterious cosmic accident—are caught in the middle of it.

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and Emperor of the United States of Europe, prepares a counter-attack on the combined forces of France, Spain, England, and Denmark—former enemies which have allied in the League of Ostend to destroy the threat to their power that the Americans represent—which are besieging the German city of Luebeck.

Elsewhere in war-torn Europe, several American plans are approaching fruition. Admiral Simpson of Grantville frantically races against time to finish the USE Navy’s ironclad ships—desperately needed to break the Ostender blockade of the Baltic ports. A commando unit sent by Mike Stearns to England prepares the rescue the Americans being held in the Tower of London. In Amsterdam, Rebecca Stearns continues three-way negotiations with the Prince of Orange and the Spanish Cardinal-Infante who has conquered most of the Netherlands. And, in Copenhagen, the captured young USE naval officer Eddie Cantrell tries to persuade the King of Denmark to break with the Ostender alliance, all while pursuing a dangerous romantic involvement with one of the Danish princesses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416555889
Publisher:	Baen Books
Publication date:	10/28/2008
Series:	1632 Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	1072
Sales rank:	46,323
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 1.76(d)

About the Author

David Weber is author of the New York Times best-selling Honor Harrington series as well as In Fury Born and other popular novels. With Steve White, he is the author of Insurrection, Crusade, In Death Ground, and the New York Times best seller The Shiva Option, all novels based on his Starfire SF strategy game.

Eric Flint's impressive first novel, Mother of Demons (Baen), was selected by SF Chronicle as one of the best novels of 1997. With David Drake he has written six popular novels in the Belisarius series, including the new novel The Dance of Time, and with David Weber collaborated on 1633, a novel in the Ring of Fire series, and on Crown of Slaves, a best of the year pick by Publishers Weekly. Flint received his masters degree in history from UCLA and was for many years a labor union activist. He lives in East Chicago, IL, with his wife and is working on more books in the best-selling Ring ofFire series.

Editorial Reviews

The exciting eighth entry in the Ring of Fire saga, about a temporally displaced West Virginia mining town and its impact upon 17th-century Europe, neatly wraps up two plot threads left unresolved by Flint and Weber's 1633(2002). A mission is mounted to rescue the Grantville diplomatic mission that Charles I is holding captive in the Tower of London (along with an obscure politician named Oliver Cromwell), while Admiral Simpson's fleet of ironclad warships sets off to break the siege of Luebeck in a spectacular display of "shock and awe." While the technology that the modern Americans employ is decidedly useful, Flint and Weber emphasize the effect that the ideas of liberty, equality and the rule of law have, and not just on the peasantry and middle classes. The authors contrast those princes who try to forestall the judgment of history with those striving to achieve a transition from absolutism to democracy without bloodshed. Readers will eagerly look forward to further installments in this richly imagined alternate history series. (May)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

This series installment covers the spring conflict between the forces of the United States of Europe (led by Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden and Emperor of the USE) and the League of Ostend (Denmark, England, France and Spain). Battles occur on land and sea (allowing the reader's inner Tom Clancy free rein), and the escape from the Tower of London is a true Mission Impossible, but the series' logical and illogical results of twentieth-century concepts running free in the seventeenth are not overlooked. As the action shifts from point to point on the war's many fronts-the Tower of London, the naval forces on the Rhine, the USE Magdeburg capital and homefront, the Danish royal court's war-production laboratory, Harry Leffert's commandos versus pirates in the English Channel, the English royal court intrigues, the French cavalry in the Ruhr Valley, the Spanish court in the Netherlands, and the USE embassy in Amsterdam-the reader can track the scope of the conflict with the aid of the maps and the listing of the extensive characters. Mike Stearns, former negotiator for the United Mine Workers of America, now chancellor of the USE, the "prince of Europe," anticipates the rush of developments and channels them toward the emergence of democratic values on the European continent. Some readers might become frustrated at the cast size, but fans of Modesitt and Turtledove will revel in the well-wrought characters, fast-moving plot, historical detail, and thoughtful extrapolation. This book, which follows 1633 (Baen, 2003/VOYA June 2004), is recommended for all high school libraries.

VOYA - Marsha Valance