Ring of Fire II

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Ring of Fire
Baen Books Prepublication Ring of Fire II cover art.
Author	Eric Flint
Country	USA
Language	English
Series	1632 series
Genre(s)	Alternate history, Science-Fiction
Publisher	Baen Books
Publication date	January 2008
ISBN	ISBN 1-4165-7387-9 (2008 hardcover)
Preceded by	1634: The Bavarian Crisis
Followed by	Grantville Gazette IV

Ring of Fire II is an anthology about the space-time juxtaposition of a small American town to Central Germany in May, 1631—right in the middle of the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years' War. After six years of mixed names for the series, the publisher Baen Books and creator Eric Flint seems now to have finally settled on Ring of Fire Series.

Created by editor-author-historian Eric Flint, the popular 1632 series, an alternate history series, also boasts an e-zine of anthologies, The Grantville Gazettes, of which four were collected into print published works (Grantville Gazette IV was the last book Jim Baen purchased from Flint before his death, and is expected in 2008), and it may be the Gazettes manifestation as printed works has come to an end, and this volume is a "Best of" result of those.

The series is set in war-torn Europe during the middle of the Thirty Years' War, and consists of many stories by a variety of established and new science fiction authors, but all set in the universe initially created by Flint's science fiction novel 1632, and all involving Flint either as co-author or editor—by which means he maintains control of canon and overall overarching plot developments. The works involve a study of the emerging modern world of the 17th century, when the superpowers of the day were Spain, Poland, the Holy Roman empire, and the Ottoman Empire, with emerging powers England, The Netherlands, the Swedish Empire, and France.

Premise of the series

The novel 1632 and the resultant 1632 series share a common theme, which is to ask the "What if?" questions common to and characteristic of the science fiction genre: "What if a mysterious cosmic event occurred which exchanged a whole populated region of 20th century West Virginia with a matching portion of 1632 Germany?"

A unique departure

Main article: 1632 series

The initial Ring of Fire book was a notable departure^{[citation needed]} in that it heralded a new era in writing series fiction by being set in an authors' milieu shared with other writers, but especially and uncharacteristically by doing so without the control of the milieu creator, its author. Flint, in explanation, has self-styled himself as something of a gambler^{[citation needed]}; he demonstrated that by deliberately asking the other writers to share in creating the main threads and plot lines of the milieu so that this work and the large second full novel in the series, 1633, were written contemporaneously.

Flint is on record that large portions of 1633 were adjusted drastically, even thrown out and rewritten as later submissions in the collected stories in Ring of Fire impacted the various and diverse story threads. For a fuller precise on this interesting and historic literary development see Assiti Shards series.

Synopses of stories in the anthology

"City of the Dead"

Jay Robison

"Noelle Comes Home"

Virginia DeMarce

Flint's e-book preface refers to this work as being a prequel to his own short novel (below), but the title does not agree with the credited work on 1632.org's timeframes spreadsheet.

"Horse Thieves"

1632 Research Committee and Editorial Board member, writer Karen Bergstralh, is 1632.org's resident expert on horseflesh, and farming. The story begins in the countryside with skirmishes, and ends over beer. Unfortunately, the story requires significant knowledge of other stories to make sense. What was that army unit doing there? It's central to the tension of the first half of the story, and we never learn the answer!

"Second Issue?"

A story by Bradley H. Sinor about the birth of tabloid journalism in Grantville. The plot structure begins with a suggestion that it might be a tale of investigative journalism, but it ends with a humorous twist. There are tight connections between this story and "The Wallenstein Gambit"

by Eric Flint and Here Comes Santa Claus by K. D. Wentworth.

"Diving Belle"

A story by Gunnar Dahlin and Dave Freer about an attempt to raise the Vasa from its resting place in Stockholm harbor. Or, is it an elaborate fraud?

"A Gift from the Duchess"

"Lucky at Cards"

"A Trip to Amsterdam"

This vignette by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett returns to the story of the two groups maturing of tycoons known respectively as the Sewing Circle and the Barbie Consortium introduced initially in the well-written story "The Sewing Circle", continued again in "Other People’s Money", and other seminal background tales.

"This'll Be the Day..."

"Command Performance"

This continuation of the popular "Franz and Marla" stories by David Carrico, ties in with a brief mention of the story behind and within the concert as told here. The same tale, from a different prospective was used as background for the entrance of Admiral John Simpson and wife Mary as they come on stage during the end of the industrial disaster that begins the novel 1634: The Baltic War.

As a continuation and perhaps climax of the Franz and Marla saga, the tale reveals Marla in a triumphal debut among the rich and famous in Magdeburg, while the lovable and tragic Franz finds a new musical groove—and is able to play again publicly — while, finally, proving worthy in his own eyes of "getting the girl". Like the preceding Franz and Marla stories, it is an excellent tale told with skill and is good at evoking emotions and painting complex characters undergoing lifes' pressures.

"Ellis Island"

Russ Rittgers

"Malungu Seed"

Jonathan Cresswell

"Trials"

Jay Robison

"The Chase"

Iver Cooper

This story is a sequel to "Grand Tour," which appeared in Grantville Gazette 10. The principal characters in The Chase are historical downtimers Thomas Hobbes and William Cavendish (the Earl of Devonshire), and several of the young ladies of the "Barbie Consortium."

There is a scene set at a down-time tennis court, and it's worth noting that Iver also wrote an article on down-time tennis ("Tennis: The Game of Kings") which appeared in Grantville Gazette 15.

"Eddie and the King's Daughter"

Veteran science fiction writer K.D. Wentworth returns to the Ring of Fire series (her seminal story "Here Comes Santa Claus" began the speculative line that is the rapidly developing Eastern European thread) to explain just how Eddie Cantrell became involved with the daughter of king Christian IV of Denmark, after his capture in the confused aftermath the Battle of Wismar.

"Second Thoughts"

"The Austro-Hungarian Connection"

time line:

sequel to: 1634: The Ram Rebellion and 1634: The Bavarian Crisis, The Anaconda Project, etcetera.

prequel to: 1635: Soldier of Bohemia and 1635: The Dreeson Incident (both in production and scheduled for publication in 2008)

Original "working title": Technology Transfer with Noelle

This short novel by Flint features a return to the enigmatic secret agent, Noelle Murphy, introduced in 1634: The Ram Rebellion who considered becoming a Catholic Nun (see "Enter the Ram"). Noelle Murphy isn't quite a James Bond, and "can barely hit the floor with a hat" when shooting a pistol, but she's a good brain, knows how to sniff out a hidden relationship, and something about dealing with people.