Prequel to 1636: The Viennese Waltz. The Barbies are rising. After their West Virginia town is transported to 1630s continental Europe, a group of teenage girls discover that bringing future technology and future business practices to a backward Europe just emerging from the Middle Ages can be very lucrative indeed—and might even change the course of empire.

After carving a place for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, the modern time-displaced town of Grantville, West Virginia has established its new mission and identity. Yet some have been left behind—people like goodtime Bernie Zeppi, courageous in battle, but a bust in life.

Bernie gets his second chance when he’s hired to help Mother Russia modernize. Now war with Poland is afoot and Russia is about to get a revolution from within—three centuries early! It’s do or die time for good-time Bernie. His task: to save the Russian woman he has come to love and the country he has come to call his own from collapse into a new Dark Age.

Download the comprehensive Teacher’s Guide here.

20th Century American Spirit Meets Seductive and Dangerous Vienna of the 1600s!

The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident, is beset by enemies on all sides. But now, as a young new emperor comes to the throne in Austria, an opening has developed for making peace with at least one branch of the farflung and mighty Habsburg dynasty.

This is no job for diplomats or generals, however. The recently formed Austro- Hungarian empire is teetering on the brink of economic collapse. So, the USE sends auto mechanics and financiers to the rescue. But the mechanics are West Virginia hillbillies and the financiers are mostly teenage American girls, risen to wealth by taking advantage of the new opportunities created by the Ring of Fire.

Ready to greet them upon their arrival in Vienna is an emperor uncertain of his goals, common folk desperate for work, noblemen with intentions both fair and foul, priests plotting on all sides—and a prince unclear on the distinction between passion and lechery.

To put it mildly, a culture clash is in the making here. What better way to bridge the gap than to create a race track for the emperor’s new muscle car? And so the dance begins.

Listen to the author discuss the book here on the Baen Free Radio Hour.

THE NEW WORLD FALLS INTO THE RING OF FIRE. All new stories set in the Ring of Fire series, edited by New York Times best-selling series creator Eric Flint.

Europe, 1632. It is a time of upheaval and great change, but none so great as when an unexplained temporal and spatial phenomenon known as the Ring of Fire transports the blue collar town of Grantville, West Virginia, smack dab in the middle of the Thirty Years War. When the dust settles, it becomes clear that the town of Grantville isn't going anywhere, and the can-do Americans of the twenty-first century begin altering the course of history forever.

It is now five years later, and the effects of the Ring of Fire reach from the Old World to the New. But the course of exploration and colonization will look much different than it did in our timeline. The French bought the English possessions in North America way back in 1633, but have never done much with the uncivilized backwater. Until the new king of France, Gaston I, decides that it's time to seize the territory and establish French control over it.

Here then, a new anthology, edited by Ring of Fire series creator Eric Flint, chronicling the exploits of the citizens of Grantville, their allies, and their enemies, as they venture forth onto a new continent.

This short novel plus 7 bonus stories in the Ring of Fire!

NEW ENTRY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING, GENRE-DEFINING ALTERNATE HISTORY SERIES.

It’s been five years since a cosmic incident known as The Ring of Fire transported the modern day town of Grantville, West Virginia, through time and space to 17th century Europe. The course of world history has been forever altered. And Mother Russia is no exception.

Inspired by the American up-timers’ radical notion that all people are created equal, Russian serfs are rebelling. The entire village of Poltz, led by blacksmith Stefan Andreevich, pulls up stakes to make a run for freedom.

Meanwhile, Czar Mikhail has escaped house arrest, with the aid of up-time car mechanic Bernie Zeppi, his Russian associates—and a zeppelin. The czar makes his way to the village of Ufa. There he intends to set up a government-in-exile. It is to Ufa that the serfs of Poltz are heading, as well.

The path is dangerous—for the serfs as well as the czar. They face great distances and highwaymen. But the worst threat are those in the aristocracy who seek to crush the serfs and execute the czar in a bid to drive any hope for Russian freedom under their Parisian-crafted boot heels. But the Russians of 1637 have taken inspiration from their up-timer counterparts. And it could be that a new wind of liberty is about to blow three centuries early—and change Mother Russia forever.

The fate of Russia hangs in the balance as up-timers and down-timers battle for freedom!

The United Sovereign States of Russia struggles to set in place the traditions and legal precedents that will let it turn into a constitutional monarchy with freedom and opportunity for all its citizens.

At the same time, they’re trying to balance the power of the states and the federal government. And the USSR is fighting a civil war with Muscovite Russia, defending the new state of Kazakh from invasion by the Zunghars, building a tech base and an economy that will allow its money to be accepted in western Europe, establishing a more solid claim to Siberia, and, in general, keeping the wheels of civilization from coming off and dumping Russia back into the Time of Troubles. Or, possibly even worse, reinstalling the sort of repressive oligarchy that they just got rid of.

HISTORY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AFTER A PETERBILT TANKER TRUCK FULL OF OIL IS TRANSPORTED BACK ONE THOUSAND YEARS IN TIME. A NEW NOVEL IN ERIC FLINT’S ASSITI SHARDS SERIES BY RING OF FIRE STALWARTS GORG HUFF AND PAULA GOODLETT.

Michael and Melanie Anderle are hauling a tanker full of oil with their Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler when they’re struck by a temporal irregularity that sends them, the truck, and their daughter back in time a thousand years. The bubble that transports them also grabs a chemist and her two young children, along with half a convenience store in the middle of the United States

They just want to make a decent life for themselves in this new world of the past, with their Peterbilt and its oil providing a means of transportation, a generator, and shelter. But not all the locals are willing to live and let live, and when the area shamans decide that this community of temporally displaced persons is a threat to their power, the Anderles find out what it’s like to take a Peterbilt to war.

Twice before, mysterious cosmic catastrophes have sent portions of the Earth across space and back in time—first, with the Grantville Disaster in West Virginia, and then again with a maximum security prison in southern Illinois.

Now, the planet is struck with yet another such cataclysm, whose direct impact falls upon the Queen of the Sea, a cruise ship in the Caribbean. When the convulsions subside, the crew and passengers of the ship discover that they have arrived in a new and frightening world.

They are in the Mediterranean now, not the Caribbean. Still worse, they discover that the disaster has sent them more than two thousand years back in time. Following the advice of an historian among the passengers, Marie Easley, they sail to Egypt—or, at least, where they hope Egypt will be.

Sure enough, Egypt is there—ruled over by Ptolemy, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty and one of Alexander the Great’s chief generals.

Alexander the Great, it turns out, died just two years ago. The western world has just entered what would become known as the Hellenistic Period of history, during which time Greek civilization would spread around the Mediterranean and beyond. But the first fifty years of the Hellenistic Period was the Age of Diadochi—the Time of the Successors—when Alexander’s empire would collapse into chaos. By the time the Successors finished their strife, every single member of Alexander’s dynasty would be murdered and only three of the generals who began that civil war would still be alive.

That is the new world in which the Queen of the Sea finds itself. Can Marie Easley and Captain Lars Flodden guide the crew and passengers through this cataclysm? Fortunately, they have some help: a young Norwegian ship’s officer who forms an attachment to Alexander’s widow; a French officer who is a champion pistol marksman; a canny Congressman from Utah—and, most of all, many people of the time who are drawn to a vision of the better world of the future.

TIME TRAVEL ALTERNATE HISTORY FROM A MASTER. A new tale of time-displaced persons fighting for their lives in the ancient world, from 1632 and Boundary series creator Eric Flint.

It’s been more than a year since the cruise ship Queen of the Sea was transported in time and space to the ancient Mediterranean not long after the death of Alexander the Great.

Captain Lars Floden and the other “Ship People” are trying to plant the seeds of modern civilization. It’s not an easy task, to put it mildly, even if they have a tacit alliance with the co-regents of Alexander’s empire, his widow Roxane, and Eurydice, the wife of his half-brother.

For they have plenty of enemies, too. Cassander is using every foul means available to turn Macedonia and Greece into his own empire. The brutal general Antigonus One-Eye is doing the same in Mesopotamia. And Ptolemy, the cleverest of them all, is expanding his Egyptian realm to the Red Sea.

Things aren’t any easier in the colony that passengers from the cruise ship founded on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. President Allen Wiley is trying to build a twenty-first century democratic nation, but the people he has to work with aren’t the most suitable for the task: oldsters from the future, local tribesmen, and third-century BCE immigrants from Europe and Africa.

War, religious strife, assassinations, espionage, poisonings and other murders—and a fair amount of love, too—all mix together with the Ship People's knowledge from the twenty-first century to form a new weaving of the fates. Hopefully, that will lead to a bright new future. If it doesn't kill everyone first.

Prequel to 1636: The Viennese Waltz. The Barbies are rising. After their West Virginia town is transported to 1630s continental Europe, a group of teenage girls discover that bringing future technology and future business practices to a backward Europe just emerging from the Middle Ages can be very lucrative indeed—and might even change the course of empire.

After carving a place for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, the modern time-displaced town of Grantville, West Virginia has established its new mission and identity. Yet some have been left behind—people like goodtime Bernie Zeppi, courageous in battle, but a bust in life.

Bernie gets his second chance when he’s hired to help Mother Russia modernize. Now war with Poland is afoot and Russia is about to get a revolution from within—three centuries early! It’s do or die time for good-time Bernie. His task: to save the Russian woman he has come to love and the country he has come to call his own from collapse into a new Dark Age.

Download the comprehensive Teacher’s Guide here.

20th Century American Spirit Meets Seductive and Dangerous Vienna of the 1600s!

The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident, is beset by enemies on all sides. But now, as a young new emperor comes to the throne in Austria, an opening has developed for making peace with at least one branch of the farflung and mighty Habsburg dynasty.

This is no job for diplomats or generals, however. The recently formed Austro- Hungarian empire is teetering on the brink of economic collapse. So, the USE sends auto mechanics and financiers to the rescue. But the mechanics are West Virginia hillbillies and the financiers are mostly teenage American girls, risen to wealth by taking advantage of the new opportunities created by the Ring of Fire.

Ready to greet them upon their arrival in Vienna is an emperor uncertain of his goals, common folk desperate for work, noblemen with intentions both fair and foul, priests plotting on all sides—and a prince unclear on the distinction between passion and lechery.

To put it mildly, a culture clash is in the making here. What better way to bridge the gap than to create a race track for the emperor’s new muscle car? And so the dance begins.

Listen to the author discuss the book here on the Baen Free Radio Hour.

THE NEW WORLD FALLS INTO THE RING OF FIRE. All new stories set in the Ring of Fire series, edited by New York Times best-selling series creator Eric Flint.

Europe, 1632. It is a time of upheaval and great change, but none so great as when an unexplained temporal and spatial phenomenon known as the Ring of Fire transports the blue collar town of Grantville, West Virginia, smack dab in the middle of the Thirty Years War. When the dust settles, it becomes clear that the town of Grantville isn't going anywhere, and the can-do Americans of the twenty-first century begin altering the course of history forever.

It is now five years later, and the effects of the Ring of Fire reach from the Old World to the New. But the course of exploration and colonization will look much different than it did in our timeline. The French bought the English possessions in North America way back in 1633, but have never done much with the uncivilized backwater. Until the new king of France, Gaston I, decides that it's time to seize the territory and establish French control over it.

Here then, a new anthology, edited by Ring of Fire series creator Eric Flint, chronicling the exploits of the citizens of Grantville, their allies, and their enemies, as they venture forth onto a new continent.

This short novel plus 7 bonus stories in the Ring of Fire!

NEW ENTRY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING, GENRE-DEFINING ALTERNATE HISTORY SERIES.

It’s been five years since a cosmic incident known as The Ring of Fire transported the modern day town of Grantville, West Virginia, through time and space to 17th century Europe. The course of world history has been forever altered. And Mother Russia is no exception.

Inspired by the American up-timers’ radical notion that all people are created equal, Russian serfs are rebelling. The entire village of Poltz, led by blacksmith Stefan Andreevich, pulls up stakes to make a run for freedom.

Meanwhile, Czar Mikhail has escaped house arrest, with the aid of up-time car mechanic Bernie Zeppi, his Russian associates—and a zeppelin. The czar makes his way to the village of Ufa. There he intends to set up a government-in-exile. It is to Ufa that the serfs of Poltz are heading, as well.

The path is dangerous—for the serfs as well as the czar. They face great distances and highwaymen. But the worst threat are those in the aristocracy who seek to crush the serfs and execute the czar in a bid to drive any hope for Russian freedom under their Parisian-crafted boot heels. But the Russians of 1637 have taken inspiration from their up-timer counterparts. And it could be that a new wind of liberty is about to blow three centuries early—and change Mother Russia forever.

The fate of Russia hangs in the balance as up-timers and down-timers battle for freedom!

The United Sovereign States of Russia struggles to set in place the traditions and legal precedents that will let it turn into a constitutional monarchy with freedom and opportunity for all its citizens.

At the same time, they’re trying to balance the power of the states and the federal government. And the USSR is fighting a civil war with Muscovite Russia, defending the new state of Kazakh from invasion by the Zunghars, building a tech base and an economy that will allow its money to be accepted in western Europe, establishing a more solid claim to Siberia, and, in general, keeping the wheels of civilization from coming off and dumping Russia back into the Time of Troubles. Or, possibly even worse, reinstalling the sort of repressive oligarchy that they just got rid of.

HISTORY WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AFTER A PETERBILT TANKER TRUCK FULL OF OIL IS TRANSPORTED BACK ONE THOUSAND YEARS IN TIME. A NEW NOVEL IN ERIC FLINT’S ASSITI SHARDS SERIES BY RING OF FIRE STALWARTS GORG HUFF AND PAULA GOODLETT.

Michael and Melanie Anderle are hauling a tanker full of oil with their Peterbilt eighteen-wheeler when they’re struck by a temporal irregularity that sends them, the truck, and their daughter back in time a thousand years. The bubble that transports them also grabs a chemist and her two young children, along with half a convenience store in the middle of the United States

They just want to make a decent life for themselves in this new world of the past, with their Peterbilt and its oil providing a means of transportation, a generator, and shelter. But not all the locals are willing to live and let live, and when the area shamans decide that this community of temporally displaced persons is a threat to their power, the Anderles find out what it’s like to take a Peterbilt to war.

Twice before, mysterious cosmic catastrophes have sent portions of the Earth across space and back in time—first, with the Grantville Disaster in West Virginia, and then again with a maximum security prison in southern Illinois.

Now, the planet is struck with yet another such cataclysm, whose direct impact falls upon the Queen of the Sea, a cruise ship in the Caribbean. When the convulsions subside, the crew and passengers of the ship discover that they have arrived in a new and frightening world.

They are in the Mediterranean now, not the Caribbean. Still worse, they discover that the disaster has sent them more than two thousand years back in time. Following the advice of an historian among the passengers, Marie Easley, they sail to Egypt—or, at least, where they hope Egypt will be.

Sure enough, Egypt is there—ruled over by Ptolemy, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty and one of Alexander the Great’s chief generals.

Alexander the Great, it turns out, died just two years ago. The western world has just entered what would become known as the Hellenistic Period of history, during which time Greek civilization would spread around the Mediterranean and beyond. But the first fifty years of the Hellenistic Period was the Age of Diadochi—the Time of the Successors—when Alexander’s empire would collapse into chaos. By the time the Successors finished their strife, every single member of Alexander’s dynasty would be murdered and only three of the generals who began that civil war would still be alive.

That is the new world in which the Queen of the Sea finds itself. Can Marie Easley and Captain Lars Flodden guide the crew and passengers through this cataclysm? Fortunately, they have some help: a young Norwegian ship’s officer who forms an attachment to Alexander’s widow; a French officer who is a champion pistol marksman; a canny Congressman from Utah—and, most of all, many people of the time who are drawn to a vision of the better world of the future.

TIME TRAVEL ALTERNATE HISTORY FROM A MASTER. A new tale of time-displaced persons fighting for their lives in the ancient world, from 1632 and Boundary series creator Eric Flint.

It’s been more than a year since the cruise ship Queen of the Sea was transported in time and space to the ancient Mediterranean not long after the death of Alexander the Great.

Captain Lars Floden and the other “Ship People” are trying to plant the seeds of modern civilization. It’s not an easy task, to put it mildly, even if they have a tacit alliance with the co-regents of Alexander’s empire, his widow Roxane, and Eurydice, the wife of his half-brother.

For they have plenty of enemies, too. Cassander is using every foul means available to turn Macedonia and Greece into his own empire. The brutal general Antigonus One-Eye is doing the same in Mesopotamia. And Ptolemy, the cleverest of them all, is expanding his Egyptian realm to the Red Sea.

Things aren’t any easier in the colony that passengers from the cruise ship founded on the Caribbean island of Trinidad. President Allen Wiley is trying to build a twenty-first century democratic nation, but the people he has to work with aren’t the most suitable for the task: oldsters from the future, local tribesmen, and third-century BCE immigrants from Europe and Africa.

War, religious strife, assassinations, espionage, poisonings and other murders—and a fair amount of love, too—all mix together with the Ship People's knowledge from the twenty-first century to form a new weaving of the fates. Hopefully, that will lead to a bright new future. If it doesn't kill everyone first.