A review by julis
1632 by Eric Flint

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

[this review was also written for 1633 and 1634: The Baltic Front]

1632 opens with a small West Virginia mining town being transplanted to 1631 (oops) Germany, and if you’re still interested you’ll get along just fine with the book.

In a lot of ways it’s a pretty mediochre series, except for the fact that it is excruciatingly well researched, contains the sort of worldbuilding I personally would die for, and is one of the few series that actually works as an open-world-anyone-can-write-in-this. Mostly by having loads and loads of characters.

Otherwise, good points tend to be balanced by bad points and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have such a thing for European history. Female characters are great and well rounded–but there aren’t nearly enough of them, nor are enough of them movers and shakers. One of the MCs (such as they exist) is a Sephardic Jew–who isn’t a practicing Jew, leaving the whole thing feeling like a cop-out. Weapons and military tactics are thoroughly researched and grounded in real abilities, swords aren’t made of lead, armor can be moved around in–and somehow the Americans implausibly keep winning. The “we win if our legacy survives” strategy really starts to grate on me after a few books, and so does “everyone is complex and flawed except for Mike Sterns, who Can Do No Wrong even when his entire cast of allies disagrees with him–or maybe especially when they disagree with him”. And the America uber alles holy fuck you can say that’s not what you’re going for all you want, and yet that’s what keeps happening. Also I know there’s a lot of Republicans in West Virginia, and this is the price I pay for wanting to read about ISOT stories without, you know, actually reading ISoT because holy crap Stirling actually has more problems than you guys have but also, like, you could make it less obvious that you’re Republicans from time to time.

… And yet here I am, and in a couple days I’ll have another post to make for this series, so. The writing isn’t stellar but it isn’t shit, and the authors remember that everyone has to have motives and in the end the plot usually kicks along without any too obvious pushes from the writers (or when they’re obvious they tend to become recurring themes).

Also dear Baen Books ilu but fix the cover art, holy cow, you need a new pack of cover artists this should not be a running joke