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Title: 1632
Author: Eric Flint
Genre: Time travel alt-history (beginning of series)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A West Virginia town gets abruptly dumped into 1632 Thuringia, in the heart of the Thirty Years War. American pluck leaves everyone married.
Thoughts: This is a pleasant, well-researched exercise in wish fulfillment.
The author did an immense amount of research (some of which will be poured into your head via chapter long info-dumps). It's an underserved time period that is inherently interesting. The characters are heart-warming, each with their own Crowning Moment of Awesome. It's a fun, sweet romp.
There is absolutely no narrative tension whatsoever.
At no point does any character experience a real setback or any frustration more than momentary. Only minor characters die and one major character receives an injury we never get the confirmation of the seriousness of. Only one bad judgement call is made, and the other characters hasten to reassure the person who makes the mistake that it was the only thing he could have done. (And almost no damage is caused because of it.) Possible conflicts are repeatedly set up (challengers to leadership, accusations of witchcraft, unrest between union and non union members, racism, sexism, etc) and dispelled immediately, usually on the same page. No one has legitimate differences of opinion on anything that truly matters that can't be resolved in a page and a half (usually by saying they argued a lot but eventually came around, without showing the argument).
Each major character is essentially a Mary Sue. The union leader is the Best Leader Ever. The Jewish doctor's daughter is the Smartest Person Ever. The spunky cheerleader is the Best Sniper Ever, the newcomer to town is the Best Leader of Germany Infantry Ever, the nerd is the Best Warleader Ever, his sweetheart is the Best Hooker With a Heart of Gold Ever. The actual historical King was the BEST MONARCH OF ALL TIME, NO REALLY. (In fact, I suspect the book may have been written in the first place because the author loves this historical figure and wanted him to have a better ending than his actual death.)
Everyone falls in love in the second quarter of the book, mostly improbably, and everyone immediately has a happy marriage with no culture shock, despite differences in time period, religion, and language spoken. No one longs after an impossible object, there are no misunderstandings, no unrequited affection, no disapproving relatives. Girl meets guy, both fall in love in the first 30 seconds, and all barriers are blown down as soon as they come up.
The author has an afterword in which he rather defensively explains that he wanted to write a "sunny" book featuring decent, working class heroes. He justifies his nerd who falls for an ex-prostitute with similar stories from WWII. I do not require justifications to feature well-meaning, hardworking, decent people instead of angsty antiheroes, nor do I challenge the likelihood of a young man rescuing a woman from being a forced camp follower and it coming out well. It's ok to want to write a book with a mostly positive outlook. But I think that he took it too far--happy endings do not require everything to turn out well for the protagonists at every single stage with no setbacks, and not every attraction turns into a stable marriage. These people have been ripped from their time period never to return, many losing family in the process. They can expect to die earlier than they would have otherwise, their children's futures will be entirely different, their fundamental assumptions of the world have to be changed. The natives they encounter have been brutalized, oppressed, starved, raped, tortured, and more. I'm not asking for wallowing, but I think a certain amount of respect for the amount of trauma this plot device has caused is called for. A magical orgasm does not cure months of rape after watching your family slaughtered.
Let us see good hardworking people make a few mistakes and learn how to correct for them; let us see some romances end disastrously and the survivors pick up and move on. Let us worry that the wrong person will win the election, or the overconfident Americans will lose a battle that involves conditions they are not used to. Americans and our technologies are not perfect. And you can have decent characters and happy endings without demanding that they be so.
Author: Eric Flint
Genre: Time travel alt-history (beginning of series)
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: A West Virginia town gets abruptly dumped into 1632 Thuringia, in the heart of the Thirty Years War. American pluck leaves everyone married.
Thoughts: This is a pleasant, well-researched exercise in wish fulfillment.
The author did an immense amount of research (some of which will be poured into your head via chapter long info-dumps). It's an underserved time period that is inherently interesting. The characters are heart-warming, each with their own Crowning Moment of Awesome. It's a fun, sweet romp.
There is absolutely no narrative tension whatsoever.
At no point does any character experience a real setback or any frustration more than momentary. Only minor characters die and one major character receives an injury we never get the confirmation of the seriousness of. Only one bad judgement call is made, and the other characters hasten to reassure the person who makes the mistake that it was the only thing he could have done. (And almost no damage is caused because of it.) Possible conflicts are repeatedly set up (challengers to leadership, accusations of witchcraft, unrest between union and non union members, racism, sexism, etc) and dispelled immediately, usually on the same page. No one has legitimate differences of opinion on anything that truly matters that can't be resolved in a page and a half (usually by saying they argued a lot but eventually came around, without showing the argument).
Each major character is essentially a Mary Sue. The union leader is the Best Leader Ever. The Jewish doctor's daughter is the Smartest Person Ever. The spunky cheerleader is the Best Sniper Ever, the newcomer to town is the Best Leader of Germany Infantry Ever, the nerd is the Best Warleader Ever, his sweetheart is the Best Hooker With a Heart of Gold Ever. The actual historical King was the BEST MONARCH OF ALL TIME, NO REALLY. (In fact, I suspect the book may have been written in the first place because the author loves this historical figure and wanted him to have a better ending than his actual death.)
Everyone falls in love in the second quarter of the book, mostly improbably, and everyone immediately has a happy marriage with no culture shock, despite differences in time period, religion, and language spoken. No one longs after an impossible object, there are no misunderstandings, no unrequited affection, no disapproving relatives. Girl meets guy, both fall in love in the first 30 seconds, and all barriers are blown down as soon as they come up.
The author has an afterword in which he rather defensively explains that he wanted to write a "sunny" book featuring decent, working class heroes. He justifies his nerd who falls for an ex-prostitute with similar stories from WWII. I do not require justifications to feature well-meaning, hardworking, decent people instead of angsty antiheroes, nor do I challenge the likelihood of a young man rescuing a woman from being a forced camp follower and it coming out well. It's ok to want to write a book with a mostly positive outlook. But I think that he took it too far--happy endings do not require everything to turn out well for the protagonists at every single stage with no setbacks, and not every attraction turns into a stable marriage. These people have been ripped from their time period never to return, many losing family in the process. They can expect to die earlier than they would have otherwise, their children's futures will be entirely different, their fundamental assumptions of the world have to be changed. The natives they encounter have been brutalized, oppressed, starved, raped, tortured, and more. I'm not asking for wallowing, but I think a certain amount of respect for the amount of trauma this plot device has caused is called for. A magical orgasm does not cure months of rape after watching your family slaughtered.
Let us see good hardworking people make a few mistakes and learn how to correct for them; let us see some romances end disastrously and the survivors pick up and move on. Let us worry that the wrong person will win the election, or the overconfident Americans will lose a battle that involves conditions they are not used to. Americans and our technologies are not perfect. And you can have decent characters and happy endings without demanding that they be so.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 07:40 pm (UTC)From:But the context in which he was writing this makes a lot of sense when you remember that he's David Weber's ex-best friend.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 07:52 pm (UTC)From:But seriously, why is it that every pre-menopausal woman in the book is pregnant by the end?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 08:04 pm (UTC)From:I don't think she was ready to be married or be a mother, actually, but that's me and my modern stuff. See the fact that they haven't had said honest conversation. There was a real opportunity for a culture clash there and Flint missed it.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 08:26 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 08:48 pm (UTC)From:So maybe reading the second book will not improve your opinion...
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 09:29 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 09:14 pm (UTC)From:This is despite
no subject
Date: 2011-12-12 09:29 pm (UTC)From: