1634: The Baltic War

Yeah, I read it. It's a pretty quick read. Since the book doesn't have a single, strong protagonist, the compulsory romance subplots are much more understated. There are three hook-ups that wend through the book, between an early modern German man and a modern American woman (entirely from his point of view, we're never inside her head), modern American man and early modern Danish king's daughter (not in line of succession and thus not a princess, all from his POV), and the most understated modern American man and early modern Englishwoman (neither POV).

That's a lot more tolerable than previous books. The flag-waving super-American patriotism has been toned down a lot, even compared to the directly previous book (1633) which was a step down from the histrionic first book. In general, the series seems to be replacing that tick with a fairly overbearing pro-military message. But that comes out mostly in the POV sections from members of the military, so I guess that's to be expected. I think I'd like to see more civilian POV characters. The books used to have them, but they've been heavily phased out. The only determined civilians that stand out anymore are the hippy's kids. One of them quite bluntly said that while the army looked appealing a year or so ago, it was quickly becoming something he wanted nothing to do with. Good for him. The series can get a bit one-sided on this, with almost every character of significance either in the military already, joining the military, or being a politician who happens to be a huge fan of the military. I can make some allowances for the fact that the books are mostly about a giant war, but there's room for more diversity than has been apparent.

Another thing that's bugging me is that while Eric Flint took great care to make the town thrown back in time a diverse slice of Americana, we're how many books in and romance is a heavy element...but so far we don't have one bisexual character or one homosexual character. Or for that matter, even any indications that these people exist. This is really starting to bother me. There are great tracts of heterosexual romance (Almost every new POV character in any given book that isn't attached will end the book being married.) but nothing else. I don't really expect seventeenth century Europeans to suddenly start marrying gay people, but it's very strange that no one has shown any inclinations that they, or indeed anyone they have ever heard of, might be anything other than straight. If there are any gays around, they are invisible. It bugged me a bit the past few books, but it's becoming a bigger and bigger issue. The absence is harder to sustain the longer this goes on. Maybe it's just me.

Ok then, the book. It's a fun, popcorn book, but it's fairly one-sided. While the direct predecessor was mostly about Europe uniting to strangle democracy in its cradle, and concluded with the good guys making it by the skin of their teeth with many issues up in the air, this one is the opposite. Effectively the new Thirty Years' War is over. The anti-American (and anti-Swedish) alliance, the League of Ostend, was comprised of Denmark, England, France (It was Richelieu's idea.), and Spain. The League spent the last book more or less reconquering the Dutch, cutting the good guys off from their main source of new troops (mainland Sweden), and generally enveloping them. Books running concurrent suggested that the guy in charge of retaking the Dutch provinces for Spain was going to switch sides, which would take some pressure off. Ok.

By the end of the book the Danes have been knocked out of the League, re-opening supply channels for the Swedish army. Denmark is being forced into a union with Sweden too. England was peripheral anyway and the American embassy there managed to lay a lot of groundwork for the English Civil War while imprisoned in the Tower of London with Oliver Cromwell. The main Spanish force was in the Low Countries and is very much going to turn around and if not ally with the American-Swedish alliance then at least become an independent and non-hostile power. France is very likely going to fall into civil war as a result of having its major army destroyed and thus forcing a lot of Richelieu's supporters into the arms of his sworn enemy. Most of the loose bits of Germany were incorporated into the United States of Europe (our heroes) at the end of the book. This reads a lot like the end of the story for the Central European area. The bad guys have been beaten. The only victories they scored were a temporary obstruction of the USE oil pipeline and the successful creation of some weapons a generation ahead of those the Americans made for the USE out of available materials.

It's good. I would want the plots to progress. But I wonder if this is the end of the line for the A plot of the series. The B plots are the Eastern thread (centered in Bohemia, which a rebel Austrian general has relived the Austrians of) and the Southern thread (in Italy and maybe France, mostly about religious politics). I guess that's ok, but the series seems to be at a defining moment. If it's the story of an alternate Thirty Years' War, with assorted side projects, then it's done. Spain and France are still hostile, but both have problems arising much bigger than affairs in Germany. If it's the story of the world changing because of this time travel incident, then this is a necessary and positive step. A strong Germany rules Central Europe centuries early. Now what?

I know from reading some of the side project stuff that a timeline of likely technological development (Or re-development, the moderns have neither the resources, nor the infrastructure, nor the knowledge to recreate everything from scratch and have to go through stages instead. They sort of have a blueprint for how the tech developed, but no finished products. ) that goes up into the 1700s. If they want to follow that along, ok. There's potential. They already have airplanes and ironclad warships, plus supply routes to get them materials they need to recreate more 20th century industrial base. It could be interesting to watch as the other nations play catch up and join the race in earnest. But that also means that the characters have to become disposable. They're going to die of natural causes if nothing else. I'm not sure of the books could survive that or not. Very little has been done to develop a second generation of protagonists, aside from the hippy kids who are in their teens. Most of the major figures are in their forties or later and some much older.

Either way, it'll be interesting to see if Flint's collaborative style ends up helping the books more on from his headliners or if they sort of run out of steam now that the inciting drama is about as used up as it can get.

Also, the book came with a CD that seems to have versions of many other books on it. Mine's cracked to hell. Damn, I was curious about some of those titles, but not curious enough to page through them in the store or buy sight unseen.