1634: The Ram Rebellion

By: Eric Flint, Virginia DeMarce

Narrated by: George Guidall

The Thirty Years War continues to ravage 17th century Europe, but a new force is gathering power and influence: the Confederated Principalities of Europe, an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians from the 20th century led by Mike Stearns who were hurled centuries into the past by a mysterious cosmic accident.

Inspired by the example of American freedom and justice, a movement in Franconia among the peasants, who have revolted several times even before the arrival from the future of the town of Grantville, an independent revolutionary movement has arisen, flying the banner of the head of a ram. The West Virginians fully approve of liberating the peasants from the nobility, but they are also aware of how revolutionary movements can lead to bloodbaths. And avoiding that deadly possibility will require all of their future knowledge and all their plain old American horse-trading diplomacy....

©2006 Eric Flint with Virginia DeMarce (P)2015 Recorded Books

A new type of writing?

The flow was a bit jerky, the stories varied from slow to engaging, the perspectives changed frequently. Worth reading once, but your mileage may vary.

Good, but not great.

Not as good as the previous books in The Ring of Fire, but worth a listen, since it covers the same time period as the previous books.
The Narration of this book was AMAZING. He clearly has a good grasp of German, presenting believable accents and correct pronunciation of German words and phrases.

Butterflies.

My view is that each story attempts to explain the erratic flight of a single butterfly within a cloud of similar insects. Even if you grant that each creature used rational thought to plot the first swoop, the probability that subsequent moves were foreseen and planned approaches nullity . Together, these stories do not because they cannot provide or predict the course of butterflies. I find the entire series engenders similar erratic behavior but not in a bad way. Time flows in a constant, predictable manner, but history does nothing of the sort and trying to explain history in short, rational bursts (novels and short stories) inevitably leaves bits out that just as certainly confuses and can disappoint the reader. Despite the confusion, I enjoyed this as ten others in the series so far, because each story explained something in a different novel or anthology that I had forgotten, skipped over, or not understood. Forget trying to predict the flight of individual much less the entire swarm of butterflies; just enjoy the experience and if you are like me revisit it from time to time to learn something new.

It's Not a 1633 Sequel. So What ? It's Great Fun

Get over the idea that this is a 1633 sequel and enjoy these delightful stories. You will get to meet some important ongoing characters in this volume. The more of a fan you are, the more you will understand and like this read.

When this book was published the Grantville Gazette was not past it's 50th issue and many people thought the Ring of Fire series was a few glamorous novels with more of the same to follow. The idea of humble people from a small town assimilating into a big world in a known historical context is fertile ground for new and expanding approaches and with the big success of the Grantville Gazette, the ROF universe has expanded greatly into a number of serial adventures, articles and stories, some very small, some factual, some speculative and all organized around the Ring of fire.

Acculturation, opression, rebellion, irony, humor all with an allegorical eye to our current state is brought up in this book all the while under the subheading, 'This is all a bit of fun'. The bigger the fan of the Grantville Universe you are, the more you will like this book.

I wish there was more bandwidth in the recording, it sounds a little confined.
Nick Sullivan could do a real good job on this series, they should add him to the crew. There are a number of titles to go to catch up.

A tangled web to ensnare the delighted reader

At first it seems to be a delightful but random conglomeration of stories in the Ring of Fire, involving farmers and sheep. And then before you know it, it has spiraled into international politics in the best way possible.
The narrator is equally at ease with WV hillbilly accents and cultured Europeans. 5/5 stars