Goddamn it, 1632 is bad

[Thanas]

So somebody recommended Eric Flint's book to me. Whoever it was will get an earful as soon as I remember who it was. It is not only that it is pretty bad with history, no the book manages to be both an USA-wankfest and have hilarious double standards. Oh, and it is just bad character work to boot. Not only does he gift the americans with an unbeatable advantage, no, they also got excellent political leaders, the best sharpshooters there were. Nevermind that the character traits are interchangeable and the only real thing differentiating them are the names.

How that guy ever got published is beyond me. Heck, I have read fanfiction that was better than this dreck. It reads as if Flint tried to write an ode to hillbillies, right-wingers as well as to Gustavus Adolphus. Who he seems to love and idolize without much basis in fact, especially painting him as an enlightened monarch whose army was more virtuous than the other side and who would have agreed to a constitutional monarchy in the vain of Britain. For reality: look up Schwedentrunk.

And plotholes. Like, three months earlier Tilly's forces had plundered the countryside and there was great destruction. Then, a few chapters later, the mirace of american capitalism manages to get the same countryside flooded with farms who just want to sell produce. Oh, and suddenly jews are going to flock to one small city state and invest in it when said city state has no wall, no legality and could be overrun by any decent-sized army? Right. And Thuringia of all places turns into a center of manufacture?

Nevermind the utter hilarity of the americans singlehandedly slaughtering the most fearsome and disciplined tercios the world had ever seen. Oh, and apparently the spanish had mobile inquisition priests with them.

But what is most insulting is that in Flint's mind, the death of Gustavus Adolphus led straight to the holocaust. Dear God, man. Get a grip.

[Xon]

The entire 1632 series is like that. Some of the better works are the independant writers who jumped on, and had smaller short works which where collected into a periodic format. Which was pulled as soon as Baen (the founder of the publishing house) stopped being heavily involved in the company before his death. After that, it goes even more down hill as; Weber, Flint and other major writers at Baen slip from any vague form of editorial control.

[Guardsman Bass]

Who he seems to love and idolize without much basis in fact, especially painting him as an enlightened monarch whose army was more virtuous than the other side and who would have agreed to a constitutional monarchy in the vain of Britain. For reality: look up Schwedentrunk.

I remember that. It was one of the things that made me put the book down after getting into it - the whole "virtuous Gustavus Adolphus's army is not like those other armies who pillage the hell out of areas they pass through" made me laugh out loud, and I was never able to get back into the book.

[Mr Bean]

You must keep going Thanas as it gets better despite Xon statements to the contrary the further the books go on the more of a clue bat Flint gets hit with and the stories change as a result. You still have 1633 to get through however which is just awesome (read Thanas bad) but the series picks up historically in the 1644 books. I will say however the short story collections are superior to the main line books, some of them are in fact excellent reads as serious authors take the premise at face value and say what if. A Matter of Consultation stands out as Flint himself completely missed the fact when first writing 1632 of how valuable history books would be if a 1990's town was thrown back into 1632 would be to leaders of the time. The side books until the second half of the 1634 are more interesting than the main books.

[StrikaAmaru]

So somebody recommended Eric Flint's book to me. Whoever it was will get an earful as soon as I remember who it was.

Disturbingly, it might have been on this very board, the thread "SDN in the Sea of Time" - at least that's where I got acquainted with them. It was compared to Stirling's "Sea of Time", and... I think it was presented as being better; I don't remember which; both series suck, in terms of history and style.

Heck, I have read fanfiction that was better than this dreck. [...] And plotholes. [...] Nevermind the utter hilarity of the americans singlehandedly slaughtering the most fearsome and disciplined tercios the world had ever seen.

Funny thing is, you've just nailed something I was thinking over this Christmas; if this was fanfic, it would get utterly demolished. You have: at least two 'Sues (Marty Stu Mike Stearns, and his Mary Sue wife Rebecca Stearns, nee Abrabanel); Mike Stearns goes from small-town union leader to hyper-competent politician, on the scale of Bismark; Rebecca Stearns is absolutely flawless, never says or does anything wrong; she gets attenuated circumstances for not actually dominating the whole story, but the pieces where she appears are all hers.

Point the second: every single engagement in which American forces engage is won with little to no fuss; as far as I recall, the biggest loss ever was losing a timberclad to an underwater mine, but that's it.

Point the third: history is liberally bent around. Can't pronounce on Gustav or the 30 years' war, but "The Galileo Affair" goes out of its way to paint Galileo badly, papacy and Catholics good (and Protestants as nutty religious whackos. Granted, hey were nutty religious whackos, but so were the other guys). The Catholic Church apologism pissed me off; in 1600 that same church decided it's just fine to burn a certain Giordano Bruno, even after he recanted his scientifical statements. Flint doesn't even mention it; I wonder if he even knows.

[Mr Bean]

Point the third: history is liberally bent around. Can't pronounce on Gustav or the 30 years' war, but "The Galileo Affair" goes out of its way to paint Galileo badly, papacy and Catholics good (and Protestants as nutty religious whackos. Granted, hey were nutty religious whackos, but so were the other guys). The Catholic Church apologism pissed me off; in 1600 that same church decided it's just fine to burn a certain Giordano Bruno, even after he recanted his scientifical statements. Flint doesn't even mention it; I wonder if he even knows.

He does not, and that is in fact the reason why the later books are better (From a certain quality of better) than the earlier books because the later books have historians after him to correct his many historical revisionisms. Or rather they are after to him to include real history in order to make his books "even better". Which is why some of the changes you see in the 1634 the Baltic War were made was because of one or two historians/history minding people posting to his forums and soothing his ego first before trying to get him to make changes to confirm closer with history.

Flint is semi-unique in that he reads and posts to his own forums quite regularly many other authors who have fan sites run by other people of which they know exist and mostly ignore.

[StrikaAmaru]

He does not, and that is in fact the reason why the later books are better (From a certain quality of better) than the earlier books because the later books have historians after him to correct his many historical revisionisms. Or rather they are after to him to include real history in order to make his books "even better". Which is why some of the changes you see in the 1634 the Baltic War were made was because of one or two historians/history minding people posting to his forums and soothing his ego first before trying to get him to make changes to confirm closer with history.

Flint is semi-unique in that he reads and posts to his own forums quite regularly many other authors who have fan sites run by other people of which they know exist and mostly ignore.

Respect for history? I might start reading again.

Hrm, while making a small edit to my previous post, I started counting the things he got right; I almost added nurse Rose to the Mary Sues for her casual trashing of a royal physician, but I remembered that medicine would prescribe mercury, opium and cocaine as late as a century ago, so a "mere" nurse being more competent than a doctor is actually entirely reasonable. It still won't explain any way or another why he would listen to her, even when he is traveling foreign lands, even with evidence under his nose; pride is awfully hard to beat, and there's also the 'logic' of the time: why would he listen to a woman?

[Mr Bean]

Hrm, while making a small edit to my previous post, I started counting the things he got right; I almost added nurse Rose to the Mary Sues for her casual trashing of a royal physician, but I remembered that medicine would prescribe mercury, opium and cocaine as late as a century ago, so a "mere" nurse being more competent than a doctor is actually entirely reasonable. It still won't explain any way or another why he would listen to her, even when he is traveling foreign lands, even with evidence under his nose; pride is awfully hard to beat, and there's also the 'logic' of the time: why would he listen to a woman?

As I recall the good doctor was on the Continent to study a plague or something that was nearby and the villagers basically dragged him in to look at the patent

[Edward Yee]

It reads as if Flint tried to write an ode to hillbillies, right-wingers as well as to Gustavus Adolphus.

Tried? From the 1632 Afterword:

More generally, the American characters who populate 1632 are all figments of my imagination. But I like to believe they are a faithful portrait of the American people. Part of the reason I chose to write this novel is because I am more than a little sick and tired of two characteristics of most modern fiction, including science fiction.

The first is that the common folk who built this country and keep it running—blue-collar workers, schoolteachers, farmers, and the like—hardly ever appear. If they figure at all, it is usually as spear carriers—or, more often than not, as a bastion of ignorance and bigotry. That is especially true of people from such rural areas as West Virginia. Hicks and hillbillies: a general, undifferentiated mass of darkness.

The second is the pervasive cynicism which seems to be the accepted "sophisticated" wisdom of so many of today's writers. (Not all, thankfully.) I will have no truck with it. Of all philosophies, cynicism is the most shallow and puerile. People may choose to believe that no young man like Jeff Higgins would ever make the decision concerning Gretchen which is portrayed in the novel. Yet that episode, like many in the book, was inspired by real life. A young American infantryman, who encountered a prostitute caring for her family during the Italian campaign in World War II, made exactly the same decision—and, like Jeff, made it within hours. Do not ask me his name, or where he came from, because I do not remember. I ran across the story in a history book which I read as a teenager. The specifics I forgot long ago, but I never forgot the incident. He may have been a boy from West Virginia or Kansas—but he could just have easily have come from the mean streets of New York. If there is one human characteristic which truly recognizes neither border, breed nor birth, it is the courage to face life squarely.

As for the coal miners who are central to the story, people may think the portrait unrealistic. That is their problem, not mine. I never had the honor of being a member of the United Mine Workers of America. But in my days as a trade-union activist, I had many occasions to work with the UMWA and its members. I know the union and its traditions, and those traditions are alive and well. That is as true of the Navajo miners in the southwest and the strip miners in Wyoming as it is of the Appalachian core of the union. I began this book by dedicating it to my mother, who comes from that Appalachian stock. Let me end by rededicating it to UMWA Local 1972 of Sheridan, Wyoming, especially to Dan Roberts and Ernie Roybal; and to Maurice Moorleghen, who came up from District 12 in southern Illinois to lend a hand.

This book became really dated, I think we feel WORSE about rural people now than he thought "people like us" did, when he wrote 1632!

So yeah... though the note that the low-born characters (i.e. Gretchen) were fictional as their social class had "spared" them history's gaze I found a nice touch, and reminded me of the "great men" debunking in TSW (that some were lucky enough to be born into the right place at the right place in the right circumstances).

Amusingly, re: the inspiration for Jeff and Gretchen, I can think of two rebuttals -- #1, "it was WWII, it was different back then" (yeah right), and #2... a guy with that mentality probably wouldn't be one of our main characters.

Who he seems to love and idolize without much basis in fact, especially painting him as an enlightened monarch whose army was more virtuous than the other side and who would have agreed to a constitutional monarchy in the vain of Britain. For reality: look up Schwedentrunk.

I remember that. It was one of the things that made me put the book down after getting into it - the whole "virtuous Gustavus Adolphus's army is not like those other armies who pillage the hell out of areas they pass through" made me laugh out loud, and I was never able to get back into the book.

What I could never figure out what WHAT DID HE EVER DO TO DESERVE THE WANKING. At least Qin Shihuang had the whole "uniting China + one written language" thing going for him for when it came time to make Hero...

One thing I did like was a few of the "downtimers" POV (for example, Mackay's first appearance and trying to figure out what the hell had happened), but yeah, even I noticed how fucking hamfisted Flint was about his take on the modern-day characters (see the foreword), particularly the elder Simpson... if that lack of "grey" is because he really does view them that way, then that's WHY his writing of 1632 sucked. (At least Simpson got a turnaround after the first book.)

Would anyone else have preferred a story about a modern-day PMC going back in time and acting as ODESSA for historical villains?

As for medicine... a good Assassin's Creed (II) fanfic I've seen had a time-traveling cyborg pose as the daughter of a deceased (read: fictional in-universe) doctor and therefore the only heir to his medicinal knowledge and methods -- so when she had a working remedy for Lorenzo de' Medici's gout, he definitely paid attention, and as of this typing still believes her cover story. (It helps that she's now the wife of the condottiero Mario Auditore.)

[fgalkin]

I used to like and respect Eric Flint as a writer, because he saved the Honorverse from Weber and actually made it readable again. Then, I read 1632. It put things in proper perspective.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Thanas]

Point the second: every single engagement in which American forces engage is won with little to no fuss; as far as I recall, the biggest loss ever was losing a timberclad to an underwater mine, but that's it.

I literally put down the book in disgust after

a) The huge croat raid of over a thousand croats (some of the best irregular cavalry units there ever were) managed to kill a whopping number of single-digit people, in a town that had no warning system in place, were all the armed forces had already left and where the Croats achieved perfect surprise etc. But the croats are nearly annihilated due to SUPERMAN Vasa and a girl with a repeating rifle. Because if the Zulu wars have shown us anything, it is that when being totally surprised and caught off-guard repeating weapons are of little use. But somehow a town of civilians manages to fend off an attack by professional warriors with in some cases decade of combat experiences - and to be honest I'd rather have taken my lack with the Zulus than with the Croats.

b) The book consistently hypes up enemy forces just to get a wankfest with the americans beating them utterly. The mercenaries at the start are being described as tough vets, yet a bunch of coal miners (with some aging vietnam vets who have not seen combat for more than three decades) beats them in hand to hand combat. The Spanish tercios are described at being the toughest and most capable of all of Europe and they get cut down like flies. Wallenstein. All the way Flint drops hints that Wallenstein is the smartest and most capable of all the Generals. But after hyping him up he apparently realised that the only way Gustavus can avoid being outsmarted and outmaneuvered (no, can't have that) is with the americans sniping him. And a whole bunch of Imperial officers, who have seen countless skirmisher actions and ambushes, just stand around stupidly despite knowing about the enemy's magic weapons and watch as their general gets hit two times and Gallas gets hit into the head. Right.

It is similar to Weber in this way - it works just the same. Enemy force appears, acts competent. Encounters main hero, get defeated utterly. Come to think of it, the similarities, especially with regards to the characters, are striking.

About the only thing I can not fault Flint for is the description of Breitenfeld. It is also the most gripping part of the book and shows that Flint can actually write - but all the stupid USA USA USA stuff is ruining the book. It makes me wonder what would have happened had Flint decided to write historical fiction in the first place.

Point the third: history is liberally bent around. Can't pronounce on Gustav or the 30 years' war, but "The Galileo Affair" goes out of its way to paint Galileo badly, papacy and Catholics good (and Protestants as nutty religious whackos. Granted, hey were nutty religious whackos, but so were the other guys). The Catholic Church apologism pissed me off; in 1600 that same church decided it's just fine to burn a certain Giordano Bruno, even after he recanted his scientifical statements. Flint doesn't even mention it; I wonder if he even knows.

Wait what? This is literally the opposite message I get from 1632.

What I could never figure out what WHAT DID HE EVER DO TO DESERVE THE WANKING. At least Qin Shihuang had the whole "uniting China + one written language" thing going for him for when it came time to make Hero..

He was a protestant war hero (who destroyed protestant northern Germany, but who is counting). And a capable General, though Wallenstein was far better.

[Thanas]

EDIT: Oh, and another thing. The americans can suddenly make everything. They have the answer to everything thanks to their ruggedness and ingenuity. I never knew West Viriginians could suddenly built steam locomotives, act as railroad engineers - and yes, I kid you not, they build a whole railroad system based on the knowledge of a few amateurs - and find the time to get a weapons factory to start mass producing from scratch etc.

And boy, whoever knew washed-out pro-boxers are better diplomats than Richelieu and the men with hundreds of expertise and breeding behind them. And suddenly a Jew from the 1600s feels perfectly comfortable playing TV hostess.

[StrikaAmaru]

Point the third: history is liberally bent around. Can't pronounce on Gustav or the 30 years' war, but "The Galileo Affair" goes out of its way to paint Galileo badly, papacy and Catholics good (and Protestants as nutty religious whackos. Granted, hey were nutty religious whackos, but so were the other guys). The Catholic Church apologism pissed me off; in 1600 that same church decided it's just fine to burn a certain Giordano Bruno, even after he recanted his scientifical statements. Flint doesn't even mention it; I wonder if he even knows.

Wait what? This is literally the opposite message I get from 1632.

The Galileo Affair has, very near the beginning, a discussion between characters (framed as a rather idiotic "let's educate the hotheaded teenager") which points out that members of the Catholic church, far from suppressing scientific advance, are actively supporting research (never mind Copernicus was ignored and banned for nearly a century), that Galileo was arrested because he was an asshole to the Church and Pope personally (he was, ref: Simplicus), and to fellow astronomers, who also happen to be right (?! no idea), and that charges were pressed not because his theories were counter to dogma, but because he couldn't provide evidence for his claims. And that most religious anti-scientific fucknuttery is due to Protestants, who take personal interpretation of the Bible in all the wrong directions (fits with American Christian fundie history, but is it relevant to 1633-34? I'll go on a limb and say it isn't, given the Inquisition and Bruno).

Book was written by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis.
(that top paragraph can probably use rewriting; tomorrow)

[Thanas]

^I get what you mean. Flint is actually not altogether incorrect in that opinion, the Catholic Church, as an institution, was not really against the scientific process. However, certain powerful factions were, unlike in the protestant realm, which depended so much on trade and technology advancement that there was simply no chance for much anti-scientific sentiment to be popular there.

***********************
So thankfully, 1633 is free.

I am now in Chapter 10 and had to stop for account of a headache. I wonder what brought it on....


Look at this: Link to map.

Somehow, Thuringia has just signed over her entire territory to some upstarts who do not have any nobility and not even enough manpower to fill more than two regiments? They managed to complete a feat even Wallenstein with Imperial favor was not able to do. All just by showing up and be AMERICANS.




(I was never found of this smiley but I feel it describes the situation most adequately).

Oh, and suddenly they have an expert in shipbuilding as well. So they can perfectly build ironclads. And Gustavus Adolphus just decides to have his child educated by americans.

Oh, and apparently the English custom guards are too incompetent to notice three tons of dynamite, five firearms, a battery with a fuse and a several-meter long rope being smuggled in in the clothes of two or three male escorts. Right.

[Stark]

Whoa, is it seriously called the United States?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I found the books so disgusting I actually wrote my own alternate history in a similar vein, with a couple of US UNREP ships getting sent back in time to the late Roman Republic/Hellenistic era. The crews end up pawns of various rulers and generals and government reforms are very limited or nonexistant. After seven years the most sophisticated weapons they've produced are bronze smoothbore cannon and arquebuses, and in machinery, a boiler/steam engine combination which weighs 15 tons and produces 80 horsepower. The best comment I got on it was "It's not publishable, but you did succeed in your goal of writing something better than 1632."

[Stark]

Wiki suggests that it as a series was pretty influenced by the kind of morons who post on the Baen books forum, so I imagine much of it is just a case of fanservice.

[Akhlut]

EDIT: Oh, and another thing. The americans can suddenly make everything. They have the answer to everything thanks to their ruggedness and ingenuity. I never knew West Viriginians could suddenly built steam locomotives, act as railroad engineers - and yes, I kid you not, they build a whole railroad system based on the knowledge of a few amateurs - and find the time to get a weapons factory to start mass producing from scratch etc.

Where'd they get the metal to do all that stuff? I thought one needed metallurgy more advanced then what was available in the 17C to build steam engines and railroad tracks.

Also, how are they purchasing the thousands of tons of material necessary to do that? Especially in a pre-Capitalist era? Does he actually explain it or is it handwaved away because AMERICA, FUCK YEAH?

[Thanas]

Whoa, is it seriously called the United States?

It gets better. Get a map of germany from that period and you'll notice the very existence of that state has just robbed four German principalities. All of who field much larger armies, but by act of plot cannot act.

EDIT: Oh, and another thing. The americans can suddenly make everything. They have the answer to everything thanks to their ruggedness and ingenuity. I never knew West Viriginians could suddenly built steam locomotives, act as railroad engineers - and yes, I kid you not, they build a whole railroad system based on the knowledge of a few amateurs - and find the time to get a weapons factory to start mass producing from scratch etc.

Where'd they get the metal to do all that stuff? I thought one needed metallurgy more advanced then what was available in the 17C to build steam engines and railroad tracks.

Apparently, being a coal miner town and having four to five local machine shops = mass production of such things. They got no refinery, no nothing, but suddenly they are making armor-grade cast iron.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, in addition to cranking out heavy modern weapons (like grenade launchers attached to shotguns that can blow up privateer ships - ), starting mass construction in Grantville, dealing with housing quadruple the population of Thuringia and keeping them supplied on a much lower farmland basis, building four ironclads at the same time (wow, the USA of 1860s must have really sucked if a single 2000 population basis town can suddenly come up with more experts than the US Navy shipyards), and now having just started airplane production.

Yes, you heard that right. Locomotives, ironclad, airplane and massive farmland and municipal construction. All just one year after having arrived there, the AMERICANS got all these very complex production lines running.

Does Flint even know how complex this is? And no, you just do not get to handwave this by suddenly having Character X also being involved with US submarine design. First, being the civilian in charge does not mean you have a degree or that you can even replicate 19th century ship design. Or that you have any knowledge of being an aerospace engineer.

Also, how are they purchasing the thousands of tons of material necessary to do that? Especially in a pre-Capitalist era? Does he actually explain it or is it handwaved away because AMERICA, FUCK YEAH?

Apparently the same area which both Tilly and Gustave's forces thoroughly ravaged over several months, nay years, has still "hundreds of small farms" (direct quote) who just want to deal with the americans, as well as basically the jews of the world deciding to all invest in the promised land because apparently not having a city wall, having a hostile Empire right next door, having the Spanish and the French pissed at them and having manpower in the low single-digit thousands is the best investment opportunity because there are no bigots, despite their places being secured in the Ottoman Empire already. Yes, they really leave a secure existence behind to move to wartorn Germany were mercenary gangs run all over the place because apparently a hillbilly town from West virginia is free of any anti-semitism. And because of FREEDOM. The same freedom that magically has caused hundreds of intact farms to appear in a war-torn country (which had hundreds of burnt villages 200 pages ago) and which has gifted the AMERICANS with the transport capacity necessary to haul hundreds of tons of cargo around...by tractor. Gee, a good thing these never seem to break down, not even when you just blowed them through enemy tercios and cannon fire. Oh, and they apparently can make gas (or their magic rationing allows them to keep on going despite marching all over the place and still using school busses instead of you know, horses).

Just when I think it cannot be more hilarious, he pulls another wankfest out of his hat. Wow, his penis must have been replaced by a metal dildo because there is no way organic material can maintain integrity when such friction works on it.

[Kingmaker]

Apparently, being a coal miner town and having four to five local machine shops = mass production of such things. They got no refinery, no nothing, but suddenly they are making armor-grade cast iron.

These are the people that Built America. Things that would require assembly lines or advanced degrees in materials science for ordinary people are mere hobbies to them--something to do on the weekend, when they take time off from mining coal with their bare hands and similar Manly American Things.

Yes, you heard that right. Locomotives, ironclad, airplane and massive farmland and municipal construction. All just one year after having arrived there, the AMERICANS got all these very complex production lines running.

Does Flint even know how complex this is? And no, you just do not get to handwave this by suddenly having Character X also being involved with US submarine design. First, being the civilian in charge does not mean you have a degree or that you can even replicate 19th century ship design. Or that you have any knowledge of being an aerospace engineer.

You missed the part where they have access to... the library of a West Virginia Public School! Why, armed with that repository of science and technical knowledge, what need is there for such elitist "experts" as engineers or scientists? These are the people who Built America. Do not underestimate them.

But I like to believe they are a faithful portrait of the American people.

And I would like to believe that this stick figure is a faithful portrait of the Duke of Marlborough. It is, however, merely a stick figure drawing on a napkin with a cigarette and the words "Duke of Marlborough, FUCK YEAH!" written on it.

The thing that perplexes me about 1632 (aside from all of it) is that the author is a Trotskyist, but, aside from painting the blue-collar UMW as a group of hypercompetent supermen, the book mostly spouts right-wing realamericafuckyeah bullshit. Up to including a idiotic contrarian who exists just to show how useless those elitist city-slickers would be in a real disaster.

[Mr Bean]

Note again I'll say the high tech stuff stops after 1633. The there are chapters dedicated in the Baltic War about how Grantvillie hits the brick wall on everything from engine production (They can't produce any) to repairs and having to gear down with the head of their air-force worrying about the fact he's going to teach people how to fly and they will fly and in eight years they will be out of any planes to fly with and thirty years from even basic engines let alone aircraft engines.

I keep telling you Thanas
It gets better (By better I mean more sane)

[Edward Yee]

the library of a West Virginia Public School! Why, armed with that repository of science and technical knowledge, what need is there for such elitist "experts" as engineers or scientists? These are the people who Built America. Do not underestimate them.

Didn't he pretty much say as much in the afterword, except with a straight face and complete seriousness?

Which, come to think of it, sounds like his tone for what you were parodying.

And boy, whoever knew washed-out pro-boxers are better diplomats than Richelieu and the men with hundreds of expertise and breeding behind them.

See, this part is more offensive to me because of what I learned about concussions/CTE (as a pro wrestling/MMA fan)... though it's just a detail, compared to it being Mike Stearns somehow being so hypercompetent.

P.S. I'll take LadyTevar's (right?) take on West Virginia over Eric Flint's... though I have to admit the Jeff/Gretchen "romance" was just awful to me.

[Xon]

the library of a West Virginia Public School! Why, armed with that repository of science and technical knowledge, what need is there for such elitist "experts" as engineers or scientists? These are the people who Built America. Do not underestimate them.

Didn't he pretty much say as much in the afterword, except with a straight face and complete seriousness?

The afterword is almost as nauseating as the book itself.

Wiki suggests that it as a series was pretty influenced by the kind of morons who post on the Baen books forum, so I imagine much of it is just a case of fanservice.

The really sad part is most of the best stories in the 163x series are from those forums. The "professional" writers have managed to produce an amazingly inconsistant and plot-holed setting. And in many ways the underlying issue between 163x and 'recent' (since about 2005 or so) Baen publications have been as a general rule dramatically reduced the quaility of the editorial oversight.

[Stark]

Note again I'll say the high tech stuff stops after 1633. The there are chapters dedicated in the Baltic War about how Grantvillie hits the brick wall on everything from engine production (They can't produce any) to repairs and having to gear down with the head of their air-force worrying about the fact he's going to teach people how to fly and they will fly and in eight years they will be out of any planes to fly with and thirty years from even basic engines let alone aircraft engines.

I keep telling you Thanas
It gets better (By better I mean more sane)

Does this mean they retcon the direction of the series?

If what Xon says is true, it'd be pretty funny if the fans turned their back on the fanservice. Too stupid even for Baen?

[Xon]

Some of choice bits out of the afterword;

Public schools, and high schools in particular, remain the principal forges of America's youth. Let others whine about their shortcomings and faults, I will not. You can have your damned playing fields of Eton, and all the other varieties of that exclusionary "vision." I'll stick with the democratic and plebeian methods which built the American republic, thank you.

Leaving aside possible errors on my part—which I strove mightily to avoid—the historical setting of this novel is accurate.

But I like to believe they are a faithful portrait of the American people. Part of the reason I chose to write this novel is because I am more than a little sick and tired of two characteristics of most modern fiction, including science fiction.
The first is that the common folk who built this country and keep it running—blue-collar workers, schoolteachers, farmers, and the like—hardly ever appear. If they figure at all, it is usually as spear carriers—or, more often than not, as a bastion of ignorance and bigotry. That is especially true of people from such rural areas as West Virginia. Hicks and hillbillies: a general, undifferentiated mass of darkness.
The second is the pervasive cynicism which seems to be the accepted "sophisticated" wisdom of so many of today's writers. (Not all, thankfully.) I will have no truck with it. Of all philosophies, cynicism is the most shallow and puerile

Do not ask me his name, or where he came from, because I do not remember. I ran across the story in a history book which I read as a teenager. The specifics I forgot long ago, but I never forgot the incident.

As for the coal miners who are central to the story, people may think the portrait unrealistic. That is their problem, not mine. I never had the honor of being a member of the United Mine Workers of America. But in my days as a trade-union activist, I had many occasions to work with the UMWA and its members. I know the union and its traditions, and those traditions are alive and well

Ugh, nauseating.