Grantville Gazette Volume 19 edited by Paula Goodlett

January 4, 2013

Book 3 started, book 3 finished

Grantville Gazette Volume 19 edited by Paula Goodlett
published by Baen Books, 2008

I started re-reading the Ring of Fire series in Mid-July 2013 and decided then to include all the Gazettes as I went through them.  I’m reading them in order and reading them in publication order between the release dates on the novels.  I’m not quite half way through but I’m really enjoying it.

While the individual stories don't add to the overall story arcs in the Ring of Fire universe, I do like that they add so much extra color and depth to them.  They really make this new timeline feel like their 1630's are much different than our 1630's in all the small ways but the ways important to daily life.

For a bit, around gazette's 8 or so, they got fairly dull.  It felt like there were too many cutesy 3 or 4 page stories that were clever but that was it.  Now, many of the stories feel like they have some teeth in them and are quite good by themselves.

Volume 19 does not disappoint.  As always, there are a variety of short stories covering a variety of new and favorite characters in the Ring of Fire universe.  Some of the highlights include:

• There are two more installments on the Anaconda Project.  These are longer than the first ones, but still so short.  I hope they end up expanded upon into a full-fledged novel.

• There's another story about Felix and Brigit - the artist and chess playing wife.

• There is a new story about Professor Gribbleflotz.  This time he’s tackling Viagra.  I had to look that up and Viagra was around – barely – before Grantville was sent back to the 17th Century, so OK. 

• There’s another story about a Jewish family and how they are acclimation in Grantville.  I quite like these stories around religion as that was one of the major forces of the time and it’s been turned on its head completely.

• There’s a fairly long story about an incident on a Germany to Italy flight by the Trans European Airline and what happens when they need to make an unscheduled landing.