Saturday Dad Reads Week of 4/26

Welcome to this week’s edition! Here’s what we’ve got lined up:

• 📕 This week’s selection: 1633 by Eric Flint and David Weber

• 🤠 Author Bio: Eric Flint and David Weber

• 💣️ Dad’s Knowledge Bomb: Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden

• 🥇 Saturday Dad’s Top Reads List

• 🏈 This Week’s Dad Rant: The Nico Iamaleava Debacle

1633 by Eric Flint and David Weber

Summary

1633 is the second installment of the “Ring of Fire Novels,” a series by Eric Flint and David Weber that explores what happens when you take coal miners from West Virginia and transport their entire town (houses, schools, coal mine and all) back to the 17th century and land it all in Central Germany in the midst of the 30 Years War. An exercise in speculative fiction with a sci-fi twist, 1633 picks up right where its predecessor, 1632, left off with the citizens of Grantville attempting to create an ad hoc government in the form of the United States and using its technological advantages to develop alliances that will place them on the winning side of the 30 Years War. In particular, we see the fledgling United States work on creating a navy and engage in a number of diplomatic missions namely to London, the Netherlands and an audience with their nemesis, Cardinal Richelieu in France.

Review

For starters, let’s talk about what 1633 and this series is in general. Its a fantastic and ambitious work of speculative “what if” historical fiction. Its truly impressive in its imagination and ingenuity, especially in terms of world building. This book, its predecessors and, I would imagine, its successors in the series have to have outlines that when you visualize them, look like the bulletin boards of connected evidence that are ubiquitous in crime movies and TV shows.

It is one thing to write a time travel novel and have the main character play the part of a “stranger in a strange land” and ultimately assimilate into the time and culture. Flint and Weber take that narrative and upend it. Why make the characters assimilate when they can re-create and impose the 21st century on the 17th? All the while, the characters grapple with some tough questions. Who’s in charge? Do we rebuild an American style government and, if so, on whose authority? What happens when things like gasoline, steel, and medicine run out? Who do we ally ourselves with? Do we maintain the historical narrative or choose to re-write it given what we know? Who are the most valuable members of our society and what role will they play (in this case, the head of the coal miner’s union becomes “president,” a history teacher the “chief diplomat,” and the local marijuana dealer the “head of pharmaceutical production”)? Given all of this, 1633 is impressive for none other than the thought experiments it forces the reader to reckon with.

However, that’s where it ended for me. I remember devouring 1632 as it was a unique experience. I couldn’t put it down. But then, upon finishing it, I waited the better part of a decade to pick up 1633. That said, whatever connections I had developed with the characters, I had lost. I couldn’t reclaim the same feeling I had with its prequel. At nearly 600 pages, I read it in fits and starts over the course of this past winter.

Don’t get me wrong, there were times when I really was hooked. There are scenes of great action in terms of a couple naval battles and a really interesting chapter on the introduction of the airplane to the 17th century. Outside of that, I had to slog through it. There were so many characters old and new. They would be introduced on one page only to disappear and not resurface for a hundred pages or more. Not only did I find myself trying to recall who certain characters were, but their limited appearances made it difficult to develop and maintain any sort of connection with them.

There were tons of stylistic choices, some of which required the reader to make inferences about what was going on or what was about to occur based on dialogue between characters referring to events that happened a hundred pages ago or in the prequel. I found myself inferring incorrectly more often than not which is largely a fault of my own due to the length of time that elapsed between my reads of the books. Despite this, I found myself at a breaking point with about 200 pages to go. The book just took a turn that was far too political and at that point, I was done. What did it you may ask? It was a 15 page tangent where the action revolves around how the German nobility could get tax breaks if they allied themselves with the new United States.

In the end, I didn’t dislike the book and I love it’s prequel. This one just really didn’t appeal to me. However, I cant take away the fact that its a marvel of speculative fiction. Eric Flint and David Weber have created a world that is not unlike that of Back to the Future II. In this case, its not a sports almanac that allows for an individual like Biff Tannen to become rich and famous. Rather, its the idea that a world history textbook can outline the path to maintaining or completing a rewrite of history depending on who possesses it.

Saturday Dad Rating: ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ - You’re going to want to get comfortable and fill that coffee cup up 3 times. This one’s solid!

Author Spotlight: Eric Flint and David Weber

Dad’s Knowledge Bomb: Gustavus Adolphus

One of the secondary characters in 1633 is Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden from 1611-1632 (shown above). Known mostly for his military prowess, Gustavus Adolphus brought Sweden onto the world stage during his rule and turned the country into a northern European powerhouse. His theory and practice of “combined arms” (in layman’s terms, coordinating different elements of an army in an attack, i.e. cavalry, infantry, artillery) have led military historians and other famous strategists name him among the greatest military commanders in history.

He was also a forward thinking monarch in that he found a way to more efficiently take account of the Swedish population for tax purposes (have to fund those military campaigns somehow) and staunchly defended adherents of Protestant Christianity in a time where it most desperately needed a champion to allow it to take root and survive.

All of this aside, what drew me to him what a parallel I created in my mind to my favorite American president and man’s man, Teddy Roosevelt. This connection didn’t come from any of Gustavus Adolphus’s accomplishments as a ruler or TR’s accomplishments in office. Rather, they both share an equally profound toughness. Take for instance, TR was shot while on stage in Milwaukee delivering a 1912 campaign speech. Tough as nails, he finished the speech.

Likewise, Gustavus Adolphus was famous for riding into battle wearing little if any armor , fearlessly proclaiming: “The Lord, God is my protector!” In 1627 at the Battle of Dirschau in Prussia, Gustavus Adolphus was shot in the neck and the bullet eventually lodged near his right shoulder blade. Such a wound then and now carries a high mortality rate, but the King of Sweden pulled through with the bullet remaining embedded in his shoulder for the remainder of his life. As a result, two fingers on his right hand were permanently paralyzed and, even if he wanted to, the nature of the injury would prevent him from wearing armor moving forward. Here’s the kicker, what he did end up wearing in future battles was a “buff coat” made of moose hide, tough as nails just like TR the old Bull Moose himself.

Dad Rant: Bet on Your Kids