The Barnes & Noble Review
In this volume of the Ring of Fire -- Eric Flint's collaborative alternate history saga of time-displaced Americans from modern-day Grantville, West Virginia, who've been temporally transported back to 17th-century Europe -- the "uptimers" and the newly founded United States of Europe (USE) find themselves in an escalating conflict with the combined might of France, Spain, England, and Denmark, former adversaries who have allied with the League of Ostend in an effort to wipe out the USE and its decidedly democratic philosophies (equality, liberty, justice for all, etc.). Central to the story line is Admiral John Simpson, chief of naval operations for the USE, who is desperately trying to utilize uptimer tech (ironclad ships) in time to break through an enemy blockade of key Baltic ports; and USE prime minster Mike Stearns, who sends an elite rescue team deep into enemy territory in hopes of liberating American diplomats being held in the Tower of London.

Featuring dozens of main characters (the index is ten pages long!) and numerous intriguing subplots, this ambitious, meticulously researched, and truly epic saga is sure to appeal to fans of historical fiction, alternate history, and military fiction. Paul Goat Allen

The exciting eighth entry in the Ring of Fire saga, about a temporally displaced West Virginia mining town and its impact upon 17th-century Europe, neatly wraps up two plot threads left unresolved by Flint and Weber's 1633(2002). A mission is mounted to rescue the Grantville diplomatic mission that Charles I is holding captive in the Tower of London (along with an obscure politician named Oliver Cromwell), while Admiral Simpson's fleet of ironclad warships sets off to break the siege of Luebeck in a spectacular display of "shock and awe." While the technology that the modern Americans employ is decidedly useful, Flint and Weber emphasize the effect that the ideas of liberty, equality and the rule of law have, and not just on the peasantry and middle classes. The authors contrast those princes who try to forestall the judgment of history with those striving to achieve a transition from absolutism to democracy without bloodshed. Readers will eagerly look forward to further installments in this richly imagined alternate history series. (May)