In the newest volume of this exhilarating series, Eric Flint continues to reshape American history, imagining how a continent and its people might have taken a different path to its future. With 1824: The Arkansas War, he spins an astounding and provocative saga of heroism, battlefield action, racial conflict, and rebellion as a nation recovering from war is plunged into a dangerous era of secession.

Buffered by Spanish possessions to the south and by free states and two rivers to the north, Arkansas has become a country of its own: a hybrid confederation of former slaves, Native American Cherokee and Creek clans, and white abolitionists–including one charismatic warrior who has gone from American hero to bête noire. Irish-born Patrick Driscol is building a fortune and a powerful army in the Arkansas Confederacy, inflaming pro-slavers in Washington and terrifying moderates as well. Caught in the middle is President James Monroe, the gentlemanly Virginian entering his final year in office with a demagogic House Speaker, Henry Clay, nipping at his heels and fanning the fires of war. But Driscol, whose black artillerymen smashed both the Louisiana militia in 1820 and the British in New Orleans, remains a magnet for revolution. And fault lines are erupting throughout the young republic–so that every state, every elected official, and every citizen will soon be forced to choose a side.

For a country whose lifeblood is infected with the slave trade, the war of 1824 will be a bloody crisis of conscience, politics, economics, and military maneuvering that will draw in players from as far away as England. For such men as Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Sam Houston, charismatic war hero Andrew Jackson, and the violent abolitionist John Brown, it is a time to change history itself.

Filled with fascinating insights into some of America’s most intriguing historical figures, 1824: The Arkansas War confirms Eric Flint as a true master of alternate history, a novelist who brings to bear exhaustive research, remarkable intuition, and a great storyteller’s natural gifts to chronicle the making of our nation as it might have been.


From the Hardcover edition....

FREEDOM AND JUSTICE -- AMERICAN STYLE

1632 And in northern Germany things couldn't get much worse. Famine. Disease. Religous war laying waste the cities. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy.

2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia, and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time.

THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED....

When the dust settles, Mike leads a group of armed miners to find out what happened and finds the road into town is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell: a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter attacked by men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of the Thirty Years' War....

The Pyramid is baacckk! Well, actually, it never went away—but it had seemed to be inactive, still sitting in the middle of Chicago but no longer growing and wiping out buildings as it grew. The pyramidal device sent by the Krin to dominate the Earth had suffered a severe setback when the motley crew of ivory-tower academics, paratroopers, and one resourceful maintenance man had not only survived the worst that both the gods and mortals of Classical Greece and ancient Egypt could do, but had managed to escape from the ur-mythological world that the Krin pyramid had somehow brought to deadly life in a parallel dimension, bringing several beings out of myth along with them.

The Krin device would have been thwarted, if things had been left as they were—but a V.I.P., who knows too many state secrets to be allowed to be missing, was left behind in the world of Greek mythology. So a power-mad Washington bureaucrat has press-ganged several of the survivors of the first excursion into the pyramid's worlds and sent them, along with a team trained in ?surgical strikes,? to either bring back the V.I.P. or, if that's impossible, terminate him with extreme prejudice. Unfortunately, instead of returning to mythological Greece, they find themselves in the world of the Norse gods. Even if they manage to survive the enmity of Odin and his warriors, can manage to free Loki (a potential ally) and can keep the hard-drinking thunder-god Thor off the sauce long enough to help them, Ragnarok is coming, with the end of the world. And even a hard-headed maintenance man may have trouble fixing that problem!...

Continuing the popular Belisarius saga, with two full-length novels in one volume.

 

Destiny’s Shield: Evil from beyond time: The Malwa Empire squats like a toad across sixth century India, commanded by ruthless men with depraved appetites. But the thing from the distant future that commands them is far worse. Those who oppose the purulent Hell the Malwa will make of Earth have sent a crystal, Aide, to halt their advance. Aide holds all human knowledge—but cannot act by himself. That requires Count Belisarius, the greatest general fo the age and perhaps of all ages, who must outwit the evil empire—and then, when there is no longer room to maneuver, to meet it sword-edge to sword-edge, lest evil beyond human conception rules the world forever.

 

Fortune’s Stroke: Link, the supercomputer from a future that should not, must not exist has used terror and gunpowder weapons to forge the Malwa Empire on the Indian subcontinent. Aide and Belisarius have led the armies of Byzantium and blunted the first assault of the Malwa hordes. Now he and his allies from all the world face overwhelming numbers in a ring that tightens about them. The armies of Good and Evil gathered on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia will decide the fate of the world—and the fate of all the future.

...

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. The democratic ideals of the CPE have aroused the implacable hostility of Cardinal Richelieu, effective ruler of France, who has moved behind the scenes, making common cause with old enemies to stop this new threat to the privileged and powerful. But the CPE is also working in secret. A group of West Virginians have secretly traveled to Venice where their advanced medical knowledge may prevent the recurrence of the terrible plague which recently killed a third of the city-state's population. At the same time, the group hopes to establish commercial ties with Turkey's Ottoman Empire, then at the height of its power. And, most important, they hope to establish private diplomatic ties with the Vatican, exploiting Pope Urban VIII's misgivings about the actions of Richelieu and the Hapsburgs. But a Venetian artisan involved with the West Virginians may cause all their plans to come to naught. Having read 20th century history books of the period, he has become determined to rescue Galileo from his trial for heresy. The Americans are divided on whether to help him or stop him-and whether he succeeds or fails, the results may be catastrophic for the CPE....

Captain Andrew Blacklock was overseeing the change of shifts at the state of Illinois’ maximum-security prison when the world outside was suddenly ripped. They thought it was an earthquake until they found that the Mississippi river had disappeared, along with all signs of civilization. Then the sun came up—in the wrong direction. And a dinosaur came by and scratched its hide against the wall of the prison . . .

Something had thrown the prison back in time millions of years. And they were not alone. Other humans from periods centuries, even millennia apart had also been dropped into the same time. Including a band of murderous conquistadores. But the prison had its own large population of murderers. They couldn’t be turned loose, but what else could be done with them? Death walked outside the walls, human savagery was planning to break loose inside, and Stephens and the other men and women of the prison’s staff were trapped in the middle.

...

The planet Miran had sent a spaceship to rendezvous with the enormous vessel that was approaching their star system. The vessel’s design was odd—a multitude of separate globular habitats in a framework—and most of the alien team that entered one of the habitats were slaughtered by savage creatures called “humans.” One alien had barely managed to escape to another habitat where the humans were more friendly, if rather technologically backward. But he needed to get back to his spaceship, and he would need one human’s help to do that.

 

            They would have to travel through several more habitats, each one isolated from the other, each with its own bizarre dangers and customs. And friendliness toward strangers was not one of those customs. . . .

 ...

While the Thirty Years War rages on, a new force emerges in central Europe - the Confederated Principalities of Europe. This is an alliance between King Gustavus of Sweden and the West Virginians, led by Mike Stearns, who were hurled into 17th-century Germany by a mysterious time warp....

Welcome to the many worlds of Eric Flint. Known for his New York Times best-selling alternate history novels, Flint is equally a master of shorter forms, and this large volume gathers the best of Flint’s shorter works. This generous selection includes: several stories and short novels set in Flint’s celebrated Ring of Fire alternate history series; two stories from Flint’s Joe’s World humorous fantasy series; a story with Dave Freer, set in their popular rats, bats and vats series; a short novel set in Flint and David Drake’s Belisarius series; and several shared-universe stories set in David Drake’s Foreign Legions universe, and a story set in David Weber’s best-selling Honor Harrington universe. In addition to the fiction, Eric Flint has written an overall introduction, plus an introduction for each story, telling how it came to be written, which will make this an irresistible book for the thousands of Eric Flint fans.

...

Concluding the popular Belisarius saga, with two full-length novels in one volume:

The Tide of Victory: The creators of the monster called Link once were human, but that was distant ages in their past. Now, from the far future, they have sent their creation back to rule the Malwa Empire, then to conquer and shape the world of the sixth century A.D. into the form that will make their own foul existence possible. Those in the future who never were human have sent their own messenger to the past: Aide, a gleaming jewel who has come to Belisarius, the greatest general of the sixth century and perhaps any century. Between them they have forged an alliance of all the world against the evil from the far future—and an army that can be the spear through evil’s heart.

The Dance of Time: The Malwa and their evil have been driven back to their Indian heartland, but there they coil to strike again. Ruled by a monster from the future that is part computer and part demon, they prepare a fresh attack whose success will leave them rulers of the world—and the monster that guides the Malwa will rule the whole future. Guided by Aide, Belisarius has arrayed the forces of Mankind against the Malwa evil. There is no hope for Mankind if he fails—so he must not fail! The triumphant conclusion of the Belisarius saga. 

...

Concluding the popular Belisarius saga, with two full-length novels in one volume:

The Tide of Victory: The creators of the monster called Link once were human, but that was distant ages in their past. Now, from the far future, they have sent their creation back to rule the Malwa Empire, then to conquer and shape the world of the sixth century A.D. into the form that will make their own foul existence possible. Those in the future who never were human have sent their own messenger to the past: Aide, a gleaming jewel who has come to Belisarius, the greatest general of the sixth century and perhaps any century. Between them they have forged an alliance of all the world against the evil fro the far future—and an army that can be the spear through evil’s heart.

The Dance of Time: The Malwa and their evil have been driven back to their Indian heartland, but there they coil to strike again. Ruled by a monster from the future that is part computer and part demon, they prepare a fresh attack whose success will leave them rulers of the world—and the monster that guides the Malwa will rule the whole future. Guided by Aide, Belisarius has arrayed the forces of Mankind against the Malwa evil. There is no hope for Mankind if he fails—so he must not fail! The triumphant conclusion of the Belisarius saga. 

...

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. . . ....

Two complete novels in one volume—the beginning of the Belisarius saga.

 

An Oblique Approach: In northern India the Malwa have created an empire of unexampled evil. Guided or possessed by an intelligence from beyond time, with new weapons, old treachery, and an implacable will to power, the Malwa will sweep over the whole Earth. Only three things stand between the Malwa and their plan of eternal domination: the empire of Rome in the East, Byzantium; a crystal with vision; and a man named Belisarius, the greatest commander Earth has ever known.

 

In the Heart of Darkness: Having conquered sixth century India, the Malwa Empire is forging the subcontinent's vast population into an invincible weapon of tyranny. Belisarius, the finest general of his age, must save the world. Guided by visions from a future that may never be, he and a band of comrades penetrate the Malwa heartland, seeking the core of the enemy's power. And when Belisarius leads the forces of good, only a fool would side with evil.

...

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.

 

While the old entrenched rulers and manipulators continue to plot against this new upstart nation, everyday life goes on in Grantville, the town lost in time, with librarians, firefighters, and garbage collectors trying to make do under unusual circumstances. And what better place for an undercover spy from France than working with the garbage collectors, examining 20th century machines that others throw out and copying the technology (though he wishes one device—the paper shredder—had been left behind in the future).

 

There are more sinister agents at work, however. One of them, Ducos, almost succeeded in assassinating the Pope, but his plan was ruined by quick action by a few Americans. Now, the would-be assassin not only has a score to settle, but has also decided on two excellent targets: Grantville's leader Mike Stearns and his wife Rebecca. . . ....

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.

The CPE has the know-how of 20th century technology, but needs iron and steel to make the machines. The iron mines of the upper Palatinate were rendered inoperable by wartime damage, and American know-how is needed on the spot to pump them out and get the metal flowing again—a mission that will prove more complicated than anyone expects. In the maelstrom that is Europe, even a 20th century copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica can precipitate a crisis, when readers learn of the 1640 Portuguese revolt, a crisis that will involve Naples as well. Another factor: Albanian exiles in Naples, inspired by the Americans, are plotting to recover lost Albanian turf, which will precipitate yet another crisis in the Balkans.

This troubled century was full of revolutions and plans for more revolutions before the Americans arrived, and gave every would-be revolutionary an example of a revolution that succeeded. Europe is a pot coming to a boil, and Mike Stearns will have his hands full seeing that it doesn't boil over on to Grantville and the CPE....

As Captain Pausert had often had occasion to observe, life just wasn’t fair! Hadn’t he (with the help of the notorious witches of Karres, of course) outmaneuvered the deadliest of space pirates and eliminated the threat of the Worm World (as told in The Witches of Karres), after which, at the least, he deserved some time off. No such luck, though, as the Empress herself sent him on a secret mission to stop the nanite plague, but an enemy had somehow convinced the Imperial Fleet that he was actually a wanted criminal, so after a battle leaving his ship in urgent need of repairs all three of them joined an interstellar traveling circus (don’t ask!) in order to save the galaxy once again (as told in The Wizard of Karres).

      Time for a vacation? Don’t be ridiculous—there’s a new urgent mission that has Captain Pausert’s name on it! This new novel finds the long-suffering Captain and the two young Karres witches—Goth, who vows she will marry him when she grows up, and her younger sister The Leewit—being sent off to investigate mysterious and ominous events in the notorious Chaladoor region of space. Goth soon becomes aware that unknown but surely inimical forces are tracking them, and in order to foil them she takes a desperate route to travel back in time and meet Pausert as a young boy. Meanwhile, the Captain and the Leewit find themselves in the middle of their own desperate situation in the Chaladoor.

      Whoever it was who said that a change was as good as a vacation never met any of the Witches of Karres—nor experienced their amazing talent for getting Captain Pausert into trouble.

...

The most popular alternate history series of all continues. When an inexplicable cosmic disturbance hurls your town from twentieth century West Virginia back to seventeenth century Europe—and into the middle of the Thirty Years War—you'd better be adaptable to survive. And the natives of that time period, faced with American technology and politics, need to be equally adaptable. Here’s a generous helping of more stories of Grantville, the American town lost in time, and its impact on the people and societies of a tumultuous age.

·         Cardinal Richelieu, France’s insidious master plotter and power behind the throne, learns of his prominent role in Dumas’ not-yet-written novel The Three Musketeers (not to mention the several movie versions), and starts a search for the “real” D’Artagnan.

·         Grantville is selling crystal radio sets so that Europeans can tune in to the Voice of America broadcasts, but the technicians from the future are at wit’s end, trying to reproduce “primitive” early twentieth century broadcasting equipment by trial and error—until a trained library researcher shows up in town.

·         Wilhelm Krieger, one of Germany’s greatest philosophers, comes to Grantville to learn the philosophy of the future—and meets a contrarian cracker-barrel philosopher.

·         The Dalai Lama of the seventeenth century receives a strange gift: an image of the Buddha which glows by a strange mystical force called “electricity.”

   And much more, including stories by the New York Times best-selling writers Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce, in the latest installment of this best-selling alternate history series.

...

A mysterious cosmic force—the “Ring of Fire”—has hurled the town of Grantville from 20th century West Virginia back to 17th century Europe, and into the heart of the Thirty Years War. With their seemingly magical technology, and their radical ideas of freedom and justice, the time-lost West Virginians have allied with Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, to form the Confederated Principalities of Europe, changing the course of history—in ways both small and large. The saga begun in 1632 continues with all-new stories by New York Times best-selling authors Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis, plus Dave Freer, K. D. Wentworth, and other top writers, as the time-lost Americans attempt an underwater salvage operation to raise the sunken Swedish flagship, the uprising known as the Ram Rebellion continues, Cardinal Richelieu plots to destroy Grantville and its allies, an American prisoner of war carries on a dangerous romance with the Danish King’s daughter, and more in a volume that no fan of the Ring of Fire series will want to be without.

...

Rome, 1635, and Grantville's diplomatic team, headed by Sharon Nichols, are making scant headway now it has become politically inexpedient for Pope Urban VIII to talk to them any more. Sharon doesn't mind, she has a wedding to plan. Frank Stone has moved to Rome and is attempting to bring about the revolution one pizza at a time. Cardinal Borja is gathering votes to bring the Church's reformers to a halt in their tracks, on the orders of the King of Spain. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in the streets, shadowy agitators are stirring up trouble and Spain's armies are massed across the border in the Kingdom of Naples, Cardinal Barberini wants the pamphleteers to stop slandering him and it looks like it's going to be a long, hot summer. Except that Cardinal Borja has more ambitions than his masters in Madrid know about, and has the assistance of Spain's most notorious secret agent to bring about his sinister designs....

The intrepid team of mentally uplifted rats and bats, and their vat-born human leader had not only pulled off the only victory the beleaguered colony's feeble military forces had won against the invading aliens, but had also uncovered the secret that the invaders were really a feint, being under the control of the other aliens which the naive humans had thought were their allies. Unfortunately, that was the easy part, because now they had to convince their boneheaded military bureaucracy (burdened with incompetents and riddled with quisling humans) of their discovery, and keep from being court-martialed, drugged into submission, or executed by the human traitors. And they had to do this quickly, before the aliens launched their surprise attack. Fortunately, they had found a way around the alien's mental programming. What's more, the daring and resourceful Fluff, apparently the ineffectual pet of one of the colony's ruling class, was on their side. Only Fluff can save us now. . . ....

The Malwa and their evil have been driven back to their Indian heartland, but there they coil to strike again. Ruled by a monster from the future which is part computer and part demon, they prepare a fresh attack whose success will leave them rulers of the world—and the monster that guides the Malwa will rule the whole future! Belisarius, the greatest general of his age, has arrayed the forces of Mankind against the Malwa evil. On his breast is the jewel sent to his support from a future of hope and freedom, willing to guide him but never to direct his actions. Behind him are allies from across Europe, Asia and Africa--mutually distrustful but aware that neither they nor Mankind have any hope if the Malwa prevail. Belisarius faces armies and assassins, ruthless brutality and inhuman cruelty. There is no hope for Mankind if he fails—so he must not fail!

...

  The Pyramid is baacckk! Well, actually, it never went away—but it had seemed to be inactive, still sitting in the middle of Chicago but no longer growing and wiping out buildings as it grew. The Krin device would have been thwarted, if things had been left as they were—but a V.I.P., who knows too many state secrets to be allowed to be missing, was left behind in the world of Greek mythology. So a power-mad Washington bureaucrat has press-ganged several of the survivors of the first excursion into the pyramid’s worlds and sent them, along with a team trained in “surgical strikes,” to either bring back the V.I.P. or, if that’s impossible, terminate him with extreme prejudice.

     Unfortunately, instead of returning to mythological Greece, they find themselves in the world of the Norse gods. Even if they manage to survive the enmity of Odin and his warriors, can manage to free Loki (a potential ally) and can keep the hard-drinking thunder-god Thor off the sauce long enough to help them, Ragnarok is coming, with the end of the world. And even a hard-headed maintenance man with his trusty toolkit may have trouble fixing that problem!

...

The battle between democracy and tyranny is joined, and the American Revolution has begun over a century ahead of schedule. A cosmic accident has shifted a modern West Virginia town back through time and space to land it and its twentieth century technology in Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. History must take a new course as American freedom and democracy battle against the squabbling despots of seventeenth-century Europe. Continuing the story begun in the hit novels 1632 and 1633, the New York Times best-selling creator of Honor Harrington, David Weber, the best-selling fantasy star Mercedes Lackey, best-selling SF and fantasy author Jane Lindskold, space adventure author K. D. Wentworth, Dave Freer, co-author of the hit novels Rats, Bats & Vats and Pyramid Scheme (both Baen), and Eric Flint himself combine their considerable talents in a shared-universe volume that will be a "must-have" for every reader of 1632 and 1633....

Continuing the popular Belisarius saga, with two full-length novels in one volume.

 

Destiny’s Shield: Evil from beyond time: The Malwa Empire squats like a toad across sixth century India, commanded by ruthless men with depraved appetites. But the thing from the distant future that commands them is far worse. Those who oppose the purulent Hell the Malwa will make of Earth have sent a crystal, Aide, to halt their advance. Aide holds all human knowledge—but cannot act by himself. That requires Count Belisarius, the greatest general fo the age and perhaps of all ages, who must outwit the evil empire—and then, when there is no longer room to maneuver, to meet it sword-edge to sword-edge, lest evil beyond human conception rules the world forever.

 

Fortune’s Stroke: Link, the supercomputer from a future that should not, must not exist has used terror and gunpowder weapons to forge the Malwa Empire on the Indian subcontinent. Aide and Belisarius have led the armies of Byzantium and blunted the first assault of the Malwa hordes. Now he and his allies from all the world face overwhelming numbers in a ring that tightens about them. The armies of Good and Evil gathered on the fertile plains of Mesopotamia will decide the fate of the world—and the fate of all the future.

...

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.

The CPE has the know-how of 20th century technology, but needs iron and steel to make the machines. The iron mines of the upper Palatinate were rendered inoperable by wartime damage, and American know-how is needed on the spot to pump them out and get the metal flowing again—a mission that will prove more complicated than anyone expects. In the maelstrom that is Europe, even a 20th century copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica can precipitate a crisis, when readers learn of the 1640 Portuguese revolt, a crisis that will involve Naples as well. Another factor: Albanian exiles in Naples, inspired by the Americans, are plotting to recover lost Albanian turf, which will precipitate yet another crisis in the Balkans.

This troubled century was full of revolutions and plans for more revolutions before the Americans arrived, and gave every would-be revolutionary an example of a revolution that succeeded. Europe is a pot coming to a boil, and Mike Stearns will have his hands full seeing that it doesn't boil over on to Grantville and the CPE.

...