Flag in Exile

Hounded into retirement and disgrace by political enemies, cut to the heart by the murder of the man she loved, and bereft of confidence in herself and her abilities, Captain Honor Harrington has retreated to the planet Grayson to take up her role as Steadholder while she tries to heal her bitter wounds.

But the People's Republic of Haven is rising from defeat to threaten Grayson anew, and the newborn Grayson Navy needs her experience desperately. It's a call Honor cannot refuse, yet even as she once more accepts the duty whose challenges she fears she can no longer meet, powerful men who hate and fear the changes she's brought to their world are determined to reverse them. They have a plan ... and for it to succeed Honor Harrington must die.

Two irresistible forces are rushing together to crush Grayson between them, and only one woman uncertain of her capabilities, weary unto death, and marked for murder-stands between her adopted planet and its devastation.

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Anti-grav Unlimited

Phil Hunter has just discovered the invention of the age--working antigravity--when he's laid off from his job, the entire department shut down. Phil decides this is what he's been waiting for--a chance to become fabulously wealthy with his own company, Anti-Gravity Unlimited. With anti-gravity, not only is space flight a cheap possibility, perpetual motion is also possible. With a couple of anti-gravity rods, it's easy to hook up a generator and create unlimited electrical current. All of mankind's environmental problems are solved--as are any issues with poverty. Phil sees a new utopia--until his house is blown up and all of his former co-workers are listed as killed in the paper.

On the run, Phil heads for his best friend's house, only to discover that his best friend has abandoned his long-time girlfriend (and clone)--where a hitman disguised as a bag lady tries to gun both of them down. Together, Phil and Nikki try to figure out how to stay alive for long enough to mass produce enough anti-gravity rods to allow him to start his business. Still, where on earth can they hide if the entire world corporate government is after them?

Author Duncan Long creates an intriguing dystopic future where corporations have taken over the government and are gradually replacing workers with robots, forcing the masses into poverty. Long adds charm to the story by having Phil accept this world in a matter-of-fact way. Sure everyone goes armed and expects to run into ambushes if they travel the interstates. Sure, armored bag-lady hitmen are going to be out there. Long keeps his writing and his narrative simple. ANTI-GRAV UNLIMITED wasn't (I don't think) targetted as a young adult novel, but it could have been.

I kept expecting to see some big reversal, a black moment, but things seemed pretty easy for Phil and Nikki. Because Phil made a big deal about his best friend (the one who'd cloned Nikki), I anticipated that Craig would play an important role--as an antagonist. Instead, the primary antagonist didn't seem especially frightening.

Unlike some other dystopic novels written during this period, ANTI-GRAV UNLIMITED doesn't really push the envelope and make us question society's directions. It's simply a nice old-fashioned story about one guy trying to get rich and get the girl in the face of overwhelming odds. Nothing wrong with that--I enjoyed it.

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Forward the Mage

The youthful artist-swordsman Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini arrived in the city of Goimr just in time for disaster to strike. The evil sorcerer Zulkeh had driven the King of the realm insane, then fled from the city!

So much for Benvenuti's plans to become the Royal Artist ....

Injury was added to insult when Benvenuti was immediately arrested by the Secret Police. Then, after barely managing to escape the clutches of the authorities, he found himself embroiled with a revolutionary agitator and a gigantic madman.

Things were not as they seemed. The wizard Zulkeh and his apprentice Shelyid were, in fact, guiltless. Zulkeh had been summoned to interpret the King of Goimr's mysterious dream, which the sorcerer came to realize foretold an impending catastrophe for civilization. Zulkeh and Shelyid had actually left Goimr to discover the really important implications of the dream, beyond the trifle of the dynasty's destruction.

Much to the artist's dismay, his adventures and those of the sorcerer were hopelessly intertwined. Soon, Benvenuti and his two companions were off in pursuit of Zulkeh, trying to save the entire sub-continent of Grotum from conquest by the Ozarean Empire. Benvenuti was swept up in a whirlwind of revolutionary plotting and perilous wizardry as he traveled across the vast sub-continent. The only certainty was that he was on a quest the end of which he could not possibly fathom, accompanying a female revolutionary whose beauty was only outdone by her ferocity.

It didn't help that he'd fallen in love with her, especially since her brother's help would be vital to the success of their enterprise. Gwendolyn's brother Greyboar was the world's greatest professional strangler. And they didn't call him the Thumbs of Eternity for nothing ....

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Grantville Gazette

Ed Piazza, the Secretary of State of the small United States being forged in war-torn Germany during the Thirty Years War, has a problem on his hands. A religious conference has been called in nearby Rudolstadt which will determine doctrine for all the Lutherans in the nation. The hard-fought principle of religious freedom is at stake, threatened alike by intransigent theologians and students rioting in the streets.

As if that weren’t bad enough:

• the up-time American Lutherans are themselves divided;
• a rambunctious old folk singer is cheerfully pouring gasoline on the flames;
• and a Calvinist “facilitator” from Geneva is maneuvering to get the U.S. involved with the developing revolutionary movement in Naples.

Virginia DeMarce’s “The Rudolstadt Colloquy” is just one of the stories in the Grantville Gazette. In others:

In Loren Jones’ “Anna’s Story,” a young German girl whose family was ravaged by mercenaries is taken in by an old American curmudgeon living on borrowed time.

“Curio and Relic,” written by Tom Van Natta, tells a story about Eddie Cantrell before he wins glory and loses a leg at the Battle of Wismar. Eddie learns some lessons in life as well as marksmanship from a Vietnam war tunnel rat who is himself making a difficult transition to the new world created by the Ring of Fire.

In Gorg Huff’s witty “The Sewing Circle,” four American teenagers set themselves the goal of launching a new industry, waging an uphill battle against adult skepticism as well as the intrinsic difficulty of the project itself. Just to make their life more complicated, an ambitious seventeenth-century German blacksmith is angling to marry into their budding commercial empire and take it over lock, stock and barrel.

In addition to these stories, the Grantville Gazette contains factual articles written by some of the people who developed the technical background for the novels 1632 and 1633. And Eric Flint has assembled a collection of portraits of prominent figures of the seventeenth century who figure in the 1632 series, along with a commentary explaining who they were and why they were important.

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Great Kings' War

Calvin Morrison was a pretty good cop in Pennsylvania-until he was scooped up by the cross-time flying saucer and transported to Styphon's House Subsector, a 16th Century equivalent parallel time-line. Here the Indo-Aryan invasions went east across Asia and down the Aleutian Islands into North America, where they have stagnated for thousands of years. Dropped off into the middle of a local dispute, Corporal Calvin Morrison comes face to face with warriors armed with pikes and broadswords, not petty criminals. Lord Kalvan, as the locals call him, transforms the petty Princedom of Hostigos into a fearsome warrior Kingdom by inspired leadership and advanced military knowledge. 

Now, after having created and saved his new nation of Hos-Hostigos from destruction by Styphon's House, a tyrannical theocracy that holds sacred the secret formula for gunpowder, Kalvan, now Great King of Hos-Hostigos, faces his greatest challenge-keeping what he has won. 

The Holy Host of Styphon and the Royal Army of Hos-Harphax, two of the greatest armies in the history of the Five Kingdoms, are on the move and Kalvan will once again have to call upon his knowledge of military history to save his family and friends. This time it's personal!


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Pyramid Scheme

An alien pyramid has appeared on Earth, squatting in the middle of Chicago. It is growing, destroying the city as it does — and nothing seems able to stop it, not even the might of the US military. Somehow, the alien device is snatching people and — for unknown reasons — transporting them into worlds of mythology. Dr Lukacs is one of the victims. Granted, he's an expert on mythology. But myths are not something he'd thought to encounter personally. Or wanted to! Sure, he has a couple of tough paratroopers along with him, as well as a blonde Amazon biologist and a very capable maintenance mechanic. Unfortunately, modern weapons don't work, and the Greek gods are out to kill the heroes.

Well, yes, they've got Medea and Arachne and the Sphinx on their side (both Sphinxes, actually — the Greek version as well as the Egyptian). And at least some of the Egyptian gods seem friendly.

But that can be a very mixed blessing, to say the least. Oh, and whatever you do—don't mention dwarf-tossing.

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Freehold

Sergeant Kendra Pacelli is innocent, but that doesn’t matter to the repressive government pursuing her. Mistakes might be made, but they are never acknowledged, especially when billions of embezzled dollars earned from illegal weapons sales are at stake. But where does one run when all Earth and most settled planets are under the aegis of one government? Answer: The Freehold of Grainne, the only developed system that belongs to neither the UNES nor the Colonial Alliance. There, one may seek asylum and build a new life in a society that doesn’t track its residents’ every move, which is just what Pacelli has done. But now things are about to go royally to hell. Because Earth’s government has found out where she is . . .

A Fast-Paced Novel of an Indomitable Individual Against a Monolithic Tyranny

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