Monday, September 19, 2005

Books: 1632.

Just finished my (third? fourth?) re-read of 1632 by Eric Flint. A fun read, even if Mr. Flint is a yellow-dog collectivist at heart. ;-)

One thing that always disturbs me about the book: Grantville is supposedly a middlin'-small hick town in rural West-by-God-Virginia. Don't these people have any guns? A population of 3,000, and not one decent NFA collection in town? No collectors of C&R military rifles? Not one Burt Gummer-style survivalist with a basement full of cases of Hirtenberger? Come on... Willing suspension of disbelief is one thing, but I'm always thinking "If I could just get two or three more households snagged up in the plotline..."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yep, and it's not just guns, either. Go watch an older horror movie and ask yourself "would any of this have been life-threatening if they had a cell phone to summon help?"

I watched the original and re-made Assault on Precinct 13 back-to-back. In the original they had an easy explanation for the lack of communications: bad guys had cut the phone lines. In the remake not only did the bad guys have to cut the phone lines, they had to jam their cell phones, too.

- Les

Tam said...

Oh, don't get me wrong; the Grantwegians had "guns", but they were all deer rifles, handguns (mostly police Glocks are mentioned) and shotguns. Other than the illegal Vietnam-bringback M60, that's all that's mentioned.

I mentioned C&R collectors because I have enough Mausers/Mosins/Arisakas/Springfields and other old crank-cocking warhorses to equip an infantry platoon, with plenty of ammunition for them, and I'm a piker when it comes to serious C&R collecting...

Anonymous said...

Actually, in one of the sequels they do have a Curio & Relics collector come forth. It may have been the Grantville Gazette.

FWIW.

Anonymous said...

Do a search for "The Grantville Gazette." That's the on-line official newsletter for the 1632 universe. It contains articles about the series and fiction written by fans (all of which has been carefully selected and edited. It's not "fanfic.")

There's one story named "Curio and Relic" available in the free reading section that features a collector. It's a great read.

There's also a paperwork collection of stories from the Gazette available, but I don't know if that story is in the collection.

Anonymous said...

Do a search on Baens bar. The author has established an online community of fans who contribute to the series, ideas and in some cases, stories. That's where most of the Grantville Gazette stuff comes from.