1634: The Galileo Affair

As Eric Flint notes in the introduction to this "novel," "1634: The Ram Rebellion" is a bit of an odd-ball volume. It is essentially a collection of short stories and short pieces that function like a crowd-written novel. It is an exemplar of books that look at the events of the mainline novels of "The Ring of Fire" but from a lower-order perspective. One character in an earlier volume offhandedly mentioned the "trouble in Franconia." This volume gives us an insight into that trouble. What makes the volume strong is that it is shows many of the complexities and nuances of 17th century Germany and how those delicate balances will become upended with the flooding of American ideas. Part 1 (Recipes for Revolution) looks at one Granville farmer's attempt to purchase land outside the Ring of Fire, showing the complicated land ownership system in the area. Part 2 (Enter the Ram) is my favorite. It centers around Flo Jenkins and her relationship with Brillo, a stubborn German ram who becomes the first mass culture folk hero of the New United States. I found myself laughing aloud while reading about Brillo's adventures. I especially liked "A Night at the Ballet" which follows an uptime ballet teacher who introduces modern ballet (including en pointe) to an eager seventeenth century audience. Part 3 (The Trouble in Franconia) looks at uptime attempts to create a civil administration in Franconia, a territory given to the New United States by King Gustav Adolf at the end of 1633. Part 4 (The Ram Rebellion) is probably the weakest of the four sections but mostly because shows the Rebellion primarily from the perspective of the up-timers. I think it would have been stronger if we had had more interior perspectives from those actually leading the revolution.

Originally posted at Forest Azuaron.

The most important thing to know about The Ram Rebellion is that it isn't a novel, but a series of short stories on the same topic (The Ram Rebellion) that culminate into a novella, and these shorts are not written by the same authors. The result is that the story quality is incredibly uneven; some are quite good, and some are quite bad.

The second most important thing to know is that the rebellion doesn't actually occur until half-way through the ending novella; or, to put it another way, 600 pages into a 700 page mass market paperback.

To be perfectly upfront, I'm not a short story guy. If they're good, then I would have liked to spend more time with them. If they're bad, well, then they're bad. Which makes my interest in the Ring of Fire series unfortunate, since they are more short stories far outnumber the novels--I've lost count of Grantville Gazettes and Ring of Fire anthologies that have been published. Then, to open up what I expected to be a novel and find short stories instead...

Now that I've exposed my own biases, let's move on to actually reviewing the book. It's divided into four parts (three sets of shorts, followed by the novella), so I'll divide my review accordingly.

Part One: Recipes for Revolution

There's two stories of note in this part: Birdie's Farm and Birdie's Village, both by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett. The other three (all by Eric Flint) are connective tissue that tie the stories into the larger context of Grantville and the Ram Rebellion. The Birdie stories are pretty good, and provide important context for the rebellion, assuming you're interested in 17th century property ownership, tenantship, and legal minutia, which I am, but I assume I'm in the minority on that.

Part Two: Enter the Ram

The first three stories, all by some combination of Paula Goodlett, Virginia DeMarce, Stanley Leghorn, Rick Boatright, Kerryn Offord, and Laura Runkle, deal with the eponymous ram, which at this stage of the story is a literal ram. While I understand where they ultimately went with it, and the symbology that grew out of the ram, the stories about the ram are a dull slog.

The fourth and final story (A Night at the Ballet by Kerryn Offord) might be interesting to ballet aficionados, particularly if they like reading stories written from a first-person perspective that's devoid of all character. All in all, I wish I'd skipped part 2; I don't think I'd have missed anything.

Part Three: The Trouble in Franconia

Finally, we get to the region where a rebellion will occur. There's a lot less cohesion across stories than there is in Parts 1 and 2, but not to the detriment of the whole. If I were to read this book again, I'd probably just read parts 3 and 4, and be happier for it, since this is where we finally get to the root causes and reactions for and against the rebellion. In particular, The Suhl Incident by Eric Flint and John Zeek is probably the best story in the book, a smart combination of political maneuvering and hard action.

Part Four: The Ram Rebellion

Finally, we get to the rebellion! Apparently. Wait, when's this rebellion start? Apparently not for another hundred pages. A few things become clear upon reading part four.

First, that the novella was written independently of the rest of the stories; it stands complete, and can, therefore, be read independently of the rest without losing much.

Second, since it's independent and comes at the "end" of the book, none of the rest of the stories can actually be about the rebellion, but must remain as part of the build-up to the rebellion. This is, quite simply, poor story structure. For quite obvious reasons, the build-up of a story usually shouldn't take more than the first third. If it takes longer, it not only drags on beyond the reader's interest, but forces the compression of the action and pay off, thus reducing their impact.

Third, since it stands complete, the first half is dedicated to, you guessed it, more build-up. Which, if you're reading just The Ram Rebellion, is probably a good thing. But if you've just read the previous 500 pages only to come to the end and get even more build-up...

Overall

I can't recommend The Ram Rebellion. Several of the stories are just plain bad, and even the good ones are stuck amidst a disappointing overall arc.