Forum: Lost Stories

Eric Flint had one.

"How many 1632 books are there?
The 1632 series began with Flint's stand alone novel 1632 (released in February 1, 2000) and currently includes twenty-six works of all kinds including e-published only works (e-books), of which twelve are standard trade printed books that are the printed, canonical Grantville Gazettes."

not just one

The 1632 books aren't prehistoric. They're set in 17th century Europe, which has already seen many generations of historians.

I believe the liamb meant "Time spike"

By that time, Francis Bacon had formulated the modern version of scientific method and the Catholic Church were throwing the book at Galileo.

One of the books in the 1632-series is "1634: The Galileo Affair", co-written by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis, where the Uptimers change the outcome.

HM.

1632 is not "prehistoric" there are houses within 100 miles of me now that are almost that old (1641). As upper said (thanks I was heading to work and had no time to look it up) Eric Flint had one in the Time Spike subsection of the Assiti Shards series - Time Spike written with Marilyn Kosmatka. There are two other novels and a couple of shorts.

limab

There are two other novels and a couple of shorts.

There's also a "lost" or incomplete text. As of 2007, Flint mentioned that his collaborators (Sarah Hoyt) for a novel titled By Any Other Name had turned in their first drafts and he was set to write his portion. Publication was expected late 2008 or early 2009. That interview is that last anyone ever heard of that novel.

Entirely possible, I have not participated in Baen for several years. I did meet him (Flint) at a convention in 2008(?). I haven't read any of 1632 published since about 2010. Sarah Hoyt is still around, she may be able/willing to tell what happened.

There are two other novels

Do you mean The Alexander Inheritance and The Macedonian Hazard? The story of the Queen of the Sea, a cruise ship in the Caribbean transferred into the Mediterranean and two years after the death of Alexander.

This tale of the Assiti Shards is still not "prehistoric".

HM.

No, the Time Spike branch. They were sent back to the Time Of The Dinosaurs(tm) I do not know which period. That should qualify as "prehistoric". The isfdb page is here. The wiki article is here.

Seems all books published by the Ring of Fire Press are no longer available:

On August 16, 2022, Lucille Robbins, the widow of Eric Flint, officially announced the immediate shutdown of both The Grantville Gazette and the Ring of Fire Press. Without a huge infusion of new cash, it was determined that both business ventures would not be economically viable without Flint's participation. As a result, all titles are now out-of-print; ebook distribution had ceased, and the limited pre-existing stock of new paper editions at authorized retailers will disappear soon.

Back then, in the early days of the Ring of Fire Press I had (three times I think) looked into the then available editions and was disappointed that the 3 or 4 titles I was interested in were not available in EPUB format.
I had now read the above linked Wikipedia entry and seen there were more books I might have looked into.
Too late, gone.

HM.

Does anyone know how many of those books have been made available on the CDs Baen used to put in the back of their hardcovers? Those are all still available online last I checked. I gave up on the 1632 series when it sprouted too many storylines, but it might be worth grabbing as much as possible in case I want to read them at some point. My library also has quite a few of them, but most likely not all. I'm not sure all of them were ever published physically.

Does anyone know how many of those books have been made available on the CDs Baen used to put in the back of their hardcovers? Those are all still available online last I checked

Ahh, none at all.

The Ring Of Fire Press is/was a publishing spin-off from Baen, created by Eric Flint. It took over the electronic publishing of the Grantville Gazette and started publishing some serials and some just thematic related stories originally published in the Gazette. Those were first only slightly reworked compilations, later came expanded versions with added new content.

The very first of the compiled serials were published by Baen, then a few by the Ring Of Fire Press and sold by Baen finally came the separation and the books were no longer shown on Baen's site.
E.g. the ROFP published a spin-off novel in the setting of the Alexander Inheritance titled The Sicilian Coil (2021) with minor characters from the passengers of the "Queen of the Seas".
This book will not show up in a search of Baen's site, however it is still listed as available by Amazon, despite the shutdown of its publisher.

I didn't check out other of the ROFP books and don't know how long Amazon will sell Kindle versions of those books.
Technically there should be no limit to distribute copies of the e-books, only legally and from the accounting side (whom to send the money when the publisher no longer exits?).

HM.

Technically there should be no limit to distribute copies

I think you mean technologically, not technically.

Technically means "according to the exact or strict meaning". So since the stories are protected by copyright, you are technically not allowed to distribute them, even though there is no technological reason stopping you from doing so.

I don't know the specifics of this case, but a press no longer existing is often the worst case for copyright. It means that no one can free or transfer the copyright to someone else. Hopefully Flint's heirs inherited the rights or the publishing contracts were short enough that the original authors will regain rights quickly. If not, this will be a mess.

There have been cases of comic book characters that have been tied up in legal knots for decades due to companies or authors dying.

Household Gods (1999) by Harry Turtledove and Judith Tarr is also quite good. A young woman struggling with modern life finds herself in the body of an ancestor in the 2nd century and learns just how tough life was in the past.

I liked it too.

Lonny

Household Gods

Yeah, I bought it after reading Turtledove's Worldwar series and I was not prepared for Household Gods, but at least it introduced me to Judith Tarr which led me to read The Hound and the Falcon. Amazing series.

I read The Alexander Inheritance and didn't think much of it,so of course, I didn't buy the sequel.

I'm quite certain I bought it, but a search for it on my computer and some external drives came up empty. Of the sequel I may have only read the free sample chapters from Baen's site.

HM.