The other sequel is a collaboration between Virginia DeMarce and me entitled 1634: The Bavarian Crisis. Virginia’s already finished the first draft of this novel. In fact, I’ve been snippeting it lately in Baen’s Bar. But we can’t do anything further with it until Dave and I write The Baltic War, since some of the action in The Bavarian Crisis will be predicated on that.
Finally, I have a contract to do what amounts to a sequel to my short novel “The Wallenstein Gambit” (which appeared in Ring of Fire). The title of it is 1635: The King of Bohemia, and I’m co-authoring it with Mike Spehar.
So far as solo novels by other contributors to the series is concerned, the problem there is a marketing one. There are already two story lines developed by other authors for the online magazine The Grantville Gazette – one by David Carrico and one by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett – that would be easy to turn into good novels. The problem becomes, how do you market them? The simplest way to do it would be to add my name as a co-author, but I won’t do that because my contribution to these stories has been entirely that of an editor, not a writer. That crosses a line I consider illegitimate. (Yes, I know it’s been done in the history of SF, and plenty of times. But not by me, and I don’t intend to start now. Any book that lists me as a co-author is a book that has a lot of input from me as a writer.)
But if you try to market the books under the authors’ names, that poses the problem of trying to sell books by new authors which are in someone else’s setting – i.e., have all the disadvantages of any first novel and none of the advantages. At the moment, the only feasible way I can think of doing it would be to use a formula that kept my name – presumably combined with the 1632 series as a “brand” – but didn’t list me as one of the authors. Something like “Eric Flint presents a 1632 novel.” Essentially, you’d be marketing it as a 1632 book and distributors and bookstores would order and shelve it accordingly.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Great interview. I've already got my copy of Rivers of War on order. Flint is really doing some interesting and creative stuff, especially in the alternate history genre.
Dave
2 - Victor Plenty
Flint's gotta be good to get Dave and me agreeing, especially on any subject remotely related to politics or economics.
In recent months I've been reading everything by Flint I can legally read without having any money to spend, ever since I happened across 1632.
So definitely count me as another who's glad to see this interview here.
3 - SFC SKI
Baen.com has a lot of free books, including a few by Eric Flint. IIRC, he is the overseer of the site.
4 - Dave Nalle
They also do some cool things, like putting books on CD in the backs of other books. Usually something I've already read, but still interesting to see.
Dave
5 - theco
Eric can be found running rampant on the Baen message boards over at www.bar.baen.com:8080 although tRoW is a Del-Rey piece, Glad y'all enjoyed. Something else that he did with Dave Freer that is gut busting hilarious is "Pyramaid Scheme".
6 - Victor Plenty
Yes, Pyramid Scheme is excellent. Funny-hilarious, with a good cast of vivid sympathetic characters, roller-coaster action and battle scenes, and marvelous use of history and mythology. I especially loved their surprising but well-justified portrayal of Odysseus and his men.
Plus, peeking out from under all that entertainment, some profound political and philosophical messages aptly suited to the questions of our day. The authors don't belabor their points, but they're there for any readers who enjoy finding a more substantial meal tucked into all the popcorn.
7 - flintfan
trail-of-glory.com has the rivers of war snippets s-s-m-w-f
8 - Theco
I'll be working on a few more interviews this summer, and probably another one with Eric, the man simply knows to much for me not to want to pump his brain. My blog has a couple names listed, and i'll also be starting blogspectrum.blogspot.com back up next week.