To paraphrase Salieri in Amadeus, too many names, Virginia. Sorting the sects from the religions was difficult enough to make the book rather ponderous. But matching the names with their various apostasies, variations on a theme as well as who was related to whom was over the top. Localization should be used as a spice; by the pinch rather than by the shovelful. Interesting characters, some of which we lose later and enough of a storyline for a novella rather than a book ( )

Amazon preorder

I don't know how this book came into being. In 1634: The Ram Rebellion, Flint tells us that he decided to create a sort of anthology-novel by taking related stories written for the Grantville Gazette and filling in the gaps with short stories and a novella. Perhaps these four stories were also intended for the GG. In effect, they form two novellas: stories 1 & 4 making up one, and 2 & 3 making up the other. "Mail Stop" and "The Happy Wanderer," stories 2 & 3 deal chiefly with the adventures of Martin Wackernagel, a private messenger who loves his work riding the Imperial Road (Die Reichstraße), although of course many other subplots are going on at the same time. It doesn't advance the overall story, but I found it very amusing and vivid and enjoyed it as a slice of life. Martin is a sort of charming rogue, who is hoping that his little games won't be revealed until after he's dead and can't hear the recriminations. It is a slightly guilty pleasure, since as his sister observes, Martin's charm lets him get away with entirely too much. I'm not sure why the two pieces were not written together as a novella. The decision to split 1 & 4 is rather odd. I can understand that the ending of 4 makes a good ending for the book as a whole, but I don't think that story 1 needed to be the beginning, or why, for that matter, the two weren't adapted slightly to form one novella. I thought that the ending to 1 "Prince and Abbot" was a bit flat. The Abbot and deposed Prince Johann Bernhard Schenk von Schweinsberg and a number of New United States administrators are kidnapped, but the abductors seem to lose interest in the latter, and their kidnapping apparently only serves the purpose of advancing a romantic subplot. I think it would have been better to straight into story 4, "Window of Opportunity," which picks up the hunt for the kidnappers, introduces Agatha, who will join the Committees of Correspondence as a semi-legendary figure, and sets up the struggle over the future of another German principality.

It is often the case that a thing's strengths are also its weaknesses. As Eric Flint says in his afterword to 1635: The Tangled Web, in this series he and his co-authors attempt "to portray as far as possible the chaos and complexity of real history. Fictional narrative has its own imperatives, and two of them produce a view of history which is radically false." The result is that the books are often like reading a combination of fiction and non-fiction. This makes for a superabundance of characters, a choppy hopping from one place and time to another, a lot of details, and books that overlap. It is somewhat disorienting to be reading about the marriage of a couple who were celebrating the birth of their first child in a previous book, and to have a deceased character alive again, and revisit events from another point of view. The last is of course a help to keeping track of what is going on. But then again, that's a large part of what is so fascinating about this series. I gather that many readers found that this went a little too far in this book. I understand how they feel, and their criticisms are valid, but I am willing to put up with these problems for the sake of complexity, and for events that don't advance the course of history, but give a more vivid sense of the time and place. I have accepted that I am going to have to reread the series thus far, and hopefully I will retain more detail, but that said, perhaps the authors could work a little harder to make the writing clearer to the reader. As an example, at one point a character refers to Mrs. Mailey, with the author assuming that of course the reader will remember Melissa Mailey, the former tough school teacher who has become an advisor to Mike Stearns and leader of the Fourth of July party. As it happens, I did remember her, but it wouldn't have hurt, especially since the speaker was talking to a German who presumably didn't know her, to mention that she was his teacher in high school, etc. The character lists that appear in some books, but not this one, are some help. ( )

A good selection of two short stories in the 1632 universe. an ok addition to the series. ( )

Another addition to the "Ring of Fire/1632" series of books that was first started by Eric Flint. With "1635: The Tangled Web", former RIng of Fire co-author, Virginia DeMarche, takes the pilot's seat in her first outright solo novel.

Sadly, her writing talents have not seemed to have improved much since her beginnings with "1634: The Ram Rebellion." As usual, books with her participation suffer from a severe lack of coherent plot or story. For the most part, the reader is thrown random characters and events in piecemeal fashion without any idea as to what the overall trajectory is. Basically, DeMarche is not as much as an author as really a chronicler of events. The fact that each scene or act begins with the time and place reinforces that belief.

Although it's not terrible per se, it's just not really something people would be able to just read to enjoy. Unless if they're very intimate with all the characters and events of the entire series, readers will end up struggling to figure out who these names are and why they matter.

What was equally disappointing was the fact of how misleading the cover was. It gives the impression that somewhere in the book, there'd be some minor plot in the book about downtimers viewing uptime items and events in an "Uptime Museum." For someone who's interested in meeting of cultures and the exchange of ideas, the fact that this scene did not occur, but was just something mentioned in passing was frustrating, to say the least.

Perhaps, the only interesting part of this entire book would probably be the two middle stories involving the character of Martin Wackernagel. It probably has to do with the fact that, in this case, the stories did have a singular protagonist with a loosely defined plot of sorts.

Overall, it's probably for the better to see if you can find one of the brief synopsizes that are littered throughout the user reviews in Amazon, than attempt to read this book. ( )