A return to the origins of the series in many ways.

One disappointing thing: I can figure out how to defeat slow balloons. Incendiaries on the gas bag. Even if it doesn't go boom it can still make quite a hole, which is generally bad for balloons. Think Molotov. ( )

Wow, try to keep up. Gretchen is becoming a force to be reckoned with. The Ottomans have a flea in their ear now. Mike Stearns might become a great military leader yet. And attrition is wearing down the number of original arrivals. ( )

This outstanding series continues with a splendid new addition. New foes bring new challenges and many opportunities for Flint to recast the 17th Century. Here come the Turks, they are really mostly Albanian Muslims, with new weapons, large armies and an innovative, energetic, young Sultan, Murad IV. Almost everyone; the Barbies, Jooli the rifle person, with 2 Polish Hussars added to the mix, is involved as the USE undertakes electoral challenges and readies to defend its western lands. Several personal, mixing up and down timers, liaisons are formed and/or consummated. Class and religious bans and boundaries are ignored or overruled as democratic principles infiltrate all aspects of the early 1600s ( )

The ongoing Ring of Fire saga continues with the Ottoman invasion of Vienna, almost 50 years early. Uptimer history books show that the Ottomans were defeated when they invaded in 1683, so no one is worried. But Sultan Murad has a huge army and several new technologies that no one saw coming. And there are also wars and unrest going on in Poland, Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia.

By now there are a lot of continuing characters to carry various parts of the story. Flint handles them ably, both his originals and the ones invented by other writers in the series. The military action is well-done. Altogether, a solid entry in the ongoing series, as one would expect from Flint.

Recommended for fans of military fiction, historical fiction, and alternate history. ( )