This is another saga from the 1632/Ring of Fire or Assiti Shards series. If you are a fan of Flint's series you willl enjoy this; if you are not already a fan, I'd suggest you start with another tale, preferaby the 1632 book itself.

The reason for the hesitant recommendation is that this volume in the alternate history brings the American time-switched moderns directly up against the Hapsburgs. Even if you're somewhat familiar with that set of dynasties, there is a long (several hundred pages) narrative that only introduces the characters and the geography/politics of the setting. You must slog through this rambling and disconnected set of pieces before getting to the real plot. Once you reach that point, this is a fairly good story. But only a true fan is likely to make it through the first 200 pages. ( )

Most of the books in this series are hard to get into, and that is both because there seems to be a cast of thousands over many different countries (not all of which are familiar), and the books are not written by the same authors. Other than the short story books, none of the stories (books) can be definitely linked to any sole author other than Eric Flint. The hope every time I crack open a book in this series, is that Flint actually was involved, and that the book has a similar enough "feel" to the prior works. That is very hard to do when you have many different co-authors, and many different characters. Really doesn't help if the book opens up before prior books. And then you notice that they are referring to events that might happen that have already occurred in previous books (this is a 1634 book, there already is a 1635 book).

With all that said, this specific book in the series finally picked up after many unknown number of pages and actually became rather enjoyable. Hard to put down even. Even so, I did end up reading another book at the very beginning as the early stages of this book were frustrating to get through. ( )

Sample Chapters: http://webscriptions.net/chapters/141...

Continuation of the timeslip saga that has a 21st century West Virginia coal mining town slap bang in the middle of Thirty Years' War Germany.