This is my least favorite of The Ring of Fire books so far. It has almost no surprises, the characters are totally uninteresting, and the ending doesn't really tie up any of the loose ends created in the rest of the novel. On top of that, the book dwells heavily on the personal lives of those uninteresting characters. We get to see what their entire families are like and how they got to be the way they are, but I had no interest in knowing anything about them. I didn't care about what was about to happen to them, let alone, what had happened to the rest of their families 20 or more years ago. This is most pronounced with Missy's story, which is primarily composed of telling us how generations of the women in her family didn't feel like using birth control. She is the most egregious example of excessive back story, but I was never convinced that I should really care about anyone in the book except maybe Denise.

The last chapter or two of the book are interesting in that they start to get into what happens after Mike Stearns loses the election, but that is one of the very few reasons you might want to pick up this book. ( )

Another in Flint et al's Ring of Fire series. This one is set largely in Grantville itself. Despite the date in the title, the first half takes place in 1634, not 1635. There are a lot of characters; keeping track of who is related to whom and how was occasionally difficult, but it mattered. It's political rather than military. Otherwise, it's pretty typical. If you like the rest of the series, you'll like this one. If you haven't read the rest, for G-d's sake don't start here. ( )

Interesting take on the social and political mores of the time. Sometimes a tedious slog but worth it. Names keep popping up that are not in the geneology charts or the appendix. Some very interesting characters introduced that hopefully will be in future works. Wiping out the antiis, semitic and witches, was clearly a simpler task in those days. ( )

Another in Flint et al's Ring of Fire series. This one is set largely in Grantville itself. Despite the date in the title, the first half takes place in 1634, not 1635. There are a lot of characters; keeping track of who is related to whom and how was occasionally difficult, but it mattered. It's political rather than military. Otherwise, it's pretty typical. If you like the rest of the series, you'll like this one. If you haven't read the rest, for G-d's sake don't start here. ( )