1636: The Kremlin Games (14) (The Ring of Fire) Mass Market Paperback – March 26, 2013

Much is missing from this story.Endless geography lessons about places never visitedHistorical data dumpsMeetings with dozens of people who never actually do anything else in the story but meet.Three page backstories of characters from a different time line.And it all improves the story!I do not know the history or Sheremetev. And I don’t miss it! I know the Patriarch was a prisoner of Poland and his attitudes and that is enough.This was a great read and moved along without miring in meetings. This story never seemed to have one where more than three people spoke and did just fine.Dear Editor of Eric Flint: as a matter of policy, every time he describes a nation not visited, or has a meeting with more than 5 people, he gets a lash of the knout for ever nation/person over that limit.I love the characters. I love the situation. I love (some) of the historical references. I hate the meetings and the history ‘flex’.Get on with it!

This appears to be yet another sidebar thread novel in the continuing 1632 universe, and and sends the Grantville "uptimers" into yet another set of conflicts: this time in Russia.The principal characters are Bernie Zeppi, a young auto mechanic who is drinking himself into oblivion from PTSD arising from the "Battle of the Crapper," Vladimir Gorchacov, a Russian nobleman who is seeking technical knowledge and confirmation of the Ring of Fire, and Vladimir's lovely sister, Natasha.Bernie accepts a position as an adviser and sets off to Russia, where to his surprise, he finds a purpose in life. Along the way, he manages to bring Russia out of the dark ages and find a woman to love.The Czar of all the Russias and Czarina become major characters, as do many smaller role players. This is not a stand-alone novel and leaves the reader in suspense. Overall a very entertaining work by authors Flint, Huff, and Goodlett. Four stars; recommended.

Like other reviewers noted, this one moves along briskly like the ones solely written by Eric Flint or 1633 with David Weber, rather than drifts into very minor plots for a hundred pages. This one goes back to many of the big questions, serious challenges, unintended consequences and ripple effects, and a moving story with interesting, fleshed out characters who feel real. The setting in Russia a century before Peter the Great's similar attempts to jerk Russia into parity with the rest of Europe with the odd impacts of the Grantville knowledge base and examples is inspired and so far more interesting than the other slowwwwwwww moving adventures in the adjacent lands. Covering 5 years in one book for a whole country instead of a few months in a couple of towns or cities was much appreciated and hopefully will inspire leaner editing. There's plenty of conspiring, factions, influencing, and spying here like the other books, it just consumes far fewer words than the middle books in the series, just as Flint's books typically get to the point and cover a lot of ground in a racing narrative. Maybe it's the test runs of the content in the Grantville Gazette that accomplished this, reacting to feedback and writing it in pieces an old, proven trick of Dickens and Twain in making more appealing stories.

item arrived on time and in good condition.

We've got fun explorations of workable adaptations of "uptime" technologies and concepts. We've got ordinary people kicking ass with up-time guns. We've got a plot that actually moves, some very basic romance that's not overly dramatic, and the occasionally hilarious remark.This is what drew most of to the series in the first place, and it's just refreshing to get back to it. No longer are we expected to pay for the opportunity to memorize who is whose third cousin once removed in Grantville.It's about having fun again.

I am always a bit reluctant to try the 1632 books set outside Europe but this one was fabulous. I really enjoyed the main characters story arcs. The book brings Russia from 1631 through 1636 and I'm surprised they could pull that off but it worked. Great job--as good as any in the series. I'll be looking forward to the next one in the series: The Volga Rules.

I have the same problem with this book that I am finding to be consistent. This is to be a piece of fiction. However it tries to teach European history. If I wanted learn European history to the level entered into in these books, I would take a course. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are long passages of dreary explanation of what really happened in our history with long thoughts by the characters of why they are going to act in the manner they proceed to act. Please, just get on with the action. Also if one writer covers something, the other writer doesn't have to cover the same facts in the same or even greater detail later. It's boring. I think that this will be the last that I read. I have already stopped reading the Gazettes due to the inconsistency of the writing. I am not interested in European history as told in a story.

Probably my favorite non main story 1632 book. Not a million useless characters, good pace and so much interesting info about Russia and freedom. I don't like that every up timer can somehow be an inventor expert, if I read X amount of books on something can I explain and build said thing in 17th century Russia, a language I don't even speak? Perhaps eventually but the 1632 crowd seem very adept at it on a number of fronts. ...... a small criticism but something that bothers me about this series occasionally.

Really enjoyed this portion of the saga. Looking forward to additional instalments.

This is the twelfth book in a series in which a small American town is sent back from around the turn of the millennium to Germany in the middle of the 30 years war. It starts a new story arc set in Russia.Most of the books in this series are identified with titles which are, or begin with, the 17th century year in which each book starts (e.g. 1632, 1633, etc) and it is sometimes known as the "Ring of Fire" or "Assiti Shards" series. In the case of "1636: the Kremlin Games" the date in the title appears to be that of the climax at the conclusion of the book.The "Ring of Fire" is how the inhabitants of Grantville described the event which brought their town back 370 years in time and a few thousand miles in space. The Assiti were the race whose thoughtless actions, described in the first book as akin to "criminal negligence," caused that event, though we are told in the first novel in the series that no human will ever learn this.Some of the books in this series were just written by Eric Flint but most have one or more co-authors such as David Weber. This book has Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett as co-authors. The books in the series differ greatly in their style and focus, and I gather I am not the only reader who enjoyed some of them very much more than others. Five which I particularly enjoyed and can recommend to others can be read in sequence and give an overview of the history of the very different seventeenth century which Grantville's arrival in Germany in the early 1630's creates in the stories.Eric Flint himselves describes these same five books as the "Main line" or spinal cord of the series to date in the afterword to this volume. They are: 1632 (Ring of Fire) 1633 1634: The Baltic War 1635: The Eastern Front (Ring of Fire) 1636: The Saxon Uprising (Ring of Fire) The complete list of novels in the series to date is:1) 16322) 16333) 1634: The Galileo Affair4) 1634: The Baltic War5) 1634: The Bavarian Crisis6) 1634: The Ram rebellion7) 1635: The Dreeson Incident8) 1635: The Cannon Law9) 1635: The Eastern Front10) 1635: The Papal Stakes11) 1636: The Saxon uprising12) This book, "1636: The Kremlin Games."I've counted "The Ram rebellion" in this list, though Eric Flint himself describes it as "An oddball volume which has some of the characteristics of an anthology and some of the characteristics of a novel."There are also several short story/novella collections set in this alternative 17th century including "Ring of Fire," "1635: The Tangled Web" (by Virginia DeMarce) and a number of books in the "Grantville Gazette" series.Flint has also written a book in which a second similar event hits the 21st century world which Grantville has left behind a few years later, called  Time Spike .This book, "1636: The Kremlin Games" tells the story of how the arrival of Grantville affects a country which had not been a major player in the books to date - a potentially rich but backward nation whose time as one of the two most powerful states in the world in our lifetime lay far in the future, which was beginning to call itself Russia but still known to the rest of the world as Muscovy.At the start of this book, shortly after Grantville's arrival in the seventeenth century, a delegation from the Russian court, led by Prince Vladimir Gorchacov, comes to Grantville to investigate the impossible rumours of a town from the future on behalf of the fledgling Romanov dynasty. Realising that Russia needs to learn from the new arrivals or face disaster, Prince Vladimir recruits a Grantville mechanic called Bernie Zeppi, to help the team he is setting up to bring modern ideas and technology to Russia.For the next four years Bernie makes his home in Russia, where he makes friends and finds a purpose in life helping to move Russia forward in more ways than one.But then a political crisis puts Bernie's adopted country at risk of a crisis which could lead to a new dark age while his new friends, and the woman he loves, are in grave danger of the loss of their lives. And he's not going to take it lying down ...Without giving away what happens in this book, it appears to be the first in a new sub-series.If you are interested in what it might be like to find yourself in a more primitive land but with modern knowledge and try to accelerate the pace of growth, as in David Weber's Nimue Alban series which begins with "Off Armageddon Reef" or William Forstchen's "Lost Regiment" series, you will probably love this.I thought at first that the dates given in this book did not align with those in the first book in the series. I did wonder if this was meant to reflect the historical fact that the Russian calendar at the time this is set was out of synch with western nations, but that discrepancy was a matter of a couple of weeks, and the starting date of this book appears to be a year out: Prince Vladimir arrives in Grantville, some months after the town has appeared in the seventeenth century, in October 1631.However, when I checked the first book in the series, "1632" to see if I could find the precise date to which the "Ring of Fire" delivered the town, I realised that the title of that book is something of a misnomer. Although there are very few precise dates in it, a careful reading discloses that most of the first book is actually set in 1631, a year before the date implied by the title of the book! So the dates do align.Halfway through the book "1632," a German mercenary officer is given two days to get out of the territory claimed by Grantville, and the book includes the text of a poster which gives the deadline for him to leave as 5th July 1631. He takes service with the Tsar.In the first sentence of "1636: the Kremlin Games" Prince Vladimir arrives to see Grantville for himself and says "Apparently Tilly's tercio commander wasn't the liar we thought he was." The timing just about works for this to be the same officer.I enjoyed reading what Eric Flint called the "main line" stories in the series but didn't like most of the other books nearly so much - until now. "1636: The Kremlin Games" is one of the most interesting and entertaining stories in the series and I recommend it.If you enjoy this story of a modern community sent back centuries in time, you might also like S.M. Stirling's Nantucket trilogy in which that island is sent even further back by a similar event. The Nantucket trilogy consists of: Island in the Sea of Time Against the Tide of Years (Nantucket) On the Oceans of Eternity (Nantucket) . 1632 (Ring of Fire)16331634: The Baltic War1635: The Eastern Front (Ring of Fire)1636: The Saxon Uprising (Ring of Fire)Time SpikeIsland in the Sea of TimeAgainst the Tide of Years (Nantucket)On the Oceans of Eternity (Nantucket)

Für eine Gesellschaft die so rückständig und zerrissen ist wie das Russland der 1630er wäre ein Technologiesprung, wie ihn das Auftauchen von Grantville und seinen Bewohnern darstellt, eine Möglichkeit aufzuholen. Aber auch ein Risiko, denn nicht nur die bestehende technologische, sondern auch die soziale Ordnung wird erschüttert.Das Buch stellt das recht gut dar, wenn auch nicht als Prinzessinnen-Märchen wie "Viennese Waltz". Mehr Krieg und wenig Aussicht auf Frieden... aber mit russischer Breite erzählt.Manchmal hat man den Eindruck, das der Handlungsfaden kurz unterbrochen und dann wieder weiterspringt. Und das Ende ist sowieso ein Cliffhanger. Insgesamt ein akzeptables Buch, aber eher eines der schwächeren aus dieser exzellenten Serie.

well, a new thread in 163x saga. It might very well ha started in the Grantvill express, but i find that this novel stand on its own merits. The story rolls on, and one can only wonder if its a two or three book sequel. A fairly good set of maps and a list of persons make it a better treat. That it does nor have any trace of Virgina DeMarce only makes it better !The reading was easy the plot good so I can recomend this novel warmly.

Although I'm a great fan of the Ring of Fire series I've found the more recent offerings to be a bit laboured: this one, however, is back to the best. A Vibrant, amusing story with wonderful cross cultural/ cross time misunderstandings.