1636: The Devils Opera (Ring of Fire Series Book 14)

Not a bad addition to the corpus. Not the best, but certainly far from the worst. An old fashion detective story This novel is the reworking of a set of short stories into a cohesive whole. It has transitioned from a few interwoven short mysteries into one whole story covering the entire set of works and reads very well. Anyone who likes detective stories should enjoy this book, and for fans of the series of related novels it fills in a number of gaps by telling a story parallel and bridging over the events in some of the other novels in the same setting. Another solid entry in the Ring of Fire series, and I'm really loving the idea that a bunch of teenage girls AKA The Barbie Consortium are so aware of economics that they work with the Austria-Hungary Hapsburgs to save the country while having fun dating downtime young men.

To them, it is all in a day's work This volume can get a bit confusing from time to time because of the large cast of characters, and would not make sense to anyone not very familiar with earlier tales in the series.

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This book was entertaining in regards to the political movement and the crimes occurring. Some of the more musical parts dragged a bit but all in all, I liked the tie ins to previous books as the entire narrative moves forward. Jun 28, Judy rated it really liked it. As usual, this has several on-going plots. Loved the "let the people sing" plot. My brain keeps singing, "We, the people". Nov 17, Jules Bertaut rated it really liked it Shelves: I like this series and this is a good addition to it. It was a quick and gripping read.

Apr 28, Gail Morris rated it it was amazing. Organized crime in the 17th century. This was a decent crime novel. Nov 28, Daniel Shellenbarger rated it really liked it Shelves: The Devil's Opera is different from most if not all other Ring of Fire books in that it doesn't expand the universe in any significant ways. It takes place entirely within the timeline of the previously released Rather than fleshing out the divergences caused by the arrival of the Uptimers or filling in ho almost two years later and finally got around to writing a review It's a very different sort of story than most of what we've gotten from Eric Flint and company but David Carrico proves that his skill in writing short stories as seen in the various Grantville Gazette collections translates well to a full length novel as he creates an array of interesting and flawed characters and builds a tense and creative story that nicely catches the weird industrial age-meets-medieval feel of Magdeburg and the interaction of up-timer and down-timer culture.

Even though the Devil's Opera strips away much of the political-historical development that I love about Ring of Fire, it makes up for it with some of the series best story-telling. If David Carrico ever gets around to writing his own series, I would be really interested to see what he comes up with because he has some real talent not going to complain if he keeps working for Flint though I'd love to see another book like this in the Ring of Fire universe and I'm incredibly excited to hear that he's finishing up the Jao series begun by Flint and the late K.

A strong entry in the now sprawling Ring of Fire series, built around the city of Magdeburg which as the capital of the United States of Europe has probably the largest population of "up-timers" outside of Grantville itself, as well as one of the greater collections of advanced technology, making it an interesting mix of things and the culture clash makes a good backdrop. Plotwise you have an intersection of several different events that don't seem particularly interconnected, but all flow togeth A strong entry in the now sprawling Ring of Fire series, built around the city of Magdeburg which as the capital of the United States of Europe has probably the largest population of "up-timers" outside of Grantville itself, as well as one of the greater collections of advanced technology, making it an interesting mix of things and the culture clash makes a good backdrop.

Plotwise you have an intersection of several different events that don't seem particularly interconnected, but all flow together at the end. Arguably, the flow together a little too cleanly, but the characters are drawn well enough that's an easily forgivable sin. There's a solid cast of up-time and down-time characters as leads and they all do add something to the story as a whole.

Part artistic production, part cop story you find yourself engaged with the characters and caring about what's going to happen to them rather quickly. It frankly feels like a modern reality for what a cop's life is like. A daily grind indeed The artistic end is well handled too, and there's clearly a fine understanding of the complexities in writing and producing an opera and that's done well. Good stuff and one of the better tangential stories in this universe, featuring very little activity from any of the "main line" characters.

Rebecca shows up briefly, but it's almost a cameo, as is the appearance of Gustav Adolf. Otherwise, it's new characters or ones who have held relatively minor roles until now. Music and Murder , so I was really looking forward to this which in many ways is a direct sequel. High expectations can lead to disappointment.

This wasn't bad, but wasn't as good as I had hoped. There are multiple storylines and the book jumps around between them. At various times the viewpoint characters are Simon, a young boy who lives on the streets until informally adopted by Hans Metzger; Hans as he develops a career as a professional boxer; police officers Byron Chieske and G I loved At various times the viewpoint characters are Simon, a young boy who lives on the streets until informally adopted by Hans Metzger; Hans as he develops a career as a professional boxer; police officers Byron Chieske and Gotthilf Hoch who are investigating several crimes; Italian criminals Ciclope and Pietro who have been hired by a Magdeburg businessman to sabotage works by another businessman; and musicians Marla Linder and Franz Sylvester.

This is part of the Ring of Fire series which started with Some of the events from The Saxon Uprising are told here from a different standpoint. Jul 19, Douglas Berry rated it it was amazing Shelves: The Ring of Fire series has been hit or miss for me. I love the concept, and how strictly Eric Flint has held to his rules, but while some of the books have been great, others have been disasters. The Devil's Opera" is in the former category. Set entirely in the USE capital of Magdeburg, the story follows several seemingly unconnected plots; a crippled boy and the champion boxer who befriends him, a murder investigation, using music to counter the Swedish chancellor, sabotage of a The Ring of Fire series has been hit or miss for me.

Set entirely in the USE capital of Magdeburg, the story follows several seemingly unconnected plots; a crippled boy and the champion boxer who befriends him, a murder investigation, using music to counter the Swedish chancellor, sabotage of a civil projects, and more. Flint skillfully draws these threads into a whole, leading to a climatic night at the opera and a twist Agatha Christie would approve of. The best thing is that Flint never loses sight of the fact that good stories are about people. He write believable characters who you come to know and care about.

The reader cares about Hans when he goes into a fight, you worry when the stray dog adopted by one of the characters vanishes for days, you are there with the Magdeburg Polezi as they try to make sense of a puzzling series of crimes. I read this book in two days. Not something I do often. Feb 21, Steve Sarrica rated it liked it Shelves: The Devil's Opera is a workmanlike entry in the series. The story moves along at a decent pace and multiple plot lines involving a sometimes confusingly large cast of characters intertwine in interesting ways. The major story arc's resolution is telegraphed and arrives with almost no surprise at all.

One antagonist's motivations, which seemed to be totally plot-driven instead of character-driven, are perfunctorily explained away in a most unsatisfying manner. It was nice to see the Emp It was nice to see the Emperor wake from his coma and begin to right both himself and the ship of state. The descriptions of the musical performances and the boxing scenes were well done. One irritation was the endless commentary on uptime linguistic expressions — a trope that is becoming more noticeable as the series progresses.

The Devil's Opera is a decent entry to the series — a series that, to this reader, really needs another blockbuster to rekindle my interest. May 22, Frode rated it really liked it. I thought it was a fine book in many ways. It was a mystery in an alternative history setting. There were two missteps in my opinion. One was the false characterization of where miscarried children ended up. It would be good if the authors read the Westminster Confession of Faith X.

The other difficult I thought it was a fine book in many ways. The other difficulty is that no one seized on the man who pushed Herr Shardius through the wall in the opera house. Two novels focused on the Americas were initially serialized in The Grantville Gazette magazine:. The first full novel in the Americas and Asia thread was published in Seas of Fortune December by Iver Cooper.

Fans are encouraged to contribute to the series though an online message board known as Baen's Bar. The entire Grantville Gazette and large portions of the Ring of Fire anthology, both of which are considered canonical, are paid, fan-written albeit edited by Flint works, and have directly contributed material to the main novels.

The author also worked with other established authors to develop new stories and plot lines for further novels which are also published in the two Ring of Fire anthologies. Ring of Fire has several levels of meaning: First it is the eponymous reference to what the townfolk themselves and the few outside German witnesses have come to call the observed phenomenon of their time-space juxtaposition.

Series: Ring of Fire reading order / per Eric Flint

Secondly, it is a disparaging reference to the effects on the population of Germany at large, suffering under the war's environment outside American-controlled territory, used by Mike Stearns addressing a town meeting:. It is a science fiction novel originally released in November , but atypically, continues to actually increase in quarterly sales, as do most of the sequels. Three of eighteen of the bi-monthly Gazettes , and counting are the printed canonical Grantville Gazettes I , II , and III , the first of which is almost entirely longer fiction Flint couldn't put in the already lengthy Ring of Fire shared universe collection, the de facto first sequel antedating collaborative work on , and of which two have been best sellers , published in print, and an additional, rapidly growing number of related Grantville Gazettes e-books or e-zines not in print.

In writing , Flint's web forum Mutter of Demons at Baen's Bar was soon taken over by exploratory posts as captivated readers commented on the E-ARC released book, creating a ground swell of interest "Internet buzz" in the months before its hardcover release. So strong was the response, especially after the release of the printed work, that a new Tech Manual sub-forum was created for discussions about it in early , for the discussions had also spilled over into Weber's Bu-ships tech forum, and Weber joined the bandwagon by suggesting a sequel was in order.

In the event, the two co-wrote and collaborated further on integrating the short fiction much of it unsolicited into the de facto Ring of Fire sequel. The Grantville Gazettes are a series of short stories in the collaborative fiction experiment, which started life as an online serialized magazine with an inconsistent and sporadic publication history.

After the death of Jim Baen and with the publication of Grantville Gazette X by Baen Books , the last under contract with Baen, the Gazettes were again reconstituted as a subscription e-zine, now published regularly at six per year bi-monthly and paying above standard rates for submissions. They are a "boiler room" powering the collaborative synergy by the people involved with the Tech Manual and have developed into a repository for new ideas and themes in the series, although most explore the personal experiences of minor characters in the series or examine in depth some aspect e.

In general, the anthologies in the series depict deep background canonical to future tales, but which are not in the mainstream "action" of the novels focus. A group of stories have on several occasions produced a new plot thread. As of the end of , there are now 42 volumes of the Grantville Gazettes , most of them available in Amazon Kindle editions as well as some other electronic formats. The Gazettes began as an experimental, semi-professional, online magazine featuring fan fiction and nonfiction edited by Flint and eventually a volunteer editorial board. At the time of Jim Baen's death in the summer of ten Grantville Gazettes were under contract and they had with some fits and starts settled into a new version roughly and irregularly three times a year.

Baen's production staff was somewhat overworked by the deadline and the serialized magazine gave way to an e-book release from the sixth volume onward—though this was explained by Flint as primarily being due to Flint's other commitments, such as editing the new science fiction magazine Jim Baen's Universe. Earlier on, he'd explained the production delays in terms of overworked proofreaders, executive editors, and so forth.

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Flint has explained that the market for anthologies is always very soft, no matter the genre, and it seems likely that any new print version from the Gazettes will be a Best of The Grantville Gazettes. In the meanwhile, Grantville Gazette X was jointly published as an e-book by Baen, but also as the first foray of Eric Flint Enterprises at grantvillegazette. It is modeled very much on the same lines as Jim Baen's Universe , which is edited by Flint.

Beginning in early , the Gazette' s publishers added an online, web-based edition published quarterly and moved the paper series to an annual "best of" volume. When the novel was written in , it was conceived as an experiment in the literary genre alternate history by Flint, without intentions of writing any immediate sequel.

He had, in fact, several other years of writing projects planned, which subsequent developments were to delay as late as publication in — Flint—as a relatively new writer at the time, following the popular demand for a sequel, elected to invite other established authors in the Baen's stable of writers to share the universe in order to rapidly develop its potential—in this he traded on his experience as an editor. This went on concurrently with a great deal of reader input in what became the Tech sub-forum on Baen's Bar. In this initiative, he became the editor he was already a Baen editor for the Baen Free Library and together with fan input on Baen's Bar , and collaboration with established best-selling author David Weber on the first long sequel, , concurrently put together the Ring of Fire anthology to inaugurate the short fiction in the series.

The novel and anthology shaped one another, all filtered through and also shaped by the discussions on Baen's website. This process continues to this day, primarily in the form of The Grantville Gazettes. Initially an experimental e-magazine of fan fiction, the first volume was successful enough to be released as a paperback.

Subsequent Gazettes have also been released in print form. Flint, as editor of all the short fiction, also maintains the series canon co-ordinated by the In point of fact, the short fiction in the series frequently provides a more in-depth background and foreshadows larger events that are the meat of the long fiction in the series. The longer works are replete with mentions to events covered in the shorter works, and with characters and the history and events unfolded in such materials. Flint always publishes one of his own stories within the short fiction collections, or in the case of The Ram Rebellion , considerably more, as it introduces several important background factors that are central to further series developments as the altered history is to unfold to the reader.

In June , the Ring of Fire Press was created to reissue certain materials originally published online in the Grantville Gazette. Second, it would publish several themed collections of fact articles. Initially, five Ring of Fire Press volumes was made available through Amazon as Kindle editions or print on demand paperback books. In January , the Ring of Fire Press expanded their list of available publications by releasing their first original novel in the series, The Battle for Newfoundland , which only contained original material that was not previously published.

In addition to Amazon, Baen began distributing selected titles for Ring of Fire Press through their web store and their other distribution channels. In October , the Ring of Fire Press began releasing novels that are part of the Time Spike series that were previously published as serials in the Grantville Gazette. In April , the Ring of Fire Press began releasing novels that were not a part of either the or Assiti Shards book series. As of , four books in the series had significantly large number of sales of hardcover editions to become eligible for The New York Times Best Seller list. The Galileo Affair was on the best seller list for hardcover fiction for two weeks during April while reaching number The Baltic War was on the same list for two weeks during May , peaking at number The Bavarian Crisis was on this list for a week in October at number Almost all of the books in the series sold well enough to get listed on the various Locus Magazine Bestsellers Lists with some titles listed multiple times, and a few even reached the top spot for the month.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. Learn how and when to remove these template messages. This article is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Wikipedia editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic.

Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. November Learn how and when to remove this template message. This article may be written from a fan's point of view , rather than a neutral point of view. Please clean it up to conform to a higher standard of quality, and to make it neutral in tone.

This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject , potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources. The Grantville Gazettes and The Slushpile. List of characters fictional. They decree, and therefore it is done. More precisely, as a novel that fits within that loosely defined literary category known as Americana.

In particular, it was written from a desire on my part to make a relatively ordinary small American town the collective protagonist of the story.

The Devil's Opera (Assiti Shards, #15) by Eric Flint

And then, as the story unfolded, to keep the focus as much as possible on what you might call the level of the common man and woman—understanding that, as the story unfolded, more and more seventeenth-century Europeans would become an integral part of that collective protagonist. Archived from the original on 28 November Archived from the original on 2 August Archived from the original on 2 February Archived from the original on 6 August Archived from the original on 28 August Archived from the original on 22 July Archived from the original on 15 April Archived from the original on 30 June Archived from the original on 30 October Archived from the original on 25 June Archived from the original on Archived from the original on 12 January Retrieved 12 January The Volga Rules publisher information ".

Baen Books, , Afterword. Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press.

Cooper - Ring of Fire Press". The New York Times. Works can belong to more than one series. In some cases, as with Chronicles of Narnia , disagreements about order necessitate the creation of more than one series. If the series has an order, add a number or other descriptor in parenthesis after the series title eg. By default, it sorts by the number, or alphabetically if there is no number. If you want to force a particular order, use the character to divide the number and the descriptor. So, " 0 prequel " sorts by 0 under the label "prequel. Series was designed to cover groups of books generally understood as such see Wikipedia: Like many concepts in the book world, "series" is a somewhat fluid and contested notion.

A good rule of thumb is that series have a conventional name and are intentional creations , on the part of the author or publisher. For now, avoid forcing the issue with mere "lists" of works possessing an arbitrary shared characteristic, such as relating to a particular place. Avoid series that cross authors, unless the authors were or became aware of the series identification eg.

Also avoid publisher series, unless the publisher has a true monopoly over the "works" in question. So, the Dummies guides are a series of works. But the Loeb Classical Library is a series of editions, not of works. Home Groups Talk Zeitgeist. The 12 Days of LT scavenger hunt is going on.

Can you solve the clues? I Agree This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and if not signed in for advertising. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms. Series description Don't get too frustrated trying to read these in exact order. Some stories are taking place simultaneously, and the short stories in the Gazettes are set at different times.

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