Eric Flint

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Eric Flint

Eric Flint (* 1947 ) is an American author of alternative world stories and science fiction as well as humorous fantasy stories.

Life

Flint studied history, earned a master's degree , specializing in South African history. He broke off his doctoral thesis for political reasons and worked until the age of 50 as a professional driver, dock worker and left-wing activist. Flint worked as a member of the Socialist Workers Party .

In 1993 he won a competition, whereupon he published his first novel in 1997 and became a full-time writer in 1999. Shortly afterwards he became the "First Librarian" of the Baen Free Library by Jim Baen , an initiative that offers literary works for free reading and download as e-books . He published and revised a whole series of classic science fiction works and published collections of short stories in new compilations. With the commercial success of this project, he encouraged many of the authors of these collections to start writing again.

In 2004 he got more and more time constraints because more and more fans were active as authors in his universe based on the 1632 series and asked him for advice. So he suggested that Jim Baen create the experimental e-zine The Grantville Gazette , a type of electronic serialized novel that also had financial success.

Baen bought the marketing rights for four of the Gazette editions and also published them in book form as an anthology . Flint then became editor of the new Jim Baen's Universe Science Fiction E-zine and simultaneously published three to five titles as an author. After Baen's death, who died of a stroke , Flint designed a new website "grantvillegazette.com", which not only published the Grantville Gazettes, but also ensured that six instead of four issues were published a year.

Since October 2007 he has lived in East Chicago , Indiana with his wife Lucille .

In 2008 he donated his book collection to the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Northern Illinois .

Flint is the honorary guest author for NASFiC , ReConStruction from 2010. He is also a contributor to The Stellar Guild series published by Phoenix Pick . The series brings together best-selling authors such as Flint with less well-known authors in order to make the latter known to a wider audience.

Electronic laying

Flint is the editor of the "Baen Free Library", a still current experiment in electronic publishing of e-books in various unencrypted file formats. The aim of the project is to convince authors to offer their works unencrypted for download via this platform. The two founders wanted to check whether these offers would stimulate sales of the books in paper form and the authors' paid e-books.

The project is financially worthwhile. Usually around 80-100 works are available for download at any time. Part of the concept is that these are usually the earlier editions of the serial novels, the sequels of which are available in bookshops or for download. These "appetizers" are designed to get the reader to buy the sequels.

Publications

Belisarius

Flint (left), writer David Drake and artist Gary Ruddell

The series was developed in collaboration with David Drake and deals with a number of historical figures, including the Roman general Belisarius , whom the two authors described as the best general who ever walked the earth.

  1. An Oblique Approach , 1998
  2. In the Heart of Darkness , 1998
  3. Destiny's Shield , 1999
  4. Fortune's Stroke. 2000
  5. The Tide of Victory. 2001
  6. The Dance of Time. 2006

Assiti Shards Universes

Assiti Shards is a technique that makes it possible to swap spacetime. There are many different timelines and alternate universes. What is special is that there is an exchange of places and the people living in them, while in previous drafts of multiverse teleportation of people to another place or time was described. Here the destination is swapped with the origin. As an example, this has the consequence that the users of the effect can be transported into a past and the people and places of the past find themselves in the present of the shards user.

When Flint first used this idea in his novel "1632", the interest of the readers grew to such an extent that a long series of sequels followed. Due to the great popularity, Flint announced an expansion into new environments in 2000. However, the death of Jim Baen, his involvement in web projects and the work on the 1632 series kept him from implementing the ideas.

The 1632 series

First it was called the 163x series, Baen called it the Ring of Fire series for a while, now it is called the 1632 Universe or 1632verse . The series began with a story about residents of a small American town who were transferred to a German town in 1631. The story goes back to 1632 and the Thirty Years' War , hence the title.

Among the numerous works by Flint, the 1632 series (also known as "Ring of Fire" / "Assiti Shards") occupies a special position from a German point of view, as it is set in Thuringia during the Thirty Years' War. The main theme of the series is the fact that the small town "Grantville, West Virginia " from the USA in 2000 is catapulted into this time.

  • 1632
  • 1633. 2002 (with David Weber )
  • Ring of Fire. 2004
  • 1634: The Galileo Affair. 2004 (with Andrew Dennis )
  • Grantville Gazette I. 2004 (letterpress)
  • Grantville Gazette II. 2006 (letterpress)
  • 1634: The Ram Rebellion. 2006 (with Virginia DeMarce )
  • 1634: The Baltic War. 2007 (with David Weber)
  • 1635: The Cannon Law. 2006 (with Andrew Dennis)
  • 1634: The Bavarian Crisis. 2007 (with Virginia DeMarce)
  • Ring of Fire II. 2008
  • 1635: The Dreeson Incident. 2008
  • 1635: The Eastern Front. 2010
  • 1635: The Papal Stakes. 2012 (with Charles E. Gannon )
  • 1636: The Saxon Uprising. 2011

Consciously in internal chronological order

The Grantville Gazettes

The Gazettes began as a project that published fan fiction and secondary literature in the form of encyclopedic articles. The members of the platform formed a "1632 Research Committee", which collects the feedback and criticism in the "1632 Tech Manual", an Internet forum. The involvement of many fan authors as well as professional writers in the development process of the entire project ensures continuous development to this day.

  • The Grantville Gazette. 2003 electronically, 2004 as a book
  • Grantville Gazette II. 2004 electronically, 2006 as a book
  • Grantville Gazette III. 2004 electronically, 2007 as a book
  • Grantville Gazette IV. 2005 electronically, 2008 as book
  • Grantville Gazette V. 2005 electronically, 2009 as book
  • Grantville Gazette VI. 2006
  • Grantville Gazette VII. 2006
  • Grantville Gazette VIII. 2006
  • Grantville Gazette IX. 2006
  • Grantville Gazette X. 2006
  • Grantville Gazette XI. 2007
  • Grantville Gazette XII. 2007
  • Grantville Gazette XIII. 2007

Edition VI and the following have only been published electronically so far

Other Assiti Shards universes

  • The book By Any Other Name (with Sarah Hoyt ) was supposed to have William Shakespeare as the main character, but was not completed due to the sudden death of Jim Baen .

Heirs of Alexandria

(with Dave Freer and Mercedes Lackey )

Rats, Bats and Vats

  • Rats, Bats and Vats. 2000 (with Dave Freer)
  • The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly. 2004 (with Dave Freer)

Joe's World

  • The Philosophical Strangler. 2001
  • Forward the Mage. 2002, (with Richard Roach )

Further collaborations

  • Honor Harrington series (with David Weber)
  • Pyramid Scheme. 2001 (with Dave Freer)
  • The Course of Empire. 2003 (with KD Wentworth )
  • The Wizard of Karres. 2004, (with David Freer and Mercedes Lackey)
  • Boundary. 2006 (with Ryk E. Spoor )
  • Pyramid Power. 2007 (with Dave Freer)
  • When Diplomacy Fails. 2008 (with Mike Resnick)
  • The Crucible of Empire. 2010 (with KD Wentworth)
  • Threshold. 2010 (with Ryk E. Spoor)

Trail of Glory

  • 1812: The Rivers of War
  • 1824: The Arkansas War

Single novel

  • Mother of Demons , 1997

Short stories

  • In the Honor Harrington universe
    • From the highlands. 2001
    • Fanatic. 2003
  • other short stories
    • Entropy and the Strangler , 1993
    • The Thief and the Roller Derby Queen. 2000
    • Carthago Delenda Est. 2001
    • The Islands. 2002
    • The Truth about the Götterdämmerung. 2004

As the publisher of revised new editions of classic SF

  • Works by Christopher Anvil
    • Pandora's Legions. 2002
    • Interstellar Patrol. 2003
    • Interstellar Patrol II: The Federation of Humanity. 2005
    • The Trouble with Aliens. 2006
    • The trouble with humans. 2007
    • War Games. 2008
    • Prescription for chaos. 2008
  • Works by Randall Garrett
  • Works by Tom Godwin
    • The Cold Equations and Other Stories. 2003
  • Works by Keith Laumer
    • Retief. 2002
    • Odyssey. 2002
    • Keith Laumer: The Lighter Side. 2002
    • Future imperfect. 2003
    • A Plague of Demons. 2003
    • Legions of Space. 2004
    • Imperium. 2005
  • Works by Murray Leinster
    • Med Ship: The Complete Stories. 2002, (with Guy Gordon)
    • Planets of Adventure. 2003
    • A Logic Named Joe. 2005
  • Works by Howard L. Myers , (with Guy Gordon)
    • The Creatures of Man. 2003
    • A sense of infinity. 2009
  • Works by James H. Schmitz (with Guy Gordon)
    • Telzey Amberdon. 2000
    • TnT: Telzey & Trigger Together. 2000
    • Trigger & Friends. 2001
    • The Hub: Dangerous Territory. 2001
    • Agent of Vega & Other Stories. 2001
    • The Witches of Karres. 2003
    • The Eternal Frontiers. 2002
  • AE van Vogt
    • Transgalactic. 2006, (with David Drake)

Web links

Commons : Eric Flint  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eric Flint: Eric Flint's place on the web: biography . Archived from the original on October 7, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 16, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ericflint.net
  2. ↑ Introducing the Baen Free Library (and other columns in the collection) . Archived from the original on May 3, 2006. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 17, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.baen.com
  3. ^ The Editor's Page October 2006 . Archived from the original on October 12, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 18, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / baens-universe.com
  4. ↑ a b Eric Flint, Tom Kidd: The Grantville Gazette . 1st edition. No. 1 . Baen Books, Riverdale, NY 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8860-1 , pp. 2 (English, foreword): “But, in the meantime, the fan-fic kept getting written, and people kept nudging me - okay, pestering me, but I try to be polite about such things - to give them my feedback on their stories. ... Once I realized how many stories were being written - a number of them of publishable quality - I raised with Jim Baen the idea of ​​producing an online magazine which would pay for fiction and factual articles set in the 1632 universe and would be sold through Baen Books' Webscriptions service. Jim was willing to try it ... ”
  5. ↑ Eric Flint, Tom Kidd: The Grantville Gazette. Sequels to 1632 . No. 3 . Baen Books, Riverdale, NY 2007, ISBN 978-1-4165-0941-7 , pp. 1–2 (English): “Jim Baen died a month ago. I suppose… All things considered, I'm glad the last book I ever sold my friend and publisher Jim Baen was one of these. ”
  6. ↑ grantville-gazette-on-line-going-pro-going-bi-monthly / # more-317 . Retrieved October 17, 2007: “The Grantville Gazette, which Jim Baen and I began as an experiment, has proven to be a very successful venture in electronic publishing. Successful enough, in fact, that beginning with Volume 11 we will doing the following:
    1. We're raising the pay rates for the authors. Up until now, the pay rates for the Gazette have only been semi-pro rates. Beginning with Volume 11 , we'll be paying rates that meet - exceed, in fact - the minimum rates set by Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. SFWA is and has been for decades the recognized professional association for science and fantasy authors .
    2. We're moving to a regular bi-monthly publication schedule. Up until now, the Gazette has been published on an “occasional” basis - meaning whenever we had enough good stories in stock to put out another issue. In practice, for the past year and half, we've been maintaining a quarterly schedule, and we're now at the point where we have more good stories and articles than we can handle without shifting to a bi-monthly publishing schedule.
    Beginning May 1, [2007] therefore, the Gazette will now be published regularly on the first day of the following months: May, July, September, November, January and March. "
  7. ↑ Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Collection ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Northern Illinois University @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ulib.niu.edu
  8. ↑ Steven Silver : Worldcon 2009, NASFiC 2010, Worldcon 2011 . In: SF Site News . SF Site.com. August 11, 2009. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Flint, Eric
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American science fiction and fantasy writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1947