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'''The Grantville Gazette''' (later '''Grantville Gazette I''') is the first of a series of collaborative anthologies that now form a substantial sub-set of books within the 1632 series inspired by Eric Flint's novel ''1632''. The Gazettes are initially published as serialized e-magazines and then as e-books, and form part of the canonical background for the other works (novels and anthologies) in the rapidly growing series.

Contents

Series premise

Authors

Book Table of Contents

Story synopses

Portraits

Anna's Story

Publishing history and information

Series premise

Main articles: 1632 series

The first novel, ''1632'' and resultant 1632 series share a common theme, which is to ask the "What if?" questions common to and characteristic of the science fiction genre: "What if a mysterious cosmic event occurred which juxtaposed the location of a whole populated region of West Virginia with a matching portion of early modern Germany?" Flint added the additional query to his premise: "What if the two places also switched their respective places in time so that the region from our here-now traveled back in space-time to the land and peoples of 369 years ago?" Mix in a character focus repudiating the ''Great Man'' theory of history, making the whole town of Rednecked Hillbillies and German Rednecks your collective protagonists allowing plenty of scope for fast-paced parallel plot development, add two cups of calculating authoritarian noblemen who think only social-class matters, a pinch of venile grasping clergymen, and a quart each of American law, American tradition, American can-do elan, and half a pound of American attitudes and the reader can begin to imagine the fun they'll have interacting in ''interesting times'' when ''High-Tech'' means just-invented flintlock rifles.

Authors

The various other authors featured in the Gazettes are part of Flint's online experiment (Phase II) in developing a milieu in conjunction with many others on the webforum Baen's Bar. For specifics see the sub-article 1632 Editorial Board. These authors first submit to a tough peer review process, which is the provence and venue of the 1632 Slushpile sub-forum. Once critical readers have deemed the nascent story worthy, the work passes to an editorial board, which also considers how the work will fit into and affect the milieu as currently planned out and plotted. Some stories have thus served as the genesis of their own 1632 universe sub-series or plot thread. This is chaired by Flint, who retains veto power over all work in the 1632 universe, and who then decides to which issue or volume of the Gazette the story should be allocated. Authors get paid a sub-professional rate upon the acceptance of the work, and additional financial remuneration and considerations when the anthology reaches print at a later time.
''The Gazettes'' thus contain short stories based in the world of Flint's 1632 series, and articles about the restrictions on technology available in the time-stranded town and the plausibility of items and redeveloped technology within the milieu of the 1632 multiverse; these essays are written by a member of a more formal subset of contributor-advisors known as the 1632 Research Committee.

Book Table of Contents

'Grantville Gazette Volume I' Table of Contents
Title	Writer	Page
About ''Baen's Bar'' Online community and ''Editor's Preface for the Paperback Edition''	by Eric Flint	p  1
Fiction
''Portraits''	by Eric Flint	p  5
''Anna's Story''	by Loren Jones	p 17
''Curio and Relic''	by Tom Van Natta	p 77
''The Sewing Circle''	by Gorg Huff	p115
''The Rudolstadt Colloquy''	by Virginia DeMarce ★	p233
Fact Articles
''Radio in the 1632 Universe''	by Rick Boatright ★	p297
''They've Got Bread Mold, So Why Can't They Make Penicillin?''	by Robert Gottlief ★	p319
''Horse Power''	by Karen Bergstralh ★	p335
Afterword	by Eric Flint	p361

:'
★ '  Writer is a member of 1632 Research Committee or 1632 Editorial Board, or both.

Story synopses

Portraits

"Portraits", by Eric Flint, deals with the decision to smuggle information about antibiotics to hostile forces besieging Amsterdam, where Rebecca Stearns is trapped. It features Anne Jefferson, introduced in S. L. Viehl's ''Ring of Fire'' short story "A Matter of Consultation". As well as presenting the moral and ethical issues implicit in aiding the enemy, the story focuses heavily on artist and diplomat Pieter Paul Rubens, whose portrait of Jefferson forms the book's cover art. The events of this story are referenced in '' and other works in the series.

Anna's Story

Loren Jones takes up the task of answering "What ever happened" to that farm girl fleeing those mercenaries that bowled over Chief Dan Frost and signaled the arrival of conflict and war at the opening of ''1632''. It also returns to elaborate on her families fate.

Publishing history and information

This first gazette was envisioned as an e-magazine experiment funded by Baen Books, originally to be published solely as a monthly electronic serialized-book anthology from Baen Books. The experimental joint venture between author-editor Flint and publisher Jim Baen was so successful that the e-magazine has become a sustained, self-funding operation of its own, now with ''Grantville Gazette VII'' in pre-production and ''Grantville Gazette VI'' released in March 2006 as a serialized e-magazine. Publication by e-magazine and e-book release is tabulated in the main article: The Grantville Gazettes, but the pattern will be broken with Grantville Gazette III — it will be released solely in the three book formats as Eric Flint has become the editor of the new Jim Baen's UNIVERSE e-magazine venture.
In November 2004, ''The Grantville Gazette'' was also released in a mass market paperback edition. The second volume was released in hardcover in March 2006, and Grantville Gazette III is scheduled for hardcover release in January 2007, and the fourth and fifth should follow about four months apart by announced planning.
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★ The Grantville Gazette, Eric Flint, , , Baen, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-8860-1 available as free e-book from the Baen Free Library, Paperback First printing, November 2004

★ Grantville Gazette II, Eric Flint, , , Baen, 2006, ISBN 1-4165-2051-1 was released in hardcover in March 2006
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As of May 2006 electronic editions were available up to volume seven. The series is contracted up to volume ten, and is arguably open ended.