“1632” by Eric Flint is a science fiction novel that explores the concept of time travel. The story begins in the year 2000 when a small American town named Grantville is mysteriously transported back in time to the year 1631, right in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany.
The characters were pretty flat. Sure, I liked Rebecca, but overall, they did not develop much over the course of the story. That says a lot when a book is over five hundred pages. Hopefully, throughout the course of the series, they do grow. The female characters were all ‘girl bosses’; they could shoot guns and make a room of men cry. I would just like to see more diversity than that. As for the men, I began to forget who was who by the end. This book had poor characterization.
The atmosphere left me gaping with questions. Why did this time slip happen? Were other places experiencing the same thing? Could the people of Grantsville go to the rest of America? We saw what the rulers of Europe thought, but what was the president thinking about one of his town’s vanishing and going back to the past? I am picky when a science fiction book takes place in our own world. I need logic. This book could have been so much bigger, and I would have enjoyed it more if it had been.
The writing was very accessible. Thankfully, it was easy and fast to get through, which is something rare for the genre of science fiction.
A lot of my complaints from the other points come into play with the plot as well. Eric Flint must have had a lot of faith in Americans. I truly do not believe if this story happened in the real world, as it does, it would play out this way. Then again, this book was published nearly twenty-five years ago, and America has changed a lot in that time. What I mean is, I do not believe all the citizens of the town would come together, and no one would really question a time slip. I also do not believe the characters from the European past would adjust so well to our modern world. The atmosphere did leave a lot of holes for me as I still do not have a complete understanding of what was going on. This is a unique premise of a plot, but it was not executed properly by Flint.
The characters were pretty flat, and this book had poor characterization. The atmosphere left me gaping with questions. This book could have been so much bigger, and I would have enjoyed it more if it had been. The writing was very accessible, thankfully, making it easy and fast to get through, which is something rare for the genre of science fiction. A lot of my complaints from the other points come into play with the plot as well. This is a unique premise of a plot, but it was not executed properly by Flint. I would not recommend this book to others.
2 out of 5 stars.
Izzy Reads 