Sunday, March 2, 1636   Boom! Crack! Crack! Dina Frost froze where she was. It wasn't the deer hunting season, so nobody should be shooting in this area—that meant the shooters were probably poachers. Maybe that was what the policemen from the cruiser she and her companion had walked past earlier were looking for. She [...]

Ronneburg Saxe-Altenburg, 1636Margarethe Klein looked at the half-carved wooden figure on her workbench and tried not to break out in tears. Even though she had been carving dolls since she was a little girl at her parents' knees, she could not seem to create anything that resembled the up-timers' famous Barbie dolls. In fact, her [...]

Grantville, Early Spring 1636"I got a letter today from Wolmirstedt. They wanted me to know that Otto Schmidt died. His shop is sitting empty. They are asking if we're coming back. And, they want to know what we're going to do about Anna," Arnulf Meier announced to his family, and everyone else at the dinner [...]

Salim let the door to Baram Khan's sickroom close before addressing the man who walked out. "Any change?" The physician started, wheeled to face him. "I didn't see you there." Salim stepped into the light of the candle the man held, and quirked an eyebrow. The local man shook his head. "No, no change. I [...]

GrantvilleMarch 1635The doorbell rang. Elizabeth Jordan looked up from the sink where she was peeling carrots. "One of you get that," she called out.She heard Leah's feet go running across the floor. For a small girl, she had such a heavy tread that her steps were unmistakable.The door squeaked on its hinges, and she heard [...]

Foreword: While our friends in Eisenach have "wonderful nights," and the deconstruction of the Wartburg still goes on in the spring of the year 1634, we need to rewind to the summer of 1632 and meet some other people who will eventually become involved in the project, too. The following story is inspired by the [...]

Chapter Sixty-eight: The Ones That Got Away Port Looking Glass, December 15th, 1635 "They what?" Pam shouted, her voice like sharp metal.Ulf, the Swedish marine who had brought her the bad news flinched, hoping that the American saying about "shooting the messenger" really was just a saying."They escaped, Captain Pam, in the night. They all got away, [...]

This article is concerned with naval artillery—swivel guns and up—not with the small arms that might be carried onboard. It looks at both what was in use at the time of the Ring of Fire (RoF; 1631), and what up-time innovations might be introduced post-RoF. Much of what is discussed here is relevant to land [...]

I'm not sure what caused it: Maybe watching the news coming out of NASA about the Mars Rover. Maybe downloading too many Star Trek alert tones for my phone. Maybe the deep and somewhat excessive excitement I felt when I discovered some Stargate episodes that I missed. I know something triggered it in combination with [...]

Jin hugged the wall on the edge of an alleyway. Loud music and conversation filtered down from the OldTown night market two blocks away, but nothing moved nearby.The ancient coin Auntie Bai Wei had given her hung on a thin leather cord around Jin's neck. It pulsed with a steady throb that felt as if [...]