Welcome to another crazy rollercoaster ride putting out a magazine, a publishing house, and a major fan convention in the Age of the Pandemic. But think about what it must have been like in the 1630s and before, when pandemics swept Europe and the Middle East with ferocious regularity—usually plague, and smallpox, and other diseases [...]

Grantville Late 1635   Fenton Bowers left Maurice Tito's courtroom, his wife Nell next to him. their children ahead of them. Their children, now. Amanda and Jason had been grown, hadn't been in Grantville that Sunday. Had been left up-time. They were too old for a second family. Until the refugees started pouring into town. [...]

Dora rushed into Danel's shop looking for her husband among the tubs of orange juice and crates of fruit. Deborah, their youngest daughter, did her best to keep up with her mother's fast pace. "Ah, there you are!" Dora found him talking to his foreman, Jörg Ruprecht. Both men stopped their discussion and turned to [...]

Late Summer, 1634   The bell at the Torre dell'orologio, the clock tower, struck the hour. Conrad Ursinus gestured meaningfully at the fifty yards of tiled pavement that still separated the party from the doge's palace. "Half a minute late. You think it's better to get there half a minute late and have them think [...]

Grantville 1637   "Thirty days," intoned the judge, gavel thundering onto its wooden target. "Auctioneers for the sale will be paid by the court, and all belongings not for sale—there being no joint property—removed beforehand, by order of this court." That pronouncement put paid to her marriage, its last half something far different than its [...]

Chapter 6 Lindenstruth   Dusk was falling in the German forest when Nicholas heard the faint strains of a complex tune on the evening breeze. Baird paused for a few moments and smiled, as though he were familiar with the music. He then nudged his horse into a quicker pace, leaving Nicholas to wonder what [...]

Chapter 5   Later that evening, as they dined at the Thuringia Gardens in Grantville, Marcus watched as the girl ate with a gusto that reminded him of a horse with a feed bag. It was focused, contained, and nothing was wasted. Marcus found himself staring, not eating his dinner, fascinated by the creature across [...]

At the end of 1636, The United States of Europe is one of the largest and most powerful nations in Europe. Spanning from its borders with Burgundy and the Netherlands in the west, to its border with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the east, the United States of Europe is among the nations with the highest [...]

A ship is home to its crew for weeks, months, even years. And like a home, a ship should provide air that is fresh and of a comfortable temperature and humidity. It also should provide sanitation facilities. ****   Ventilation   According to Sir Walter Raleigh, ship cabins were "sluttish dens that breed sickness" (EllisVV). [...]

Welcome to another edition of HOT Off the Ring of Fire Press! We have a bunch of new stuff for you this issue! Beginning October 1, we will be publishing a book a week. It's hard to keep saying that you're a small press when you are publishing 52 books a year, but we still [...]

This Issue’s Cover- 91 Alafair's Ball of Destiny This issue's cover is inspired by the latest episode of Michael Lockwood's ongoing saga, A Puritan Voice. I liked the homemade Magic 8 Ball imitation so much I wanted one!  

Regular readers of this column know I'm a student of history. I read about historical things in my leisure, and I studied it in school. I use history to inform my sf and fantasy writing. I use history to craft historical fiction. Until I started writing my Smokey Dalton mystery series, I did not use [...]

It began with a distant whump, felt more than heard. Or his subconscious invented those details, in an effort to bring order out of chaos. All that Teljod Kelmar knew for certain, a suddenly keening alarm having jolted him awake, was that something must have gone wrong. Terribly wrong. One thing he did know: the [...]