Eric Flint.
Grantville Gazette.
Volume 4.
Preface
by Eric Flint.
Once again, alas, I need to apologize for the delay in producing this volume of the magazine. In my preface to Volume 3, I confidently predicted that we"d be able to publish the next volume in late January or February. Instead. . .
Well, here it is, in mid-April.
Again, the main cause of the delay was illness. In this case, my copy-editor got sick with this very nasty
strand of the flu that"s been plaguing us recently. Then, by the time she recovered, she had a backlog of other work that was more pressing than the magazine, that she had to do first.
(Which, she did. Sorry, folks, but facts are stubborn things-and it"s just a fact that the income for a
publisher that"s generated by an electronic magazine, even a successful one like the Gazette, is always going to put it at the bottom of the priority list. Such is life. No reason we can"t have fun grousing about it, of course, but do be aware that it"s on a par with grousing about the weather.) Someone might wonder why I didn"t just find a different copy-editor. Picture me gasping with horror. Modean has copy-edited every single piece produced in the 1632 series since the original novel 1632 that created it in the first place. By now, there are many ways in which she knows this universe better than I do. Just to give one example, the official style sheet that I ask people to use when writing stories or articles for the magazine was produced by her, not me. I asked her to do so, which she did by systematizing what had been my semi-conscious practices in 1632 and 1633 and The Ring of Fire.
The point is this: copy-editors are important. They do far more than simply proof-read to check for typos. They are also the people who systematically cross-check the text to make sure the authors are maintaining factual, thematic and stylistic continuity within the story and (in the case of a series) from one story to the next. Continuity lapses are a problem even within a single, stand-alone novel. With a long and complex series like the 1632 series, they can become a major problem without a good copy-editor who knows the material extremely well serving as the watchdog.
I would no more casually change copy-editors for a 1632 project than I would blithely schedule the second half of major dental work with a different dentist because my regular one didn"t have an opening on exactly the day I wanted. (I"ve had the same dentist for twenty-three years and the same doctor for nineteen. There is a reason for this.) Far better, as inconvenient as it might be, to wait a couple of months.
However, all"s well that ends well, and here is Volume 4. There"s even a bright side to the delay, which is that it enabled me and the editorial board to get the fifth volume put together in the meantime. Modean already has it and she tells me-told Paula, rather, my a.s.sistant editor-that she foresees no delay in getting that one ready.
So, if all goes well-which it should! it should!-we"ll have Volume 5 ready for publication in two to three months. That would put us back on the triannual schedule I"ve been hoping to maintain all along.
(No, we haven"t been doing it. Our actual schedule has been closer to biannual.)
* * * Some remarks on the contents of this volume: Once again, I had to go through my usual dance, trying to decide which stories should go under "Continuing Serials" and which should be published as stand-alone stories. This is a dance which, as the magazine unfolds, is getting. . .
Really, really complicated.
In the end, I pa.r.s.ed the contents of this volume in such a way that only David Carrico"s "Heavy Metal Music" fell into the category of "Continuing Serials." I am even willing to defend that choice under pressure, although-fair warning-my defense will lean heavily on subtle points covered by Hegel in
his Science of Logic. (The big one, not the abridgment he did later for his Encyclopedia. So brace yourselves.)That said. . .Well. . ."Poor Little Rich Girls," by Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff, continues the adventures of the teenage tyc.o.o.ns-in-the-making that Gorg began in "The Sewing Circle" in Volume 1 of the Gazette and continued in the story "Other People"s Money" in Volume 3. I will stoutly insist that Virginia DeMarce"s ""Til We Meet Again" is a stand-alone story; no ifs, ands or buts about it. I will also admit that, knowing Virginia, the status will last about as long as a s...o...b..ll in h.e.l.l. Leaving aside the suspicious appearance of the name "Quedlinburg," the presence anywhere in the vicinity of Mary Simpson is enough in itself to set off all the alarm bells. I introduced the character of the Abbess of Quedlinburg myself, in 1633-but did so at Virginia"s recommendation. I should have known. . .
As for Mary Simpson, I first introduced her as a minor character in 1632 and then developed her as a major character in 1633. Since then, the dame seems to be taking over the world. She"ll be a major character in 1634: The Bavarian Crisis and I can see her looming in David Carrico"s series.
The same with Karen Bergstralh"s "One Man"s Junk." In this volume, that story is a stand-alone. Yup, sure is. That status will last until the next volume comes out. At which point the readers will discover that life goes on, for the characters in that story as with so many others.
The same will probably prove to be true, sooner or later, with most about all the other stories in this volume. The truth? The distinction I make for the Gazette between "continuing serials" and "stand-alone stories" is pretty much a.n.a.logous to the distinction the law makes between first and second degree murder. The one is premeditated in cold blood; the other more-or-less happens in the heat of the fray.
There are times I think of just throwing up my hands and publishing all of the stories in the Gazette as "continuing serials." And, in my darker moments, contemplate changing the t.i.tle of the magazine to The 1632 Soap Opera. That"s because, like a soap opera, the characters just seem to go on forever and ever in one episode after another. Unless one of them is actually Killed Off-and then, sometimes, you don"t really know For Surethey"ll keep re-appearing. Often enough, in somebody else"s episode.
On the other hand, I"m not a sn.o.b about soap operas. I used to be, until many years ago my wife"s work schedule required me to tape her favorite soap opera so she could watch it when she got home. Initially, I did so holding my nose-and bound and determined to watch only the first few minutes to make sure it was taping properly. This was back in the early days of VHS when I didn"t trust the technology involved.
(And still don"t, but I admit I"m something of a technophobe.)
Before a week had pa.s.sed, I found myself watching the entire d.a.m.n episode! Day after day! It was then that I first discovered just how addictive soap operas could be. I"m surprised some enterprising politician hasn"t tried to include them in the ongoing and glorious War on Drugs. (Whose prospects, in my opinion, were best described in Eric Frank Russell"s Wasp by a disgruntled shopkeeper commenting on the military success of the Sirian Empire: "For months we have been making triumphant retreats before a demoralized enemy who is advancing in utter disorder.") In defense of the Gazette, I will say that the characters in this soap opera are wrestling with a far broader range of concerns than the usual fare of love pining from afar, emotional misunderstandings that somehow last for years when a simple five-minute conversation could settle it, and, of course, the inevitable jealousies and adulteries. Not that the magazine avoids those, either, of course. But the characters also wrestle with political issues, religious issues, worry about their livelihoods and scheme to make a fortune or at least a decent income.
In short, the Gazette is an ongoing chronicle of the way an alternate history would actually evolve, if you looked anywhere beyond the narrow circle of Ye Anointed Heroes and Heroines. The distinction between this and a soap opera-or The World"s Great Literature, for that matter-is mainly in the eye of the beholder.
Yes, sorry, it is. It is widely known, of course, that only women watch soap operas, just as only women gossip. In my innocent youth, I believed these nostrums, until a quarter of a century working in transportation and factories proved to me how ridiculous they were. You can find no better example in the world of "gossip" than what machinists are doing standing around the tool crib or truck drivers are doing at lunch tables in a truck stop. Of course, if you ask them, they will insist they are engaged in the manly art of "shooting the breeze." Just as, if you ask the electricians and millwrights in the maintenance shop who are watching daytime television while waiting for something to break down that requires their expertise, they will insist they are not actually watching the soap operas showing on the set. No, no. They are merely interested in ogling Whazzername"s figure.
If this state of affairs irritates you, I can only shrug my shoulders. Don"t blame me, blame Homer. To this day, the Iliad stands as one of the world"s all-time great soap operas. The much-hallowed "epic" as it exists today is simply a cleaned-up pile of gossip. What it really was, in its inception, were the stories with which bards entertained the courts of Mycenaean kinglets by chattering about which G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses l.u.s.ted for which mortals, their mutual jealousies, and what they did to advance their. . . ah. . . "causes."
For that matter, blame the Old Testament. Sure, sure, a lot of it deals with Sublime Stuff like the creation of the universe, etc., etc. But there are whole swaths of the books in the Bible that look suspiciously like soap opera plots to me.
It"s not even peculiar to western culture. If you want to read the Greatest Soap Opera of all time, you can do no better than start the ma.s.sive Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. I say "start," because you may or may not finish the multi-volume work. (I did finish it, myself. But that was after I"d learned to enjoy a good long-running soap opera.) I believe it is still, to this day, the longest epic ever written.
The word "epic," of course, is what scholars call a soap opera that was written a long time ago, which gives it the patina of respectability. They will defend their use of terms by pointing to such episodes in the Mahabharata as the philosophical discourse between Krishna and Arjuna which is separately known as the famous Bhagavad Gita.
Very sublime, the Bhagavad Gita; yes, yes, no doubt about it. It"s also just one episode out of a mult.i.tude which follow (by and large) the adventures of the five Pandava brothers and the wife they share in common, Draupati. (Don"t blame me! I didn"t come up with the kinky stuff, although it"s sure fun to read about.) One of the central adventures of which involves the sublime subject of how the foolish oldest Pandava brother lost their wife in a game of dice.
So, I figure the Gazette is in good company.
* * * One last thing. As I said earlier, Volume 5 of the Gazette should be available within three months. We"re also well on the way to putting together Volume 6. As we did with volumes 2-4, we"ll make volumes 5-7 available as a three issue-package for $15, as an alternative to buying them as single issues for $6 apiece. And-need I say it-yes, we are accepting pre-orders. You can either purchase Volume 5 for $6 or the three-volume package.
Eric Flint April, 2005
STORIES.
Poor Little Rich Girls.
by Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff
"Will you two just give it up?" Heather asked, exasperated. "What good is that valley girl impersonation
going to do you? No one here in Badenburg has ever heard of a valley girl."
"For sure, Heather, for sure," Vicky Emerson answered. "We"re just getting into character. Gotta play dumb for the marks, you know."
"Like, haven"t you ever seen The Sting?" Judy Wendell asked, with a sort of stupid look on her face.
Then she dropped the pose and cracked up.
Heather shook her head. "This is just silly. We know what we want to buy, and we know that people, not marks, are starting to sell. The market is down since Guffy Pomeroy died, and people are nervous. All we have to do is show up at the wedding. They"ll come to us. Mrs. G said so."
"Yep," Judy confirmed. "They"ll come to us and pat us on the head, and treat us like a bunch of idiots, like we"re too young to know what we"re doing just because we"re only fourteen. Then they"ll try and dump their stock on us, because they"ll think we"re too stupid to know better. I"m getting a little tired of that part, but we can use it. Make them think there"s a problem and they"ll start dropping the prices."
Judy looked like she was ready to rub her hands together in antic.i.p.ation, while Vicky looked energized.
Susan Logsden just rolled her eyes, while the others grinned.
"Seriously, all of you," Susan remarked, "We ought to be able to double our net worth at this wedding.
Mrs. G arranged a loan on our HSMC stock, so we"ve got a lot of cash to work with. Make the best deals you can, then get Mrs. G involved. She can look like she"s trying to save us from being dumb, and people will drop their prices. It should work. I want to walk away from this with enough . . . "
Susan"s voice trailed off, but Heather knew what she meant. Susan wanted to be rich enough and secure enough that she wouldn"t ever have to be afraid of anything, ever again. She was still worried that something might go wrong, that she might have to go back to her mother. She didn"t want that and all the girls knew it. For Susan, the building panic in the stock market was an opportunity for security. For Judy, it was a game, a game she enjoyed and played somewhat ruthlessly. Vicky seemed to be treating it like a contest between the girls, a contest she wanted to win.
Heather shook her head again. Money was nice to have, sure, but she just wanted to have a good time and enjoy herself. Hayley, Gabrielle and Millicent felt the same way. "If I can make a deal, I will. But I"m not going to spend every minute looking for them. It"s supposed to be a party, you know."
* * * "Well," Vicky explained, "all those resistors and transistors, the integrated circuits and stuff are pretty complicated. They used to have special rooms to build them in, back up-time."
At first, the older gentlemen in the group treated her with amused condescension. Gradually, though, they started to look a little concerned. The girl"s comments stuck a chord matching some of the things they had read lately. Sensing the change in att.i.tude, Vicky threw out a few more comments, this time about how difficult it was to compress natural gas and store it, and then wandered away.
Arend Nebel had never been convinced that gas-powered stoves were a good idea. After listening on the fringes of the girl"s discussion, he was even less impressed with that investment. Master Drugen became interested in soldering irons first, because he thought they would be useful when making jewelry. Then he discovered that soldering irons were useful for producing a good seal on gas pipe connections in stoves. Arend didn"t see the relationship.
"Henning, are you sure your father was right? That girl said the gas was hard to store, that it could leak and cause a disaster. Maybe we should sell our interest in that company before that happens." "Arend, you know my father was careful. He believed the oven works was a good investment, or he wouldn"t have put so much of his money into it. You are giving in to this atmosphere of panic. If Father was still alive, he would say the same thing. We have only to wait, and we will be rich."
"I wanted to be a goldsmith. I still want to be a goldsmith. All three of us, even Justine, must now work like peons while all we do is wait, and wait some more. I"m tired of waiting, and I do not want my future wife to work, like one of these . . . these . . . common women of Grantville."
"Research at the library is hardly common, Arend. Justine enjoys the work. She is becoming quite modern, you know. She even spoke of continuing the work, after you are married." Henning knew he shouldn"t have teased Arend that way. Justine did enjoy the work, though, and Arend"s att.i.tudes were making her unhappy. Perhaps the marriage wasn"t as good an idea as Father thought. Time would tell.
"Very well, we will speak to this girl. Perhaps she knows something we do not."
* * * Vicky wondered what the two young men wanted as they approached. So help me, if someone else tries to hit on me, today . . . But no, that wasn"t what they wanted. They just wanted to talk about the gas ovens. Vicky figured that the oven works would be a success, over time. Once the problems of transporting the compressed natural gas were solved, the business would expand rapidly. Until then, business would be a little slow, but the investors" estimate of being able to sell ten thousand ovens in the next two or three years was pretty solid.
Vicky knew that the oven works had about half a dozen investors, all down-timers. The one up-timer involved led a team of down-timers trying to come up with designs for cooking stoves, camp stoves, s.p.a.ce heaters and so on. They had a couple of working prototypes and a plan for ma.s.s production. It was a good investment, one she would be happy to have. Still, she let the young men explain all this, while she waited for them to make up their minds.
Vicki tapped her finger on her lips thoughtfully. "Well, even though it"s risky, this does sound interesting. I do want to reinvest the many thousands of dollars I was fortunate enough to make in the sewing machine company."
Arend said, "I"ll sell you my thousand shares at nine dollars each."
"That seems awfully high," said Vicky. "One explosion of a home and there goes my investment. What
if someone died of a gas leak in their home? Of course, Heinrich, on the design team, is awfully cute!"
Vicky batted her eyelashes.
Arend pulled Henning off to the side and whispered in his ear for a minute. Both nodded to one another,
then walked back to Vicky.
Finally, the young men made a real offer. A good offer, the one she was waiting for. She signaled Mrs. Gundelfinger, who came rushing over, clearly intent on protecting Vicky from someone who was trying to take advantage of her youth. Her att.i.tude increased one man"s determination to sell, and he lowered the price again. Curiously, the other man seemed to believe Mrs. G"s protective act. He backed out of the deal, which was a bit surprising. But Vicky was still able to buy one thousand shares of the oven works for the discount price of three dollars per share.