Grantville Gazette 37

These are only a few of many examples of alterations the series has produced in OTL (1632 shorthand for “Our Time Line”). Each new book in the series takes the reader a little further down the path of the altered timeline, and as Eric Flint is opposed to the “Great Man[3]” interpretation of history, the stories often cover several interlocking subplots with different casts of characters, and sometimes different authors as well. There are, to date, over four-and-a-half million words in print, and the printed books in this series are just the tip of the iceberg. It would take a small army, or at least a platoon, to keep track of all these details; fortunately Eric Flint has enlisted one.

What is the Grantville Gazette?

It started with an online discussion forum. The forum was called the “1632 Tech Manual,” and it was set up by Baen Books for fans of 1632 to discuss the series, and for Eric Flint to solicit technical advice on relevant questions. That was its original purpose, but when fans gather together online, fan fiction is sure to follow.

To Eric Flint and his publisher, Jim Baen, some of the fan fiction produced on the “1632 Tech Manual” was noticeably good; even good enough to publish. So they did. The first instance of fan-written stories for the 1632 series appearing in print was an anthology entitled Ring of Fire. The anthology contained some works by established authors as well as first-time (fan) authors, but all the stories were fictional accounts set in the 1632 universe.

A second anthology was planned, but more stories were being submitted than could possibly fit into it, even after the submission deadline had passed. Rather than ignore these stories, Eric Flint and Jim Baen decided to incorporate them into an experimental online magazine. Thus, the Grantville Gazette[4] was born.

The Grantville Gazette is a collection of fiction stories set in the 1632 universe and non-fiction articles dealing with topics relevant to the series. It was originally put out every six months, but now new volumes are published online bimonthly. It has an administrative staff which is in part selected from the fan base, and solicits new stories and articles via yet another unique process, discussed below in the “Baen’s Bar Forums” section. The Gazette also has five print editions out. To distinguish between print and electronic editions, online volumes of the Grantville Gazette have Arabic numbers (1, 2, 3 . . .) while the print editions have Roman numerals (I, II, III . . .). The first four books in the print edition (Grantville Gazette I-IV) contain the same contents as the electronic versions (Grantville Gazette Vol. 1-4), but the speed of online publishing was fast outpacing the printed books, so the latest print edition, Grantville Gazette V, collects stories from Volumes 5-11 of the online edition. The online edition is currently up to Volume 36. (Editor's note: You're reading this in Volume 37.)

It is important to understand that in its current incarnation, the Gazette is not a fan fiction collection, but a web magazine. While the Gazette is not strictly speaking fan fiction, it does what fan fiction has always done; it creates a filled space between major storylines, populated by the imaginations of the readers. Unlike most other fan fiction in existence, however, the contents of the Gazette are considered “canonized,” and can and frequently do impact the main storyline, taking the 1632 universe in directions Eric Flint could not have foreseen.

It is not unusual for authors to call upon fans for help in keeping track of series details, or to solicit technical advice, but this is usually where it ends. There have been some instances in the past of series authors letting fan fiction feed back into the main storyline, such as Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series, and the FanDemonium publishing house for Stargate novels. For the Darkover series, fans submitted their stories to Bradley, and those she approved of sometimes made it into print. In their heyday, Darkover fans collaborated in the publication of twelve anthologies of fan fiction over the course of two decades. (Coker, 1) Some of the stories in these books even became canonized.

Unfortunately, the interaction of fans with the Darkover universe ended due to a kerfuffle over a threatened lawsuit, and Bradley moved to disband her fan organizations. (Coker, 1) Fandemonium is a publishing company that puts out fan-produced stories in the Stargate universe, but with strict limits on fan fiction. The company is licensed directly from Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM), and MGM has approval power over “each stage of the novel’s production, from initial outline to final draft.” (“Stargate Novels,” 1)

The Grantville Gazette is different. Here, stories are not subject to authorial or corporate approval. All stories are submitted to a public forum (Baen’s Bar “1632 Slush”) for critiquing and comments. Story editing and peer review can be and is performed by any member of the Baen’s Bar community, in addition to the editorial board. Perhaps most important is Eric Flint’s role in the process, or, rather, lack thereof. As one member of the forum put it:

“Eric has relinquished control of that process. Frequently-VERY FREQUENTLY-there are stories in the Gazette he has not read. He doesn't have time. The ed board does it. THAT is unique. Public submission, public review, group editorial selection, primary author relinquishing control[.] Never been done before. Unique.” (Rick Boatright)

In letting his fans shape the developing world of 1632 without direct supervision, Eric Flint has taken fan participation to a whole new level. This is cultural convergence happening even as we speak.

The Gazette Stories

As an alternate history series, the Grantville Gazette stories often have to challenge the preconceived notions that many Americans hold about early modern Europe, such as the idea that society was strait-laced in the Victorian Age and got more rigid going further back in time. Many authors use the fumblings of the American up-timers to poke gentle fun at the inadequacies of the American educational system regarding European history.

One of the most common uses of fan fiction is to expand the story to explore themes that the author did not or could not cover in the original storyline. It is often a chance to develop unseen or alternative relationships between main characters, especially for the predominantly female authors of most fan fiction. The Grantville Gazette offers a particularly rich source of material for these explorations, as the writers can challenge not only common standards of what a relationship should be, but perceptions on what historical standards of relationships were.

As with any culture meeting another, there are instances of up-timers and down-timers intermarrying, with all the miss-steps and culture clashes one would expect. One of the common themes in these stories is the historical status of betrothals, dowries, and family expectations of marriage in seventeenth-century Europe, and these do not always live up to twenty-first-century American expectations. The historical status of queer lifestyles is also up for challenge. There is at least one continuing serial featuring a lesbian couple ('Game, Set, and Match,' 'Boom Toys'), and two stand-alone stories that feature real historical characters who were known to be gay or transgender ('Venus and Mercury,' 'Land of Ice and Sun').

Another common theme in the Gazette fiction stories is exploration. Several authors have taken the opportunity to extend the influence of the 1632 characters to wildly separate parts of the globe. Their travels include founding a new settlement in North America in 'Northwest Passage,' hunting for quinine and rubber in South America in 'Stretching Out,' advising Russian nobles in 'Butterflies in the Kremlin,' and trying to prevent the dodo’s extinction on the island of Mauritius in 'Second Chance Bird.'

Technological adaptations and applications of twentieth-century knowledge to seventeenth-century resources are also a common story theme. One of the earliest continuing serials dealt with the efforts of a group of teenagers to start a company manufacturing pedal-powered sewing machines. Other stories have dealt with military weaponry, airships, planes, radios, and even road paving.

Of course, all of this technological convergence requires a lot of research, as well as historical acumen in knowing what would be plausible in the seventeenth century. This is part of the reason that the original “1632 Tech Manual” was established, and why every Gazette volume has contained non-fiction articles as well as fiction stories. The articles are designed to inform the authors and potential authors as well as the readership of various details of the state of the 1632 universe, and the historical aspects of the seventeenth century. They include such diverse topics as finance, mineralogy, farming, period-specific dancing, astronomy, population studies, and early disease theory. The nonfiction section of the Gazette can also be considered writer’s tools, in that they provide valuable information that other authors can use to shape their stories for the 1632 universe.

The Baen’s Bar Forums