1636: The Viennese Waltz
Eric Flint, Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff
Baen,
Nov 4 2014, $25.00
ISBN: 9781476736877
In
1634 in Vienna, the Austro-Hungarian Empire is in trouble from outsiders
threatening to invade and from an economic depression eroding from within. This comes at a particular precarious time
since His Majesty Ferdinand II is near death and his heir Prince Ferdinand
(soon to be HMF III if the empire survives) prefers driving a sports car rather
than run a nation, especially a troubled one.
Meanwhile
the leaders of the United States of Europe alliance from Sweden and Grantville,
West Virginia see a rare opportunity to broker an agreement with one of the
Holy Roman Empire states. Thus they plan
to send a delegation to Vienna that include auto mechanics and Barbie
Consortium financial whiz fifteen year old Haley Fortney, who insists her
parents have kidnapped her by sending her to that barbaric backwater. As an assassination is plotted, no one inside
of Austro-Hungary is ready for the Barbies waltzing their way to the Danube.
This
is an interesting sidebar alternate history that for the most part concentrates
on a fascinating but passive economic crisis.
The Cecil B. DeMille’s size cast of previously secondary and tertiary
support players and newbies play key roles; but are difficult to keep track of
even with a scorecard. Still the look at
early seventeenth century Vienna through the eyes of the transported outsiders
(summed up by Haley who feels she is in unfair exile amidst the barbarians)
combined with a depression make for a pleasant seventeenth century drama.
Harriet Klausner
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