Assiti Shards series

The first literary work in this fictional universe was 1632 (pub. 2000) by Eric Flint. This work led to a series of works that branched off this, into the Ring of Fire series (aka 1632 series). Most of the works in this fictional universe fall within this particular timeline. This timeline involves the displacement and exchange of the late 1990s mining town of Grantville, West Virginia with a piece of 1630s medieval southern Germany (in Thuringia).

Although 1632 was written as a stand-alone novel in 2000, Flint had planned several other universes using the Assiti Shards story premise. However, the sensation and interest engendered by the 1632 novel's publication subsequently caused the other works to be delayed while the 1632 series was developed.

This timeline was opened up to third-party authors, and open submissions. These are collected and published as the Grantville Gazettes, an online anthology magazine, focused solely on the Ring of Fire timeline. It is similar to Analog Science Fiction Science Fact, in that it publishes fiction and nonfiction. In this case, the nonfiction relates to the Ring of Fire timeline. The best stories, some commissioned, are collected into the Ring of Fire print anthology series.[4]

Many of the major novels in the series are collaborations between Eric Flint and other authors. The series is considered broad and expansive.[5]

A second timeline was introduced by Eric Flint when he released the novel Time Spike with co-author Marilyn Kosmatka in 2008. This timeline involves several different periods in the history of Middle America, starting with a maximum security prison in the 2000s, along with Amerinds on the Trail of Tears, Spanish Conquistadors, a city of the Mound Builders, and some Paleoindians—all displaced into the Cretaceous period age of dinosaurs. The Assiti Shard in this universe took pieces from different geologic time periods from the Devonian period through the present and jumble them together in an affected area while placing this mixture on a Cretaceous earth.

The first work in the series, the 2008 novel Time Spike (ISBN 9781439133125), was written by Eric Flint and Marilyn Kosmatka.[6] The main thread of the novel is about state maximum-security prison located in economically depressed downstate Illinois from the first decade of the 21st century being transported to a cretaceous Earth during the middle of an evening shift change so that the prison would (theoretically be) twice the normal number of prison staff available at the prison at any given time but before regular administrators, such as the warden and other section heads, show up. A secondary thread covers 19th century Cherokees being forcible escorted by U.S. Army troops from their homes in Georgia to their exile in would later become Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears. A tertiary thread is about the scientists who were left behind on the original 21st century Earth who are analyzing the cause behind the Assiti Shards displacements and their fight against an American government who is trying to keep the event at the prison (and the previous displacement at Grantville) secret from the general public for unknown purposes.[7]

Since volume 39 of The Grantville Gazette (2012), Garrett W. Vance has been writing an ongoing serial in the Time Spike universe that included Time Spike: The Good Samaritan and the Hanged Man, Time Spike: Evening in Cahokia, Time Spike: The Mysterious Mesa, and Time Spike: First Cavalry of the Cretaceous. Vance's stories were reissued as a single volume novel titled Time Spike: The Mysterious Mesa by Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press in 2018 (ISBN 978-1948818179). To date, this is the only other major work that is written in the Time Spike universe with a sequel in progress Time Spike: First Cavalry of the Cretaceous. The story concerns the adventures of cavalry scout Nate Tucker of the newly formed Republic of Texas serving as a soldier in the United States Army Cavalry who was escorting the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears incident. Tucker befriends a Spaniard formerly serving in Hernando de Soto's 16th century expedition across North America. The two men encounter pre-Columbian Native Americans from different time periods ranging from the Neolithic to the Mississippian culture period. [8]

From 2012 to 2017, author David W. Dove wrote three unrelated short stories in the Time Spike universe that were published in volumes 39,[9] 41,[10] and 74[11] of the Grantville Gazette.

This book series involved the transport of the 21st century cruise ship Queen of the Seas to the 4th century BCE Mediterranean and how 21st century technology affects the successors to Alexander the Great's vast empire.

This novel by Eric Flint with Paula Goodlett and Gorg Huff was released by Baen in July 2017 (ISBN 978-1481483483).[12] The cause of the displacement was described as "An Assiti Shard transposes a modern cruise liner into the Mediterranean just after the death of Alexander the Great."[13] The passengers and crew include a historian, a Norwegian cruise ship captain, a French first officer for navigation who was a competitive pistol marksman while previously serving in the French Navy, and an American congressman, who are thrown back in time during the period of the Diadochi, when one of world's largest empires was being split apart by civil war.[14][15]

The Macedonian Hazard, the second novel in the Queen of the Seas series was released in January 2021 (ISBN 978-1982125868).[16] The book picks up where The Alexander Inheritance had left off with when Olympias, Alexander's mother, shows up at the ship.[17]

The Sicilian Coil is the third novel set in the Queen of The Seas series released in September 2021 (ISBN 978-1956015133)[18] Published by Ring Of Fire Press September 9, 2021. This novel covers events in the region of Sicily and the Italian Peninsula that coincide with the events in the novel The Macedonian Hazard, from the viewpoints of characters who have left the Queen of the Seas to work with Rome and other cities in the region providing technical knowledge and radio communication links.