Assiti Shards effect

The Assiti Shards series are several loosely related book series in the literary subgenre alternate history of science fiction. Each story-line is based in a different milieu&mdash; its own literally alternative world (see multiverses)&mdash; and each is generated by an Assiti Shards Event, which is the literary mechanism that ties them all together.

This mechanism first published in February of 2000 in the novel 1632 and the fact that the Assiti Shards event results in a new fictional parallel universes is an old theme in science fiction in it's way. But the new wrinkle in literature conceived and created by historian–-science fiction--author--editor Eric Flint is to create a mechanism that similtaneously transposes two regions in vastly different time frames, or more than two if more than one Assiti shard strikes the earth. Thus in the forthcoming 1781 (novel) historical characters from Europe and America both find themselves else-when and else-where, creating an alternate history novel similar to the 1632 series. In By Any Other Name (novel), Flint uses the mechanism a bit more traditionally for science fiction writing, and it is not an alternate history, but some of the storyline none-the-less takes place in Elizabethian England and the title is pure Shakespeare, who puts in an appearance, as do the mysterious shadow race, the Assiti.

In general, only the newly minted creative literary mechanism is common to the respective various milieus which take place as seen by the protagonist of these tales in a different place and time. Only the initial foray, the 1632 universe (or colloquially: the 1632verse), as an example this sort of work is currently in print, but two others are in long delayed production.

Originally conceived as a series of successive 'one–of' (stand alone) alternate history novels exploring historical and political themes through juxtaposition of societies and figures, the original planned sequence of stand-alone novels by Flint were delayed and somewhat modified as his initial unveiling of the 'Assiti disaster mechanism' succeeded in launching the readers so deeply into the story conflict--that the detail of how the conflict began paled to insignificance--as the milieu's self-generating conflicts captured the imagination of a wide public who literally demanded more on the web forum Baen's Bar and effectively derailed the author's planned works for several years. This effort was so successful that the additional 'semi-related' works in planning and crafting were suspended but not abandoned by the author--put off by the popular clamor for more tales from in the first milieu which is set in the year 1632 in Medieval Germany. This just happens to be essentially at 'ground zero' in the middle of the Thirty Years' War which makes for an intriguing beginning with a lot of room for further developments, and the demands for more.

The Assiti mechanism literary vehicle
The question of whether the double-punctuated-discontinuity characteristic of an Assiti Shards event will become a stock literary vehicle for other authors that may 'borrow' the literary mechansism is moot at this early date a mere six years from it's first use. In science fiction it is entirely likely that it will be borrowed eventually and it is unimportant as is whether the new mechanism will lead to other successes in other such created milieus planned and created by it's author-inventor Eric Flint. As any such future deed now pales to insignificance in the face of the demand for more works, 'as soon as possible', in Flints first Assiti derived milieu ''1632 series. So future successes matter not compared to the outstanding success of the original occurrence relegating such questions to acedemia or mere speculative conjecture.

One outcome of the popularity of the resultant unplanned series was that its advancement became an experiment in massive collaborative authorship and mutual editing as the so called 1632verse (1632 universe) milieu concept resonated strongly enough with the readership that it encouraged a frenzy of historical research and additional creative works by fans (Fan-fic) of the first novel, 1632. This in quick succession generated what is now 10 works in six years, with many others in the pipeline, so the success of this mechanism as a plot motivator is clearly self-evident.

The basic premise of the mechanism is that a set of space-time juxtapositions occur to two different 'place-times' on the same planet, our earth (thus far), which in effect create multiple universes per any of several theories extant in Multiverse (science). In the literary implimentation, these consequent splits in the timeline of earth are merely a side effect or by-product of the shadowy alien Assiti race's favorite art form, which is somehow performed in multidimensional space-time. Exactly what sort of art and why exactly they cause convolutions of the space-time continuum are not revealed save the side-effect is the careless accidental result of a 'shard' (implying breakage of something) striking the earth. Save for a snippet noting that the Assiti will be called to account for such careless 'play' in the future&mdash; a far off future &mdash; the reader is left to speculate and the author procedes with the resulting plot circumstances into a sudden 'encounter' or deal with this situation type of story beginning. This is not unlike other literary mechanisms or plot starts involving time travel. One large subset of those include the protagonist having no control over a possible return to his start time, and this is in fact shared by the Assiti shard event&mdash;the time trip is irreversible, the protagonists must sink or swim&mdash; at least pending further words from the author.

Physically, these juxtapositions transitionally take on the appearance of a sphere of "heatless flame" or 'fire' that transposes two large sphere-sized spaces (measured in miles of diameter) from their own respective times and places. As seen from within, the phenomenum is eponymiously described as a Ring of Fire as the heatless flame manifests much more visibly at the air-ground interface thus appearing as more of a ring from within. Thus, this feature gives the title Ring of Fire to the third book in the first series utilizing this literary mechanism.

Two other entirely different books&mdash;besides this initial Ring of Fire Universe or 1632verse&mdash; using the same literary mechanism are in production, and they have also been replotted to accomidate demand&mdash; they are and will be multiple works set in their own respective Assiti Shards Milieu. These have actually been long delayed by the success of the first 1632 (novel), and consequent necessity to research and make happy the demands for more, as the first work was conceived as a stand-alone or one-of novel initially while plotting and planning these other milieus back in 2000–2001.

1632verse
Main articles: 1632 series, 1632 (novel)

The first book beginning the various Assitti Shards Multiverses is part of the alternate history Book series which details what occurs when a town from our year 2000 gets exchanged in space-time with a portion of Medieval Germany of equivalent size 369 years in the past. This Grantville Event, a term coined during the sensational press coverage over the disappearance of a whole town was likened to the Tunguska event by it's scientific inexplicability, caused the six-mile diameter hemispherical region centered on the town to arrive in the local year 1631.

In the tale, it takes only a short while for repercussions of modern technology and attitudes to impact the medieval society into which it is forever chained. Over a period those successive changes build toward a series of successive crises and triuphs intertwined in the Thirty Years' War, and as the sequence of events reaches well into the next year, 1632, the culumination of factors present a dichotomousness quandry of survive or adapt and the climactic series of events and surprising decisions and end leave the reader up beat and sanguine.

Because the book title coresponds to the end year of the story this line of alternate history, a type of parallel universe was created with no return, is called the 1632 universe, more commonly shortened to just 1632verse. This literary term is shorthand for the milieu, and similar equivalent terminology has been coined to refer to the book series and the new universe's timeline, known as the 1632 series and the Ring of Fire timeline, respectively. Alternatively, the new sequence of events is called the Grantville or 1632 neohistory, to make it plain whether a reference is to actual history or the given fictional milieu.

Grantville event becomes a phenomenum
In this first Assiti type story, told in the novel 1632, a near empty region on the fringe of the Thuringian Forest, the Thuringian Forest (german: Thüringer Wald; main article: Thuringenwald), was juxtaposed with the greater–Grantville region of equal size from West Virginia&mdash;on the afternoon of May 31, 2000 and to the afternoon of May 31, 1631. All of the disaster was due the irresponsible dangerous 'arts practices' of the advanced alien civilization known as the Assiti. Only a little has been revealed in print about this shadowy race, but for one key propensity: The Assiti love their perilous artform and will go on practicing it no matter how many disjoint side-effects develop on populated worlds which are another Assiti Event, to the peril of all unlucky to be near.

Thus the Assiti notoriety began to spread as the stand alone one of a kind novel 1632 (novel) attained modest early sales typical to and expected by newer writers in a genre, but there was a lot of talk on the internet about the book. The sales didn't level out and drop off in the normal way, but instead continued to slowly grow. The internet 'Buzz' became very loud on Baen's Bar a meeting place for science fiction fans, and when it was revealed that no sequel had been planned, there was dismay. Much of the chatter was of the typical 'What If' variety, focused on the susequent history of tiny beleaguered Grantville. Various historical threads became common themes, and greater numbers of people began frequenting the bar, so it spun off a dedicated forum just to handle the buzz; then a second one, and the author busy with other projects, but bemused by all the fuss began to join the regulars, self-styled as barflies and all the while the novel continued selling. Other authors began to drop in. Some fans grew tired of waiting and started to produce their own stories. Publisher Jim Baen thought some of them were promising indeed, and agreed to underwrite a third forum just for peer review purposes&mdash;which he and author Flint agreed to stay out of, reserving the copyrights to the authors.

The novel caused a small community centered on the website of Baen Books to arise, and essentially demand that Baen and author Eric Flint produce a sequel. This is not uncommon in a series, but it usually happens over a much longer timespan before a publisher will back a sequel.

Thus bolstered by the fan support and armed with reams of potential storylines from the websites speculative story threads, Flint and best selling author David Weber jointly agreed to undertake the complexity of a sequel based on workings of fans and the implications of the novel's scenario.

Further speculations were encouraged by the author, as they reinforced the main theme of the novel: the resourcefulness and idealism of the average 21st century small-town American. Other speculations centered on the shadowy Assiti, and Flints toolbox grew in the synergy of creation undertaken by enthusiastic and creative fan hunger which he deftly guided past inconsistent pitfalls with his historian-understanding of the underpinnings of the society and cultural realities he'd sentenced Grantville to overcome or perish. But Eric Flint while being led into the project had a clear idea of how much he owed to the fans and being a gambler, while plotting the sequel decided to do something very unique and history making&mdash;he invited other established authors inside and outside of Baen's stable to contribute to an anthology which he would edit while concurrently jointly producing a targeted writers guideline, style sheet and milieu tech manual. These things are normally an authors private preserve, but he'd issued a blank check to nearly twenty highly skilled writers, and they helped him refine all of it. The result was the two best sellers 1633 and Ring of Fire (anthology), the later being uncharacteristic in shared authors milieus for being the first to let the visiting author actually determine the main story line thread or threads. Normally, such visitors play safely off to the side somewhere where the series owner has no plans or interest in further developing.

They in turn helped form and shape the 'big novel' sequel so long awaited. As the sequel's various projects gelled and became production, Flint made another bold move to honor and acknowledge his debt to the fans who'd helped in so many ways to get the complex task get off the ground. Along with Jim Baen who was appropriately enough exploring the novel new area of electronic online publishing, Flint announced that he would edit an ebook of fan fiction as a tentative expermental matter, and Jim Baen agreed to underwrite the matter. This first experment was such a thorough success, that a second ebook was agreed upon, and the first was announced to be so good that Baen would publish it as a paperback, this became The Grantville Gazette.

Thus although sequels to 1632 were not originally planned, enthusiasm eventually caused Eric Flint (with David Weber) to produce 1633, a novel incorporating ideas and characters developed by his fans. Continuing in this vein, no fewer than three novels set in 1634 are planned, with one published (1634: The Galileo Affair). In addition, Flint now edits The Grantville Gazette, an authorized series of fan-written works set in the "1632verse". Although not part of the original plan, these volumes are also considered Assiti shard works.

The Assiti shard sequence has thus become an experiment in massive collaborative authorship. Although Flint maintains overall creative control, many details of his setting have now been parceled to first-time authors. The small society has developed its own institutions, such as its own "slush pile" for beta-testing stories and "grid" for keeping track of characters.

Other worlds in the Assiti Shards sequence
Several other volumes are planned containing entirely different premises: 1781, with George Washington and Frederick the Great transposed to ancient Rome's Crisis of the 3rd century, By Any Other Name, a transposition of the Assiti into Elizabethan England, and Time Spike, a transposition of various populations into the late Cretaceous.