Life Imitates Art

As I've been watching news coverage on the flu outbreak, I immediately started thinking of John Ringo's recent biothriller, The Last Centurion. Of course the situation isn't exactly the same, since in our world the flu outbreak is following a major economic dislocation caused by the mortgage meltdown, but it still is enough to give me chills.

However, some people on Baen's Bar have been suggesting that the quick response by public health agencies indicates this isn't going to be the Big One, but that will come from some unexpected quarter while we're distracted with something else. Or worse, if this outbreak is successfully contained, we could get a "cry wolf" effect that will actually impair people's readiness to respond properly when it really comes.

1632-verse News

It looks like there's going to be at least two more novels in the 1632 universe coming out this year or early next year. One, 1635: Sympathy for the Devil is a collaboration with David Carrico, and may either be a compilation or a continuation of the stories of Franz Sylwester and Marla Linder which have been appearing in various issues of Grantville Gazette, as well as in Ring of Fire II. The other, tentatively entitled 1635: The Tangled Web, is listed in a pre-release list as being by Virginia DeMarce alone, which would be a departure from previous procedures, and may represent Eric Flint's decision to hand off some of the side stories altogether. However, this could also be a misprint, so we should not read too much into it.