David Weber/Eric Flint 1632/1633...want comments.

[Chris G.]

I have been reading David Webber/ Eric Flint this summer and I have gathered some pretty negative comments about the writing style of these books. I want to hold them back and see if anyone has read these authors and thinks as I do.

[FicusFan]

I guess I am not sure I understand your post. You are reading Weber and Flint, but not yet 1632/1633 , is that correct ? BTW the series also contains 1634, and at least two anthologies.

If you are reading Weber and Flint already you should know if you like their writing or not. It would seem that you could make the decision on your own opinion of their writing, and whether or not you like historical settings, since the stories in the books are set in those years.

I have tried to read Weber's Honor Harrington series and stopped in the middle of the 4th or 5th book. I found it just too boring to go on. He has a lot of politics, and things I usually like but he just makes them so tedious. A lot of set up and narrative, and very little character interaction. I think in one of the earlier books, during a space battle there is only two lines of dialog in an entire chapter. He gets carried away with the space battles and the vectors and so on.

That said, I have enjoyed his Prince Roger series. It is also military SF and has a lot of battles, but they are on land, and there is more character interaction. Still it is not deep or important writing, but fine for an enjoyable read.

So far I have only read 1632 . Which I quite liked. It was by Flint alone, and I read it after Stirling's Nantucket series, which has the same type of theme, but it takes itself much more seriously. Flint has a lighter more comedic touch than Stirling does.

Flint is also much more straightforward about having American good old boys with their guns blowing away them nasty foreigners. That might not be so enjoyable if you are not from the US, or if you can't laugh at the accurate portrayal of US behavior.

I enjoyed Flint's Rats, Bats and Vats, and it too was funny.

In both cases they write military SF that is often filled with the 'fun' of blowing things up. Sometimes the characters and settings are good, and Flint can have a light comedic touch. Not something I wold want to read constantly but ok for a change, and I don't automatically read all their stuff, but pick and choose.

[nicba]

Eric Flint is the 'librarian' of the Baen Free Library and 1632 was one of the first books in that collection. The Baen Free library is a free (and legal!) source for downloadable e-books in various formats (Microsoft Reader, RTF and plain HTML, among others). I suggest you try to download it from there and see if you like it. If you do, you can always buy a paper copy later.

I read 1632 from that 'library' some years ago and liked it. I admit I was a little bothered by the heavy-handed US patriotic 'feel' at the start, but I kept going and the story soon drew me in so I forgot about it. I liked the book enough that I bought it when I stumbled over it a couple of days ago for cheap. I've not read any of the sequels, though (yet).

The Baens Free Library can be found here: http://www.baen.com/library/

[Chris G.]

Tedious, long winded, goes on for pages full of CRAP that have NOTHING to do with the story and his diologue is LOADED with needless adjectives that make his books even LESS enjoyable. In my view, he is the perfect example of an established writer who's books get published no matter HOW awful they are.