Take a town full of West Virginia coal miners, 17th century nobility, one of the longest and bloodiest wars in history, d'Artagnan (without the three musketeers), Blaise Pascal, Rene Decartes, Galileo, Oliver Cromwell and Gustav II Adolph. Shake well and simmer for thirteen years.

Eric Flint's world of 1632 is an amazing and complex alternate history universe that split off from ours one spring day in 2000 and 1631.

The Grantville Singles provide readers with the opportunity to sample some of our favorite stories from the semi-monthly magazine devoted to the series, The Grantville Gazette. We hope you enjoy them.

In this story Robert Waters braids two tales of family and war, in the 17th century and the Thirty Years war, and in the 20th century and World War Two, Throughout both tales run the ties of family that bind us.

Robert provides another unique eye into the creation of the new world of 1632.