A sparkling addition to the multiple New York Times best-selling
Ring of Fire alternate history series created by Eric Flint. An
alchemist of the 17th century confronts modern science with often
amusing results.
Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, the world's greatest alchemist and a
great-grandson of Paracelsus--and a Bombast on his mother's side--was a
man history had forgotten. But when the town of Grantville was
transported by a cosmic accident from modern West Virginia to central
Germany in the early seventeenth century, he got a second chance at fame
and fortune.
The world's greatest alchemist does not make household goods. But with
suitable enticements Gribbleflotz is persuaded to make baking soda and
then baking powder so that the time-displaced Americans can continue to
enjoy such culinary classics as biscuits and gravy. Applying his superb
grasp of the principles of alchemy to the muddled and confused notions
the Americans have concerning what they call "chemistry," Gribbleflotz
leaves obscurity behind.
In his relentless search for a way to invigorate the quinta essential
of the human humors, Gribbleflotz plays a central role in jump-starting
the seventeenth century's new chemical and marital aids industries--and
pioneering such critical fields of human knowledge as pyramidology and
aura imaging. These are his chronicles.
About Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series:
"This alternate history series is ... a landmark..."--Booklist
"[Eric] Flint's 1632 universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop
of gifted alternate historians."--Booklist
"...reads like a technothriller set in the age of the
Medicis..."--Publishers Weekly
