I read The Alexander Inheritance, some years ago, and I have to say it didn't leave me with any interest in reading further in the series. I agree that it just isn't up to 1632 and its successors. Perhaps Flint just wasn't as passionate about the changes his characters were making in the Hellenistic world as about Michael Stearns's plan to bring about the American Revolution a century and a half early; at any rate, he didn't make me care about their success.
I think the Hellenistic sub-series is one of those where the senior author provides an outline and the junior authors do the writing, then the primary author goes over the manuscript and works with them to put it in tip-top shape. It's something that Baen has been doing for decades, as a way to build up name recognition for promising new authors in their stable (which was why I'd really hoped to sell to Baen, back when traditional was still the only game in town). Eric Flint did one with Belisarius and time travel after his freshman novel Mother of Demons came out.
I'm not sure what might've gone wrong with this collaboration. Eric Flint was in ill health the last several years of his life, so it's possible he simply didn't have the energy to get it polished to the level it deserved, or guide his junior collaborators through the process. So it went out "good enough," but not really up to the level of the main (Grantville) series.
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I read The Alexander Inheritance, some years ago, and I have to say it didn't leave me with any interest in reading further in the series. I agree that it just isn't up to 1632 and its successors. Perhaps Flint just wasn't as passionate about the changes his characters were making in the Hellenistic world as about Michael Stearns's plan to bring about the American Revolution a century and a half early; at any rate, he didn't make me care about their success.
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I think the Hellenistic sub-series is one of those where the senior author provides an outline and the junior authors do the writing, then the primary author goes over the manuscript and works with them to put it in tip-top shape. It's something that Baen has been doing for decades, as a way to build up name recognition for promising new authors in their stable (which was why I'd really hoped to sell to Baen, back when traditional was still the only game in town). Eric Flint did one with Belisarius and time travel after his freshman novel Mother of Demons came out.
I'm not sure what might've gone wrong with this collaboration. Eric Flint was in ill health the last several years of his life, so it's possible he simply didn't have the energy to get it polished to the level it deserved, or guide his junior collaborators through the process. So it went out "good enough," but not really up to the level of the main (Grantville) series.
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