Eric Flint (February 6, 1947 – July 17, 2022) was an American author, editor, and
e-publisher
Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. It also includes the editing ...
. The majority of his main works are
alternate history
Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...
science fiction, but he also wrote humorous
fantasy adventures. His works have been listed on ''The New York Times'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''The Washington Post'', and ''Locus'' magazine best seller lists. He was a co-founder and editor of the
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
.
Early life and education
Born in 1947 in
Burbank
Burbank may refer to:
Places Australia
* Burbank, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane
United States
* Burbank, California, a city in Los Angeles County
* Burbank, Santa Clara County, California, a census-designated place
* Burbank, Illinois, ...
,
California, Flint worked on a Ph.D. in history specializing in southern African history. He left his doctoral program in order to become a political activist in the labor movement and supported himself from that time until age 50 in a variety of jobs, including longshoreman, truck driver, and
machinist
A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who not only operates machine tools, but also has the knowledge of tooling and materials required to create set ups on machine tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling ...
, and as a
labor union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
organizer. A long-time leftist political activist, Flint worked as a member of the
Socialist Workers Party.
Career
After winning the fourth quarter of 1993
Writers of the Future contest, he published his first novel in 1997 and moved to full-time writing in 1999.
Shortly afterwards, he became the first librarian of the
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
and a prominent anti–copy protection activist.
He has edited the works of several classic SF authors, repackaging their short stories into collections and fix-up novels. This project has met commercial success, and has returned several out-of-print authors to print.
In 2004, faced with a persistent drain on his time
by fan-fiction authors seeking comment on the four years old
1632 Tech Manual
The ''1632'' series, also known as the 1632-verse or ''Ring of Fire'' series, is an alternate history book series and sub-series created, primarily co-written, and coordinated by American author Eric Flint and published by Baen Books.
The se ...
web forum focused on his
1632 series
The ''1632'' series, also known as the 1632-verse or ''Ring of Fire'' series, is an alternate history book series and sub-series created, primarily co-written, and coordinated by American author Eric Flint and published by Baen Books.
The s ...
, he suggested
to
Jim Baen the experimental serialized fan-fiction e-zine ''
The Grantville Gazette
''The Grantville Gazette'' (''Grantville Gazette I or more recently yet, Grantville Gazette, Volume 1'') is the first of a series of professionally selected and edited paid fan fiction anthologies set within the 1632 series inspired by Eric Fli ...
'' which also found commercial success.
Four of the ''Gazette'' magazine editions were collated into anthology formats, bought by Jim Baen and brought out in either hardcover or paperback or both formats, though the last purchased
remains unpublished. Subsequently, Flint became editor of the new ''
Jim Baen's Universe'' science-fiction e-zine while concurrently remaining a creative writer bringing out three to five titles per year. After the death of Jim Baen due to a stroke and after completing the contract for the tenth ''Grantville Gazette'', Flint founded a new website,
grantvillegazette.com, which is not only continuing to bring out ''
The Grantville Gazettes'', but increasing the publishing rate from four per year to bimonthly while paying better than standard magazine pay rates and is modeled on the JBU e-zine.
As of October 2007, he lived with his wife Lucille (also an ex-labor organizer) in
East Chicago, Indiana.
In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at
Northern Illinois University.
Flint was the author guest of honor for the 2010
NASFiC,
ReConStruction.
He also participated in
The Stellar Guild series published by
Phoenix Pick. The series pairs bestselling authors such as Flint with lesser known authors in science fiction and fantasy to help provide additional visibility to them.
Electronic publishing
Eric Flint is noted as a co-founder and editor of the
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
which is an ongoing experiment in electronic publishing (
e-books in multiple unencrypted formats) where Flint and the late
Jim Baen convinced authors to post entirely unprotected free copies of various works for download over the internet. One early goal was to see if the release of free electronic content would increase the sales of their traditional print or (for-pay) electronic editions. As part of the initial phase, Flint has published
series of essaysthat in form have been part blog and part ''letters to the editor'' tracking the experiment and championing the practice.
Financially, it seems to be working out for publisher Baen Books, as they have embraced unencrypted e-book publication for all their works available in a variety of common formats. Usually eighty to a hundred titles are available in the ''Baen Free Library'' at any given time. In most cases, the works involved are the early volumes in continuing series, ''appetite whetters'', where readers might be likely to purchase later works in the same series.
All new Baen Books can also be purchased as
e-books in the same unencrypted formats as the free library throug
Baen WebScriptions As an added wrinkle one can purchase a monthly ''collection'' of five bundled works in the release stage of publication at Baen's. Once the bundle reaches four months from its scheduled release date in print, about half of the work is serialized and available to readers purchasing the ''advanced peek''. A month later, the next quarter, followed by the last quarter, available about a month on average ahead of any printed work. The last delivery contains the copyedited e-book version of the book.
One can also purchase ''electronic Advanced Reader Copies'', which are not a part of the monthly bundle, but are available for purchase. These followed a successful experiment with an online
eMagazine, called the Grantville Gazette (more below—see ''1632 series''). They are unproofed manuscripts and are full of typos and errors. They are unedited from the author's word processor; however, they are available even before the first part of the monthly bundles. These copies do not include the final proofed version, which is available only in the single or monthly bundle for that book. In March 2007, Flint began acting as publisher of a for-fe
web-access versionof the gazette.
Flint also helmed
Jim Baen's Universe, an e-zine published from 2006 until 2010.
Death
Flint died on July 17, 2022, at the age of 75 in
East Chicago, Indiana.
Bibliography
Reception
To date, six of his books have been included on
The New York Times Best Seller list. They are ''1634: The Galileo Affair'' (2004), ''1634: The Baltic War'' (2007), ''1634: The Bavarian Crisis'' (2007), ''1636: The Kremlin Games'' (2013), ''Torch of Freedom'' (2009), and ''Cauldron of Ghosts'' (2014).
''1635: The Papal Stakes'' (2012), ''The Crucible of Empire'' (2010), and ''Threshold'' (2010) were listed on ''
The Wall Street Journal'' Best-Selling Books list for Hardcover Science Fiction.
''Cauldron of Ghosts'' (2014) was listed on ''
The Washington Post'' Best-Selling Books list for Hardcover Fiction.
Almost all of Flint's books sold well enough to get listed on the various ''
Locus'' Bestsellers Lists with some titles listed multiple times and a few even reached the top spot for the month.
Awards and honors
Flint was awarded the 2008
Dal Coger Memorial Hall of Fame Award primarily for his ''River of War'' series.
In 2018, he received a Special
Sidewise Award for Alternate History for his ongoing encouragement of the genre of alternate history through his support of the community and writers developed around his 1632 series.
References
External links
*
Baen catalog of Flint's workFlint's catalog of work at Simon & Schuster(also contains publication quality images of book covers)
Prime Palaver essays most discussing copy protection and Baen's e-policies, a topic taken up again in the dedicated column in ''Jim Baen's Universe''
e-zine:
*
Salvos Against Big Brother Flint's essays against
DRM and copyrights in
Jim Baen's Universe magazine.
*
Editor's column (bimonthly)at
Jim Baen's Universe.
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flint, Eric
1947 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American short story writers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American short story writers
American alternate history writers
American book editors
American fantasy writers
American male novelists
American male short story writers
American Marxists
American online publication editors
American political activists
American science fiction writers
American speculative fiction editors
American speculative fiction publishers (people)
Novelists from California
Novelists from Indiana
People from Burbank, California
People from East Chicago, Indiana
Science fiction editors
Sidewise Award winners
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Place of birth missing