After the <st1:state>West Virginia</st1:state> town of <st1:city><st1:place>Grantville</st1:place></st1:city> was unceremoniously hurled back through time to the 1630s, the seventeenth century would never be the same. Teenage capitalist girls have formed an investment group; a linotype operator, whose profession was wiped out by computers, finds a new life in an old century; a narrow gauge railroad, with a sit-down mower doubling as a locomotive, revolutionizes military transportation; the proud tradition of the U.S. Marines is started ahead of schedule among downtime Europeans; and what will the master musicians and composers of the pre-Bach era make of heavy metal sounds? On a more personal level, two young lovers celebrate Christmas in a strange land and time, a skilled blacksmith clashes with his guild, and a woman loses her husband in an industrial accident and decides to leave Grantville. Plus factual articles on the problems of beginning an oil industry, building a machine gun, or starting up the manufacture of textiles centuries ahead of their time. All this and more in a new and absolutely indispensable volume for the many followers of the <I>1632<b> </b></i>series.