A sparkling addition to the multiple&nbsp;<i>New York Times&nbsp;</i>best-selling&nbsp;Ring of Fire alternate history&nbsp;series created by Eric Flint. An alchemist of the 17th century&nbsp;confronts&nbsp;modern science with often amusing results.<br><br>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.<br><br>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&nbsp;gravy.<br><br>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. Soon he is no longer struggling to make ends meet but has become wealthy and famous.<br><br>In his relentless search for a way to invigorate the <i>quinta essential</i> 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.<br><br>These are the chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz.<br><br><b>About Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire series:</b><br>“This alternate history series is … a landmark…”—<i>Booklist</i><br><br>“[Eric] Flint's&nbsp;<i>1632</i>&nbsp;universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop of gifted alternate historians.”—<i>Booklist</i><br><br>“…reads like a technothriller set in the age of the Medicis…”—<i>Publishers Weekly</i>