When an inexplicable cosmic disturbance hurls your town from twentieth century West Virginia back to seventeenth century Europe—and into the middle of the Thirty Years War—you'd better be adaptable to survive. And the natives of that time period, faced with American technology and politics, need to be equally adaptable.

In other stories:

● Cardinal Richelieu, France's insidious master plotter and power behind the throne, learns of his prominent role in Dumas' not-yet-written novel The Three Musketeers (not to mention the several movie versions), and starts a search for the "real" D'Artagnan.

● Grantville is selling crystal radio sets so that Europeans can tune in to the Voice of America broadcasts, but the technicians from the future are at wit's end, trying to reproduce "primitive" early twentieth century broadcasting equipment by trial and error—until a trained library researcher shows up in town.

● Wilhelm Krieger, one of Germany's greatest philosophers, comes to Grantville to learn the philosophy of the future—and meets a contrarian cracker-barrel philosopher.

Contains mature themes.