Ring of Fire books in order

Reading order

The Ring of Fire series, also known as the 1632 series, began with Eric Flint’s novel 1632 (2000). The story opens when a mysterious event called the Ring of Fire drops the small West Virginia town of Grantville into the middle of Thuringia, Germany, in the year 1632. The Thirty Years’ War is raging across Europe, and the displaced Americans have to figure out how to survive with limited modern resources while the world around them reacts to their sudden appearance.

What started as a single novel grew into one of the largest alternate history series in print, with 35 books published through 2025. Flint wrote several entries solo and co-authored many others with writers including David Weber, Andrew Dennis, Virginia DeMarce, and Jody Lynn Nye. The series is published by Baen Books, and its scope has expanded far beyond Germany to cover events across Europe, Asia, and the Americas as the ripple effects of Grantville’s arrival spread.

The books are best read in roughly publication order, though some entries follow specific characters or regions and can be read somewhat independently. The numbered year titles (1632, 1633, 1634, etc.) indicate the in-universe time period each book covers rather than forming a strict sequential numbering system.