Busy best selling authors David Weber and Eric Flint in 2002 (writing 1633 and Ring of Fire originally contracted together and with Baen's Books to co-write the five "main series" books. When working on the long delayed 1634: The Baltic War novel and with the prolonged and ongoing demand for the series sequels, and considering the already experienced delays imposed by the difficulty of getting schedules between themselves synchronized (It took three planned "windows-of-opportunity" before one worked in The Baltic War) well enough for the two to have the three to six months or so needed to collaborate successfully given the attention-to-detail needs, general reasonableness, and characteristic "historical accuracy" imposed by Flint from the beginning, the two decided to alter their original